Us Sports: Segregation And Professional Leagues

Segregation laws in the United States were enforced across society, including in sports. Like much of society, professional sports were segregated in the first part of the 20th century, preventing Black athletes from competing with white athletes. In baseball, there were established 'Negro' leagues for non-white players, and the National Football League was completely segregated from 1934-1945. The National Basketball League officially integrated in 1950, and the baseball colour line was broken in 1947 when Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers.

The NFL's Rooney Rule

The Rooney Rule was created to ensure that minority coaches, especially African Americans, would be considered for high-level coaching positions. It is considered an example of affirmative action, and while there was initially no hiring quota or preference given to minorities, only a quota for interviewing, this changed in 2022. The first actual hiring quota was established before the 2022 season, mandating that at least one member of each team's offensive coaching staff must be either an ethnic minority or a woman.

Over the years, the Rooney Rule has expanded to include a greater number of positions across NFL clubs. In 2021, the NFL approved changes requiring teams to interview at least two external minority candidates in person for open head coach and general manager positions, and at least two external minority candidates for a coordinator job. Additionally, at least one minority and/or female candidate must be interviewed for senior-level positions.

The Rooney Rule has received mixed reviews, and its effectiveness has been questioned. While it initially led to a rise in the percentage of African-American head coaches in the NFL, by the end of the 2021 season, only one Black coach remained employed. In 2023, there were six minority head coaches, or 18.8% of the league, while players of color made up 75% of the league.

The NFL has continued to add provisions to its hiring practices, and in 2020, a system was approved to reward teams for developing minority talent into potential head coach or general manager candidates.

Jackie Robinson and baseball

Jackie Robinson was born Jack Roosevelt Robinson in Cairo, Georgia, in 1919. He was the youngest of five children born to a family of sharecroppers. After his father left the family in 1920, Robinson's mother moved the family to Pasadena, California.

Robinson was a four-sport student athlete at Pasadena Junior College and the University of California, Los Angeles. He was better known for football than baseball, becoming a star college player with the UCLA Bruins football team.

After graduating, Robinson was drafted for service during World War II. He was court-martialled for refusing to sit at the back of a segregated Army bus and was honourably discharged. He then signed with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro leagues, where he caught the eye of Branch Rickey, general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Rickey was looking for a player to break the colour line in Major League Baseball (MLB).

Robinson joined the Montreal Royals, the Dodgers' top farm team, in 1946. He led the International League with a batting average of .349 and 40 stolen bases. He was then promoted to the Dodgers and made his MLB debut on April 15, 1947, becoming the first African-American to play in the league in the modern era.

Robinson faced much adversity, with racist comments and actions from his teammates and opposing players. Despite this, he went on to have a successful baseball career. In his 10-year MLB career, he won the inaugural Rookie of the Year Award in 1947, was an All-Star for six consecutive seasons from 1949 to 1954, and won the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1949—the first Black player to do so. Robinson played in six World Series and contributed to the Dodgers' 1955 World Series championship. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.

Robinson's character, his use of nonviolence, and his talent challenged the traditional basis of segregation that had marked many other aspects of American life. He influenced the culture of and contributed significantly to the civil rights movement.

Jim Crow laws

The Jim Crow laws were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, which established the "separate but equal" doctrine. This doctrine allowed for segregation as long as supposedly equal facilities were provided for both races. However, in practice, the facilities and services reserved for African Americans were almost always inferior to those reserved for whites, if they existed at all. The "separate but equal" doctrine was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court in the 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.

The Jim Crow laws had a significant impact on sports in the United States, enforcing segregation in sports such as horse racing, baseball, and football. African American athletes were barred from participating in many sports and were often limited to separate leagues, such as the Negro Leagues in baseball. The fight for desegregation in sports was a long and difficult one, with athletes like Jackie Robinson in baseball and Earl Lloyd in basketball breaking down racial barriers and changing the course of their respective sports forever.

The legacy of the Jim Crow laws and racial segregation in sports continues to be felt today, with efforts still ongoing to address disparities and inequalities in leadership positions and other areas. Initiatives like the NFL's 'Rooney Rule' aim to promote diversity and address the persistent racial divisions in sports.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 2, 1964. It was the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, prohibiting discrimination in public places, providing for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and making employment discrimination illegal.

The Act outlawed segregation in businesses such as theatres, restaurants, and hotels. It banned discriminatory practices in employment and ended segregation in public places such as swimming pools, libraries, and public schools. The Act also strengthened the enforcement of voting rights and the desegregation of schools.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the nation's benchmark civil rights legislation, ending the application of "Jim Crow" laws, which had been upheld by the Supreme Court in the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson. The Act was eventually expanded by Congress to strengthen the enforcement of these fundamental civil rights.

Racial segregation in horse racing

Horse racing was a sport in which Black athletes dominated in the late 19th century. When horse racing became an organized sport in the early 1900s, many Black jockeys were at the top of the sport. When the Kentucky Derby began in 1875, 13 out of 15 jockeys were African-American, and 15 of the first 28 Kentucky Derbies were won by Black athletes. Their success was one of the first times in American sports that Black athletes truly dominated the ranks of an entire sport.

Isaac Murphy, the first millionaire Black athlete, was the first jockey to win three Kentucky Derbies (1884, 1890, and 1891). Jimmy Winkfield, another Black jockey, won the Kentucky Derby in 1901 and 1902. There hasn't been another Black jockey to win the Kentucky Derby since. This is due to the Jim Crow laws of the 1880s which segregated Blacks and whites, making it increasingly difficult for young Black athletes to become engaged in horse racing or any other sport. What was once a sport where Black athletes could thrive, became a sport devoid of Black participants.

In 1900, just four years after the US Supreme Court's "separate but equal" constitutional ruling, segregation was enforced in horse racing, a sport which had previously seen many African-American jockeys win the Triple Crown and other major races.

In the present day, Black horsemen and women still face systematic discrimination on a daily basis. In an era in which police can kill Breonna Taylor in her own home — in Louisville, nearly on the doorstep of Churchill Downs — or shoot Jacob Blake in the back, causing paralysis, it is not surprising that horseracing deals with the same endemic racism as America at large.

Grade 1-winning trainer Uriah St Lewis shared that track organizations had forcibly scratched his horses due to discrimination, saying, "They make it seem like something’s wrong with the horse and there’s nothing you can do about it. Because, if you fight them, they punish you." He added, "I’ve been doing this for 30-something years. I dot all my Is and cross all my Ts. Everything I do, I have to make sure I do right because they’re going to make an example out of me."

St Lewis also shared that he and fellow Black trainers have faced discrimination in the allocation of stalls, with white trainers being given priority.

Brittney Chambers, the founder of CBC Therapeutic Horseback Riding Academy near Sacramento, California, recalled the lack of Black riders as role models when she was growing up. She suggested that a national executive team focused on diversity and inclusion could be a way to start addressing the issue. She also suggested a program offering apprenticeships to top trainers or the opportunity to shadow other leaders in their fields.

Dr Amie Casey, veterinarian at Delta Downs and granddaughter of the immortal jockey Jimmy Winkfield, has faced aggressions and micro-aggressions throughout her career. She recalled one trainer saying, "I don't ever want her in my barn. I don't ever need her." She added, "So I have been going kind of uphill with my life. Even looked at the same way when I was a concert violinist and I was applying for a wedding job or going to play chamber music with some friends or whatever. It was like, 'Oop, you’re playing the violin?' It’s very uncommon but as soon as you hear what I’m playing, as soon as you see what I’m doing for your horse, then the evidence comes and the belief comes."

Top jockey Kendrick Carmouche self-identifies as Black American Creole. While he shared that he’s never experienced overt racism at the track, he notes that there is still a lack of opportunity for most jockeys. "I think it’s all old money from the owners on down to the trainers, you know?" he suggested. "Me personally … I don’t feel like it has anything to do with Black or white or what color it is in this game. I just feel like they don’t give everybody a chance, you know? They want the guy at the top of the pole and everybody else gets the trickle effect."

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