Sign-In
Cart
Playing for Power: Black Resistance in Amateur Basketball and Football in Jim Crow Virginia
Hardcover
Series: Modern South
Black American StudiesGeneral Racism & Ethnic StudiesRegional: South
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
ISBN13: 9780817322380
Publisher: University Alabama Press
Published: Jun 15 2025
Pages: 236
Weight: 1.25
Height: 0.90 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.10
Language: English
Reveals the role of amateur Black football and basketball in Virginia before integration as a form of resistance to white supremacy
In Playing for Power, Marvin T. Chiles offers a fascinating account of amateur sports in Jim Crow Virginia, revealing how, in addition to churches, workspaces, and civil rights organizations, sports were also a key arena for Black resistance to white supremacy. Drawing from a rich trove of primary sources, Chiles recounts the development of Black football and basketball culture at the high school and college levels in Virginia from the 1890s to the early 1970s. Looking beyond their role as leisure pastimes, Chiles demonstrates how amateur sports strengthened education, neutralized class divisions, shaped Black masculinity, mentored Black male leadership, cultivated race pride, and reflected Black desires for urban modernity.
Illuminating the ways Black athletes created a world that pushed for racial progress through objective, meritocratic achievement anchored by masculine leadership and institutional success, Playing for Power traces how amateur sports coalesced into a key cultural institution that fostered Black Virginians' collective sense of community, achievement, and purpose during segregation, cornerstones of later advances in the Civil Rights Movement. Playing for Power also contributes to a larger understanding of sports history and how amateur sports became favorite American spectacles and markers of Southern identity. Chiles's groundbreaking work will interest historians, scholars, and individuals interested in the intersection of sports and civil rights and the history of Black sports during the Jim Crow era.
1 different editions
Also available
Playing for Power: Black Resistance in Amateur Basketball and Football in Jim Crow Virginia
Chiles, Marvin T.
Paperback
Also from
Chiles, Marvin T.
Playing for Power: Black Resistance in Amateur Basketball and Football in Jim Crow Virginia
Chiles, Marvin T.
Paperback
Also in
General Racism & Ethnic Studies
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
Fadiman, Anne
Paperback
In Search of the Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era
Iton, Richard
Paperback
Born of Lakes and Plains: Mixed-Descent Peoples and the Making of the American West
Hyde, Anne F.
Hardcover
Homosexuality in Cold War America: Resistance and the Crisis of Masculinity
Corber, Robert J.
Paperback
How to Be Less Stupid about Race: On Racism, White Supremacy, and the Racial Divide
Fleming, Crystal M.
Hardcover
Scandinavians in the State House: How Nordic Immigrants Shaped Minnesota Politics
Bergman, Klas
Paperback
The Token: Common Sense Ideas for Increasing Diversity in Your Organization
Farmer, Crystal Byrd
Paperback
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing
Degruy, Joy a.
Paperback
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
Rothstein, Richard
Paperback
The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria's Romance Scammers
Barragán, Carlos
Hardcover
1,000 Days in America: An Illustrated History of the Moments That Defined a Nation
National Geographic
Hardcover
Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage
Thompson, Heather Ann
Hardcover
The Zorg: A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery
Kara, Siddharth
Hardcover
P Fkn R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance
Díaz, Vanessa
Rivera-Rideau, Petra R.
Paperback
My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
Menakem, Resmaa
Paperback
The Chosen and the Damned: Native Americans and the Making of Race in the United States
Silverman, David J.
Hardcover
Five Bullets: The Story of Bernie Goetz, New York's Explosive '80s, and the Subway Vigilante Trial That Divided the Nation
Williams, Elliot
Hardcover
The Humanity Archive: Recovering the Soul of Black History from a Whitewashed American Myth
Fowler, Jermaine
Paperback
American Reich: A Murder in Orange County, Neo-Nazis, and a New Age of Hate
Lichtblau, Eric
Hardcover
The Iceman Inheritance: Prehistoric Sources of Western Man's Racism, Sexism and Aggression
Bradley, Michael
Paperback
Miracle Children: Race, Education, and a True Story of False Promises
Green, Erica L.
Benner, Katie
Hardcover
Redeem a Nation: The Century-Long Battle to Restore the Soul of America
Solomon-Simmons, Damario
Hardcover
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, Revised Edition: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing
Degruy, Joy a.
Hardcover
The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic (Large Print Edition)
Gladwell, Malcolm
Paperback
Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation's Capital
Musgrove, George Derek
Asch, Chris Myers
Paperback
Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church
Sack, Kevin
Hardcover
Original Sins: The (Mis)Education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism
Ewing, Eve L.
Paperback
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
Fadiman, Anne
Paperback
Crime Fictions: How Racist Lies Built a System of Mass Wrongful Conviction
Gonzalez Van Cleve, Nicole
Hardcover
The Japanese Way of Parenting: And What It Taught Me about Raising (Mostly) Calm, Caring, Capable Kids
Katayama, Lisa
Paperback
Are White Men Smarter Than Everybody Else?: Playing Offense in the Fight for Racial Justice in America
Phillips, Steve
Hardcover
Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson
Curran, Andrew S.
Hardcover
Man-Made: How We Designed a World That Leaves Women Out, and How We Can Make It Right
Reuther, Karen Korellis
Hardcover
How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America
Richardson, Heather Cox
Paperback
They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South
Jones-Rogers, Stephanie E.
Paperback
Getting to Reparations: How Building a Different America Requires a Reckoning with Our Past
Brown, Dorothy A.
Hardcover
Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America
Ellsworth, Scott
Hardcover
Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City
Ansfield, Bench
Hardcover
The Crown's Silence: The Hidden History of the British Monarchy and Slavery in the Americas
Newman, Brooke N.
Hardcover
We've Been Here Before: How Rebellion and Activism Have Always Sustained America
Days, Michael I.
Dodson, Angela P.
Hardcover
Daring to Be Free: Rebellion and Resistance of the Enslaved in the Atlantic World
Hazareesingh, Sudhir
Hardcover
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
A High Price for Freedom: Raising Hidden Voices from the African American Past
Ford, Clyde W.
Hardcover
Read These Banned Books: A Journal and 52-Week Reading Challenge from the American Library Association
American Library Association (ALA)
Paperback
For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts: A Love Letter to Women of Color
Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez, Prisca
Paperback
Was That Racist?: How to Detect, Interrupt, and Unlearn Bias in Everyday Life
Carter, Evelyn R.
Hardcover
When It's Darkness on the Delta: How America's Richest Soil Became Its Poorest Land
Eubanks, W. Ralph
Hardcover
Black Marxism, Revised and Updated Third Edition: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition
Robinson, Cedric J.
Paperback
Morningside: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City's Soul
Shetterly, Aran
Hardcover
Pink Crime: Fighting Against the Criminalization of Motherhood, Pregnancy, and Queer Identity
Beety, Valena
Hardcover
Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success
Fritzgerald, Andratesha
Paperback
As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance
Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake
Paperback
The Talmud Unmasked: The Secret Rabbinical Teachings Concerning Christians
Pranaitis, I. B.
Paperback
White Women: Everything You Already Know about Your Own Racism and How to Do Better
Jackson, Regina
Rao, Saira
Paperback
The Priest Who Stayed in Gaza: A Witness to Hope in the Ruins
Romanelli, Fr Gabriel
de Dieuleveult, Guillaume
Paperback
Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party
Bloom, Joshua
Martin, Waldo E., Jr.
Paperback
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing
Degruy, Joy Angela
Paperback
Rolling Stone and the Rise of Hip Capitalism: How a Magazine Born in the 1960s Changed America
Ponce de Leon, Charles L.
Hardcover
Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s Through the 1980s
Hampton, Henry
Fayer, Steve
Paperback
John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life Under American Racial Law
Lew-Williams, Beth
Hardcover
Blackinese: Reflections on Race and Ethnicity from a Biracial Millennial
Moore, Patricia Bradby
Hardcover
Be a Revolution: How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World--And How You Can, Too
Oluo, Ijeoma
Paperback
Stamped from the Beginning [Graphic Edition]: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America
Christian Gill, Joel
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations about Race
Tatum, Beverly Daniel
Paperback
Yoruba Mythology: Stories of the Orisa from West Africa and the Diaspora
Ogunnaike, Ayodeji
Hardcover
The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate
Dozier, Curtis
Hardcover
Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch
Freeman, Andrea
Paperback
Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (and Everything Else)
Táíwò, Olúfẹ́mi O.
Paperback
A History of the World in Six Plagues: How Contagion, Class, and Captivity Shaped Us, from Cholera to Covid-19
Bonhomme, Edna
Paperback
Black, White, Colored: The Hidden Story of an Insurrection, a Family, a Southern Town, and Identity in America
Noble, Lauretta Malloy
Noble, Leeanet
Hardcover
Immigration Detention Inc.: The Big Business of Locking Up Migrants in America
Hiemstra, Nancy
Conlon, Deirdre
Paperback
Christ, Science, and Reason: What We Can Know about Jesus, Mary, and Miracles
Spitzer, Robert
Paperback