Passing the baton : black women track stars and American identity / Cat M. Ariail.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ariail, Cat M., 1987- author.

Contributor:

JSTOR (Online Service)

Series:

Sport and society

Standardized Title:

Sprints of citizenship

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African American women track and field athletes--History--20th century.

African American women track and field athletes.

African American women track and field athletes--Social conditions.

African American women--Race identity.

African American women.

African American women--Social conditions.

Track and field for women--United States--History--20th century.

Track and field for women.

Discrimination in sports--United States--History--20th century.

Discrimination in sports.

History.

Social conditions.

United States--Race relations--History--20th century.

United States.

Race relations.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

polychrome

Place of Publication:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2020]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

After World War II, the United States used international sport to promote democratic values and its image of an ideal citizen. But African American women excelling in track and field upset such notions. Cat M. Ariail examines how athletes such as Alice Coachman, Mae Faggs, and Wilma Rudolph forced American sport cultures--both white and Black--to reckon with the athleticism of African American women. Marginalized still further in a low-profile sport, young Black women nonetheless bypassed barriers to represent their country. Their athletic success soon threatened postwar America's dominant ideas about race, gender, sexuality, and national identity. As Ariail shows, the wider culture defused these radical challenges by locking the athletes within roles that stressed conservative forms of femininity, blackness, and citizenship. A rare exploration of African American women athletes and national identity, Passing the Baton reveals young Black women as active agents in the remaking of what it means to be American.

Contents:

Raising the bar : Alice Coachman and the boundaries of postwar American identity, 1946-1948

Sprints of citizenship : identity politics and black women's athleticism, 1951-1952

Passing the baton toward belonging : Mae Faggs and the making of the Americanness of black American track women, 1954-1956

Winning as American women : the heteronormativity of black women athletic heroines, 1958-1960

"Olympian quintessence" : Wilma Rudolph, athletic femininity, and American iconicity, 1960-1962

Conclusion. The precarity of the baton pass : race, gender, and the enduring barriers to American belonging.

Notes:

Revision of author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Miami, 2018, titled Sprints of citizenship : black women track stars and the making of modern citizenship in the United States and Jamaica, 1946-1964.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Electronic reproduction. New York Available via World Wide Web.

Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on December 15, 2020).

Other Format:

Print version: Ariail, Cat M., 1987- Passing the baton

ISBN:

9780252052361

0252052366

Publisher Number:

40030241242

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.