Black Sporting Resistance
Diaspora, Transnationalism, and Internationalism

Joseph N. Cooper (Author), Gerald Horne (Foreword by)

9781978839861

Hardback, published 14 January 2025

230 pages, 1 B-W image and 1 table
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.454 kg

"Cooper's book serves as a testament to the power of Black resistance and activism in and through sport and its capacity to transcend national borders and cultural divides in the fight for justice." (UMass Boston News) “A strong contribution to sports, politics, and the sociology of race, Black Sporting Resistance indisputably argues that Black athletes and sport organizers have historically been at the forefront of anti-racist political activism. There really is no comparable text to this one.”
- Janelle Joseph (author of Sport and the Black Atlantic: Cricket, Canada, and the Caribbean Diaspora) "Black Sporting Resistance is impressive in scope, breadth, and its mastery of different literatures. It's a tremendously important synthesis of scholarship. Drawing on the tradition of Black internationalism, Cooper theorizes race and resistance to Euro-American imperialism through sport as a global process and dialogue that stretches across both time and space. We can see how Black athletes in different times and places react to organize in opposition to global white supremacy." - Jeffrey Montez de Oca (author of Discipline and Indulgence: College Football, Media, and the American Way of Life during th)

In recent years, there has been increased attention towards activism in sporting spaces. A vast majority of these contributions have focused on intra-nation tensions and impact. Yet, there is a dearth of scholarship that has engaged in a theoretically grounded analysis of how Black sportspersons have exhibited resistance in and through sport across national borders across time, space, and context. In this text, Joseph N. Cooper introduces the Black Sporting Resistance Framework (BSRF) as an analytic lens to examine how resistance actions in and through sport have contributed to the advancement of local and global racial justice efforts. Key concepts such as African (Black) diaspora, transnationalism, internationalism, sporting resistance typology, and sport activism typology are incorporated throughout the book. Black sporting resistance is also analyzed alongside broader social movements such as the Black Liberation Struggle, Black Nationalism, Pan-Africanism, and Black Radicalism. Insights on the ways in which sport can be used to advance social justice in the future are presented.

List of Tables and Figures
Foreword
Introduction: Beyond Boundaries: Sport as a Site for Black Resistance
1 Black Sporting Resistance
2 A Collective Consciousness: African (Black) Diaspora Sporting Resistance
3 They Lived on Their Own Terms: Black Transnationalism Sporting Resistance
4 Revolutionary Consciousness: Black Internationalism Sporting Resistance
5 A Radical Imagination of Future Black Sporting Resistance
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

Foreword by Gerald Horne vii
Introduction: Beyond Boundaries—
Sport as a Site for Black Resistance 1
1 Black Sporting Resistance 20
2 A Collective Consciousness: African (Black) Diaspora Sporting Resistance 44
3 They Lived on Their Own Terms: Black Transnationalism Sporting Resistance 75
4 Revolutionary Consciousness: Black Internationalism Sporting Resistance 125
5 A Radical Imagination of Future Black Sporting Resistance 160
Acknowledgments 175
Notes 177
References 199
Index 000