THE RISE OF POPULAR SPORTS AMONG BLACKS

Africans in America, from slavery to freedom, found sport a necessity for physical and psychological survival. Enslaved Africans supplemented their diets through hunting and fishing. Treeing opossums and raccoons, snaring rabbits, and catching fish were art forms among blacks and the source of bragging rights and fuller bellies for one’s self and family. Physical contests of wrestling and boxing were popular as well.

Some blacks gained recognition as able prizefighters even during the days of slavery, winning great sums for their masters, and in rare cases, slaves such as Tom Molineaux even earned their freedom through boxing. Cockfighting was also a popular activity, and blacks were widely known for their skills at training and handling the fighting birds.

Horse racing was popular among the white gentry, but the art of jockeying the horse was a role that the owners typically relegated to others, and by the mid-19th century black jockeys dominated the profession. In the first 28 years of the Kentucky Derby, from 1875 to 1902, black jockeys won the race 15 times, including three victories by Isaac Murphy, the most celebrated jockey of the age. Blacks engaged in baseball as early as the 1860s, and numerous black teams flourished in local leagues and barnstorming tours by the turn of the century. From the 1920s through the early 1940s, black organized baseball reached its peak with the success of the Negro Leagues (see Baseball in the United States).

Football burst onto the national scene in the 1890s at colleges and universities in the East and rapidly gained in popularity among African Americans as black athletes such as William H. Lewis and William Tecumseh Sherman Jackson won early national acclaim in the sport (see Collegiate Football).