Professional sports in America offer numerous examples of equal opportunity and broken down racial barriers. These developments call for pride and celebration. Yet skin color continues to have an influence in how Americans experience sport. From Al Campanis’ statement about the under-representation of blacks in baseball front offices to the almost exclusively white ownership of professional teams, one sees that sports, though admirably more equitable than other societal institutions, are hardly a colorblind American pursuit.
Choosing the racially charged sport of boxing for investigation, the author has compiled dozens of statistics measuring whether or not America’s racial majority still yearns for a white champion—a Great White Hope. Drawing upon data from The Ring Magazine and its annual record books, this study endeavors to bolster or refute the popular perception in boxing circles that white fighters of lesser ability are helped along to their sports elite level, as a result of being promotional gold in the eyes of the public.

Andrew Lindsay has taught American history at Francis Marion University in Florence, South Carolina, Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois and Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas. He was born in Scarborough, Ontario.

Andrew Lindsay
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 261
Bibliographic Info: tables, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2004
pISBN: 978-0-7864-1800-8
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments      ix

Preface      1

1. American Boxing in Black and White      3

2. Segregation in American Sports Is Dead, but…      23

3. The Great White Hope: Extinct or Dormant?      44

4. Approaching the Summit      76

5. For All the Marbles      127

6. Has the Great White Hope Left the Building?      170

Conclusion: Limitations, Assumptions and

Methodological Problems      180

Appendix 1: Records of Opponents      185

Appendix 2: Missing Records      227

Notes      233

References      243

Index      247

“thorough and scholarly…interesting…impressive array of information…a good read…heavyweight thought-provoker”—Toledo Alumni Magazine.