Sport and the Color Line: Black Athletes and Race Relations in Twentieth-Century America.

Edited by Patrick B. Miller and David K. Wiggins. (New York and London: Routledge, 2004. Pp. xii, 382. Paper, $27.95, ISBN 0-415-94611-5; cloth, $90.00, ISBN 0-415-94610-7.) Americans have long been preoccupied with race and sport, and in recent years historians have begun to probe the relationship between the two and place the issue in a broad social context. The present volume will be useful to scholars and beginning students alike. It reprints eighteen articles, several of which deal specifically with the South, grouped in three categories: "Sport and Community in the Era of Jim Crow," "The Ordeal of Desegregation," and "Images of the Black Athlete and the Racial Politics of Sport." There is an overall brief introduction, then introductions to the three categories. An extremely useful eleven-page bibliography, "Further Readings," and a detailed index are also included. The result is a multifaceted introduction to an important topic in American public life.