African American Sports - KOLUMN Magazine

New series puts a spotlight on girls’ basketball | New York Amsterdam News

May 17, 2021May 17, 2021African American Athletes, Black Athlete

— BY, LOIS ELFMAN A new series on Disney+, “Big Shot,” tells the story of Division I men’s basketball coach Marvyn Korn (played by John Stamos) who loses his job after throwing a chair at a referee. Trying to redeem his reputation, he takes the only job available to him, coach of a girls’ […]

The Black Girls Cheer Movement Empowers Young Cheerleaders of Color | Black Enterprise

March 8, 2020June 7, 2020African American Sports, KOLUMN Magazine

A movement to empower young black girls is gaining momentum, according to ABC News, thanks to Black Girls Cheer. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Sharita Richardson was and still is fond of cheerleading, a lifelong passion. The woman with roots in North Carolina started cheerleading in middle school. As a mother, she raised three daughters who cheered competitively. […]

Meet Melissa Harville-Lebron: The First Black Woman to Own a NASCAR Team | Black Enterprise (2018)

January 9, 2020January 9, 2020African American Athletes

Melissa Harville-Lebron never imagined that her entrepreneurial pursuits and ambitions would lead her to make history as the first African American woman to solely own a race team licensed by NASCAR. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Harville-Lebron, a 47-year-old single mother raising her three biological children as well as her siblings’ four kids, started her career in the […]

Ethel Johnson, Early Black Wrestling Star, Is Dead at 83 | The New York Times

November 28, 2019November 28, 2019African American Athletes, African American Sports

Beginning in the 1950s, she and her two athletic sisters helped expand the demographics of the ring.

I was called the N-word during my playing career. I was lucky someone else heard it | The Guardian

November 24, 2019November 24, 2019African American Athletes

Myles Garrett’s claim that a racial slur prompted his outburst brings back an ugly memory from my career. But as I learned, his fate is out of his hands unless someone backs him up

The Mysterious Death of Boxing’s Most Fearsome Fighter | Daily Beast

November 15, 2019November 18, 2019African American Athletes, African American History

The new documentary “Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston” explores the life and curious death of the boxing legend, including his deep mob ties and dubious losses to Ali.

Cancel The World Series, Simone Biles’s First Pitch Just Won Everything | ELLE

October 24, 2019October 24, 2019African American Athletes, KINDR'D ...

Mere weeks after becoming the most decorated gymnast in all of history ever—male or female—Simone Biles was not content to lie low and revel in her success. Instead she stopped by Game 2 of the World Series in Houston on October 23 to throw out a groundbreaking first pitch. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] In the clip, Biles […]

Black U.S. Olympians Won In Nazi Germany Only To Be Overlooked At Home | NPR

October 16, 2019December 20, 2019African American Athletes, African American Sports ...

Eighty years ago this month, the United States competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games in Nazi Germany, with 18 African-American athletes part of the U.S. squad. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Track star Jesse Owens, one of the greatest Olympians of all time, won four gold medals. What the 17 other African-American Olympians did in Berlin, though, […]

The Forgotten All-Star Game That Helped Integrate Baseball | Deadspin

July 19, 2019April 25, 2020African American Activist, African American Athletes ...

When Cleveland celebrated its sixth time hosting MLB’s All-Star Game last week, it might have seemed an odd event to commemorate baseball’s integration. But when Jackie Robinson stepped onto the field in a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform in April of 1947, becoming the first African-American to play in white organized baseball since the 19th century, it […]

Before Kaepernick, The ‘Syracuse 8’ Were Blackballed By Pro Football | WBUR

June 3, 2019May 14, 2020African American Activist, African American Athletes ...

They met in secret, away from their white coaches and teammates. “We used to meet at midnight,” former Syracuse football player Dana Harrell says. “And we could have met earlier. But we used to meet at midnight, to lay out our thoughts and plans, just like the slaves.” Harrell was one of nine college football […]