African American Sports

From burning crosses set on the Robinsons’s lawn to a Pennsylvania small town on fire with praise and parades when the athletes return from Berlin, Olympic Pride, American Prejudice is full of emotion, grit, political upheaval, and the American dream. Capturing a powerful and untold chapter of history, the narrative is also a celebration of the courage, commitment, and accomplishments of these talented athletes and their impact on race, sports and inclusion around the world.

I don’t deserve Vanessa Green’s forgiveness, but I can’t stop fighting for it! Vanessa bounced on me in high school, and I can’t blame her. I shattered her heart and broke my own with one decision. Now, we’re thrown together. I bought her business out from under her. If looks could kill, Tyler Gentry would be six feet under right now. But being a hotshot NFL quarterback, I’m used to making bold moves. I’m out here fighting for Vanessa like it’s the last play of the game! But this isn't a game. It's my chance at REAL happiness! If I were a better fella, I’d walk away and ...

In the heart of Brooklyn, Nia Carter, a gifted basketball player with a scholarship to Spelman College on the line, finds her carefully constructed world turned upside down when she falls for Jazz, a charismatic DJ with a passion for music as infectious as her smile. Navigating the pressures of family expectations, community judgment, and the challenges of a long-distance relationship, Nia and Jazz must fight for their love while pursuing their individual dreams. As Nia excels on the court and in the classroom, Jazz's DJ career takes off, leading them to Atlanta, where their paths ...

You gotta know the rules to play the game. Ball is life. Take it to the hoop. Soar. What can we imagine for ourselves? What if we were the star players, moving and grooving through the game of life? What if we had our own rules of the game to help us get what we want, what we aspire to, what will enrich our lives? The Playbook is intended to provide inspiration for kids ages 10 and up to help them succeed on and off the court.

Hungry. Brazen. Devious. Love’s a forbidden game to the player with no heart to win. Boseman University’s Black Lions, new and returning, are coming together to celebrate the beginning of the school year, but tension exists within the Pride. Their recent decisions will bear consequences they can’t escape, though the payoff could bring them closer to the things or people they desire. Kiela Armstrong won’t be El Pierce’s fool. She won’t trust him no matter how hard he works to repair their relationship. But once Courtney’s folly is revealed and Kiela finds herself being pursued ...

What does it take to achieve your personal and professional goals? When is the right time to take calculated risks, and how do you prepare for the moment when opportunity presents itself? If anyone can show you how to do this, it’s Nicole Lynn. As the first Black female agent to represent a top-three NFL draft pick, Nicole worked her way from childhood poverty to become a Wall Street financial analyst, then attorney, and now top agent to elite athletes and entertainers.

He’s a walking scandal. Lakelyn The NFL superstar Wyatt Oakley is injured. Sports medicine is my specialty. I can’t assist. I’ve only crushed on the man forever. He’s eyed me, and I’ve done the same over the years. He’s off limits and so am I. I’m his best friend’s sister. He’d never cross that line. Wyatt I’ve known Lakelyn, my best friend’s kid sister, all my life. There isn’t another woman who can crawl under my skin like her. I want to rule that sassy mouth with my tongue. There was a time I could’ve made her mine. Then I went pro. ...

Alanis Kapri is living the American Dream. As the star quarterback of the Carolina Hurricanes, life is luxury. Unfortunately for Alanis, he’s considered the NFL’s problem child. One too many negative press runs have landed his head on the chopping block. He’s been given an ultimatum: clean up his act or be cut from the team. Reluctantly, Alanis agrees to the terms. However, when the team hires him a reputation management consultant, the last person he expected to see was her.

African Americans have played a transformative role in shaping American sports, leaving an indelible mark across high school, collegiate, professional, and Olympic levels. Their contributions extend beyond the playing field, influencing the culture, economy, and social dynamics of sports in the United States. This book will explore the historical context, significant milestones, challenges, and current trends, highlighting the integral role African Americans have played in American sports.

The story of Negro League baseball is the story of gifted athletes and determined owners; of racial discrimination and international sportsmanship; of fortunes won and lost; of triumphs and defeats on and off the field. It is a perfect mirror for the social and political history of black America in the first half of the 20th century. But most of all, the story of the Negro Leagues is about hundreds of unsung heroes who overcame segregation to do the one thing they loved more than anything else in the world: play ball.

By winning the state high school basketball championship in 1955, ten teens from an Indianapolis school meant to be the centerpiece of racially segregated education in the state shattered the myth of their inferiority. Their brilliant coach had fashioned an unbeatable team from a group of boys born in the South and raised in poverty. Anchored by the astonishing Oscar Robertson, a future college and NBA star, the Crispus Attucks Tigers went down in history as the first state champions from Indianapolis and the first all-black team in U.S. history to win a racially open championship tournament.

From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums struggled to contain him. Clocks failed to capture his speed. His strength was legendary. His power unmatched. Video game makers turned him into an invincible character—and they were dead-on. He climbed (and walked across) walls, splintered baseball bats over his knee, turned oncoming tacklers into ground meat.

The Snow family continues to push through their issues, until Pastor Snow takes a special interest in a prostitute named Candy. His wife, Lady Snow is dying of cancer and that doesn't seem to make him cut ties with Candy, although his reputation is on the line. Will the family have another meltdown or will they persevere? A Christian Fiction Novella that offers healing, deliverance, and restoration.

On February 17, 2022, Brittney Griner arrived in Moscow ready to spend the WNBA offseason playing for the Russian women’s basketball team where she had been the centerpiece of previous championship seasons. Instead, a security checkpoint became her gateway to hell when she was arrested for mistakenly carrying under one gram of medically prescribed hash oil. Brittney’s world was violently upended in a crisis she has never spoken in detail about publicly—until now.

After three decades at the center of race and sports in America, the first Black head coach to win an NCAA championship makes the private public at last. Chockful of stories and moving beyond mere stats (and what stats! three Final Fours, four times national coach of the year, seven Big East championships, 97 percent graduation rate), Thompson’s book drives us through his childhood under Jim Crow segregation to our current moment of racial reckoning.

When we first meet the young man at the center of this extraordinary and moving story, he is one of 13 children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or any of the things a child might learn in school. And he has no serious experience playing organized football.

Among many legendary episodes from the life and career of men's basketball coach Dean Smith, few loom as large as his recruitment of Charlie Scott, the first African American scholarship athlete at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Drawn together by college basketball in a time of momentous change, Smith and Scott helped transform a university, a community, and the racial landscape of sports in the South.

Hakeem was an all-American ball player who had offers for a full ride to just about every Division 1 school across the country. Everything changed when his parents died in a fatal car accident, leaving him to care for himself and his twelve-year-old sister. Seven years later, Hakeem is a senior at a local college, doing the best he can to ensure his sister Kaliyah graduates from high school while he balances hustling and college to ensure better days are on the horizon.

Paul Beatty's hilarious and scathing debut novel, The White Boy Shuffle, is about Gunnar Kaufman, an awkward, black surfer bum who is moved by his mother from Santa Monica to urban West Los Angeles. There, he begins to undergo a startling transformation from neighborhood outcast to basketball superstar, and eventually to reluctant messiah of a "divided, downtrodden people".

An ambitious Harlem woman’s husband upends her social climbing when he buys a Negro Leagues baseball team and appoints her as the team’s business manager. Overnight, Effa Manley goes from 125th Street’s civil rights champion to an interloper in the boys’ club that is professional baseball.