... of African American athletes and women athletes in the United States. The bitter response to athletic pioneers like black boxer Jack Johnson in the 1910s, and the opening up of opportunities for women athletes such as Wilma Rudolph during the Cold War, show how different social contexts impacted athletes...

...This chapter looks at how a number of milestones peppered the era as women experienced unprecedented participation opportunities. But with that progress came the “backlash” of the 1980s, a reaction to women's athletic progress that particularly manifested in the aesthetic fitness movement. Within...

... Fleetwood Nicole women athletes track and field American identity race gender In Palo Alto, California, in late July 1962, with the second largest crowd in the history of US track and field watching, Wilma Rudolph waited. The young woman who had captured the hearts of Americans by sprinting to three...

...This chapter examines how the performances of black women athletes at the 1951 Pan-American Games and 1952 Olympic Games made it difficult for the institutions of mainstream American sport to advance an uncontested image of American identity. Due to the conditions of the Cold War, the United States...

... and magazines, provide rich and varied perspectives on athletes’ efforts to challenge systemic racism, fight for economic equality, contest gender norms, and build community support and pride for minority groups. By focusing on the actions of both African American athletes and women athletes, these examples...

... understandings of black women athletes were not possible without the athletes themselves, especially Mae Faggs, who modeled the often-overlooked agency of young black women. Armitage Heather Cuthbert Betty Faggs Mae Matthews Margaret Rudolph Wilma TSU Tigerbelles US Women’s Olympic track and field Cold...

...This chapter explores how black women athletes began to emerge as accepted exemplars of American identity after their performance at the inaugural US–Soviet Union dual track and field meet in Moscow in 1958. An almost perfect adherence to normative, white-defined gender expectations allowed black...

...The chapter briefly surveys the status of black and white women athletes in the aftermath of Wilma Rudolph. By appearing to combine elite athleticism and appropriate femininity, Rudolph opened a cultural space for young white women to begin participating in track and field and other highly...

...This concluding chapter considers the status of women's sports in 2012, the various points of change that brought them there, and reasserts the need to cheer with reserve. Even as the number of women athletes seems to rise, their representation in administrative ranks has dwindled from the pre...

... sports racial integration Title IX 1972 Education Amendments Civil Rights Restoration Act female athletes women athletes gender equity On April 1, 1987, Lezlie Leier, a nineteen-year-old sophomore at West Texas State University, sat before the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources...

... to retain sponsors. Women athletes found new opportunities following Title IX, but funding inequalities for women’s sports persisted, as did sexualized media coverage. In addition, stereotypes limited black athletes’ access to leadership positions, Latinx and transgender athletes faced bitter backlash...

...This perceptive, lively study explores U.S. women's sport through historical “points of change”: particular products or trends that dramatically influenced both women's participation in sport and cultural responses to women athletes. Beginning with the seemingly innocent ponytail, the subject...

... forced white and black sport cultures in the United States to wrestle with the meaning of black women’s athleticism. Both white and black sport cultures struggled to fit black women athletes into their respective visions for the postwar American nation, reflecting and reinforcing how the Cold War, civil...