The rising of African-Americans

African-American sport players were not common not too long ago. Just like women in sports African-Americans started at the bottom and worked their way to the top. Now there are more African-Americans in sports than there are whites.

The 1920s were in many respects was the first golden era of sports in the United St3ates. Virtually all sports grew and prospered during this period. Already well established, boxing, baseball, and football now rose to even greater heights. As a result of this track and field emerged as another popular organized sport among blacks. Also the success of the first all black team interested other blacks into joining basketball.

Jesse Owens became an American hero after an amazing performance at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. At the time, Germany was ruled by Adolph Hitler who absurdly believed that blacks, Asians, Jews and other races were inferior to whites. Jessie proved how wrong Hitler's racist ideas were by winning the gold medal in the long jump, the 100-meter dash and the 200-meter dash. He took home a fourth gold medal by running the opening leg for the US team that won the 4x100-meter relay. Jesse was named the World's Fastest Man and in 1976, he was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the highest award a US citizen can receive.

Jackie Robinson was the first African American to play major league baseball. Jackie was a star in the Negro Leagues but wasn't allowed to play in major league baseball because he was black. He finally got his chance when he was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1945. On April 15, 1947, he played his first major league game as the Dodgers first baseman. Many people booed and cheered Jackie when he took the field but by the end of the season, he won many of them over with his play on the field. He batted .297, led the league in stolen bases and was named the National League Rookie of the Year. More importantly, he broke baseball's color barrier and opened the door for other black athletes to participate in professional sports.

Today Hockey is most controlled by white player and coaches. You don't see alot of black players roaming the ice and scoring goals. Out of the 700 or so players on NHL rosters today, only 12 are black, a level that has remained flat over the last decade. Golf is a sport that is predominantly white and Vijay Singh and Tiger Woods are the only black players on the PGA tour. Although Tiger is African-American he has quickly become the most prestigious golfer in the world winning 14 professional major golf tournaments and 71 PGA tour events. Hockey needs an African-American star, a Tiger Woods, to market the game to a black audience.

In golf and Hockey African-American players are scarce. It is almost the total opposite in the NFL, NBA, and MLB. In the 1932 there were only two black players in the NFL and by 1934 there were none. Today a survey shows that the NFL is approximately 61 percent non-white. The NBA is approximately 70 percent African-American, 10 percent white and 10 percent other. So blacks come a long way along with women who have both gone a long way in athletics.