Stereotyping the Black Athlete : a Look at How Racism Has Persisted Through the Civil Rights Movement

Abstract

This paper argues that even though Black athletes gained numerous opportunities and became a much more visible part of the sports world because of the 1960s Civil Rights movement in national sports magazines, these opportunities do not mean that the use of racist stereotypes of the American Black athlete decreased. Through a systematic analysis of two national sports magazines in the 1950's and the 1970's this paper highlights how a selection of racist terms and phrases persisted through the Civil Rights movement. This persistence illustrates how deeply in-grained racism is in American society. There were some stereotypes that were altered because of the Civil Rights movement and in some way lead to the end of the stereotypes use by the media. Sports are often viewed as representative of the best of our society; this paper documents that in the case of racism, it can also be representative of the worst.