Black athletes spotlighted..!

Whether or not they wanted the role, African American athletes become symbols of the advancement of their race. The dramatic expansion of televised sports put athletes increasingly in the public eye. Heavyweight boxing champ Cassius Clay shocked the world when he announced that he had converted to the Black Muslim religion and changed his name to Muhammad Ali.
In 1962, Jackie Robinson became the first African American elected to the Baseball Hall-of-Fame. In 1967, Charles Sifford became the first African American to win a Professional Golf Association (PGA) tour event, the Hartford Open.

In 1968, Arthur Ashe became the first African American man to win a major tennis title. Pro basketball was dominated by the rivalry og two outspoken young black men: Wilt Chamberlain, who broke almost every NBA record, and Bill Russell, a dedicated team player.

In 1966, Russell became the first black head coach of a professional team. In 1970, another black, Curt Flood, fought against what he called the ‘slavery’ of baseball’s player contracts. He took baseball’s owners to court, challenging their right to control a player for the life of his career.

For many, change was not coming fast enough. Russell, for example, remained the only African American to head a team for nearly a decade. The slow pace of racial progress prompted the birth of the radical Black Power movement. In the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, U.S. sprinting medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in the Black Power salute while ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ was played for them. This offended many Americans but inspired many others.

Women, too, demanded equal rights. Tennis star Billie Jean King, a champion of women’s rights on and off the court, almost single-handedly established women’s sports as a profitable business. In 1967 Kathrine Switzer became the first woman to run officially in the Boston Marathon. However, officials hadn’t known that they issued a number to a woman when they accepted K.V. Switzer. When Kathy Whitworth became president of the LPGA in 1970, she greatly increased the sponsorship and the size of championship purses on the women’s tour. Her aim: to get women’s prizes on a par with those on the men’s tour.