Culture of Sports in the Harlem Renaissance

Daniel Anderson is an assistant professor of English and the director of American Studies at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois.

“captivatingly examines why the 1920s and early–1930s Harlem literati were not avid sports fans or students of sports...recommended”—Choice; “Anderson’s book provides an essential primer on early twentieth-century African American intellectual and literary life as seen through the lens of sport. ...coherent, insightful and well-written...Anderson offers a nascent portrait of the African American athlete’s relationship with the press and culture, bringing to contemporary consideration a movement that would quite readily fit within today’s sports pages”—Nine; “[A]n important book that connects the fields of English, African American Studies, and intellectual history with sport history. It shows how black sportswriters facilitated intellectual conversations that considered the value, role, and place of sport in African American life and made the Harlem Renaissance accessible to more people, shaping the outlook of black Americans for generations to come.”—Andrew McGregor, Sport in American History; “Despite the many library shelves filled with books about the Harlem Renaissance and its leaders and participants, sports and what was written about sports is largely absent. This book offers a more complete understanding of African American history and, therefore, of American history by looking at how sports were and were not written about.”—Brian Carroll, author of The Black Press and Black Baseball, 1915–1955.

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsPrefaceIntroduction: Examining the Harlem Renaissance delete deleteThrough the Prism of SportsPart I: Literature and the Renaissance Intelligentsia1. The “Discipline of Work and Play”: Athletics, Education and the Harlem Intelligentsia’s Concept of Culture2. “Minds of Fleetful Thoughts”: Negro League Baseball, Intellectualism and the Black Bourgeoisie3. Escaping the Iron Cage: Sports, Art and Performance in Harlem’s “Black Bohemia”4. The “Lost Arts”: Baseball and Boxing in the Historiography of James Weldon JohnsonPart II: Sportswriting and the Harlem Press5. “Jazz Journalism”: Sportswriting and Popular Culture in the Black Press6. “A Course in the Curriculum of the Institution”: Sports and Politics in the Harlem Press7. “Race First” in the Sports Section: Romeo Dougherty and Harlem’s Caribbean Circle8. The Dean’s Demise: The Sudden Fall and Long Disappearance of Romeo DoughertyEpilogue: Arna Bontemps, Sterling Brown and the End of an EraChapter NotesBibliographyIndex