Dixieball : race and professional basketball in the Deep South, 1947-1979

Aiello, Thomas, 1977- (author.).

Summary:

"In this book Thomas Aiello considers the special cultural function of professional basketball in the Deep South for more than a quarter century between 1947 and 1979. Next to their counterparts in baseball and football, basketball fans enjoyed a unique intimacy with their favorite players, who showed more of their bodies and had nothing covering their face and head. For this and other similar reasons, blackness simply mattered more in basketball than it did in other sports. By the time Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, professional basketball was 47.5 percent black and becoming known as a "black sport." That being the case, the South's relationship with professional basketball was more fraught, and made the survival of southern teams more tenuous, fan support more fickle, and racial incidents between players and fans more hostile"-- Provided by publisher.

Record details

ISBN: 9781621904632 (hardcover)
ISBN: 1621904636 (hardcover)
Physical Description: x, 182 pages ; 24 cm.
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: Knoxville : University of Tennessee Press, [2019]

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	Through the racial looking glass -- The talk-show host in New Orleans -- When hawks fly south -- Sambo's boys.