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Blood, Sweat, and Tears: Jake Gaither, Florida A&M, and the History of Black College Football

Online ISBN:
9781469652467
Print ISBN:
9781469652443
Publisher:
University of North Carolina Press
Book

Blood, Sweat, and Tears: Jake Gaither, Florida A&M, and the History of Black College Football

Derrick E. White
Derrick E. White
University of Kentucky
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Published online:
17 September 2020
Published in print:
15 August 2019
Online ISBN:
9781469652467
Print ISBN:
9781469652443
Publisher:
University of North Carolina Press

Abstract

Black college football began during the nadir of African American life after the Civil War. The first game occurred in 1892, a little less than four years before the Supreme Court ruled segregation legal in Plessy v. Ferguson. In spite of Jim Crow segregation, Black colleges produced some of the best football programs in the country. They mentored young men who became teachers, preachers, lawyers, and doctors--not to mention many other professions--and transformed Black communities. But when higher education was integrated, the programs faced existential challenges as predominately white institutions steadily set about recruiting their student athletes and hiring their coaches. Blood, Sweat, and Tears explores the legacy of Black college football, with Florida A&M’s Jake Gaither as its central character, one of the most successful coaches in its history. A paradoxical figure, Gaither led one of the most respected Black college football programs, yet many questioned his loyalties during the height of the civil rights movement. Among the first broad-based histories of Black college athletics, Derrick E. White’s sweeping story complicates the heroic narrative of integration and grapples with the complexities and contradictions of one of the most important sources of Black pride in the twentieth century.

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