Integrating the Gridiron: Black Civil Rights and American College Football, by Lane Demas, $39.95, Rutgers University Press, February 2010, ISBN-10: 0813547415, ISBN-13: 978-0813547411, pp. 200.
Writing about college football from a civil rights and integration perspective, the author reminds us of when Blacks were scarce on the squads of colleges and universities, other than at Black schools. It is a complex story, beginning in the 19th century not long after the emergence of the sport and continuing to the present when African-Americans predominate many collegiate squads. Along the way, the author recalls the careers of such players as:
* Jack Trice, the first African-American athlete at Iowa State University, who died from injuries suffered in a game against the University of Minnesota in 1923.
* Jackie Robinson, who earned varsity letters in four sports at the University of California, Los Angeles, the first major college to feature several Black players in starting positions. While Robinson is better known for breaking the Major League Baseball color barrier, he contributed to an unbeaten record for the football team in 1939 until its loss in the final game to the University of Southern California, averting a showdown over integrating the Rose Bowl.
* And, Johnny Bright, a Drake University halfback whose jaw was broken when he was punched maliciously in a 1951 game against Oklahoma A&M.
More important, Demas weaves their stories into the larger picture of the American conflict over race, detailing acts of discrimination, taunting and physical abuse affecting players and highlighting their contributions to the progress in race relations.
African American Food Culture, by William Frank Mitchell, $49.95, Greenwood, (Food Cultures in America), April 2009, ISBN-10: 0313346208, ISBN-13: 978-0313346200, pp. 118 and What the Slaves Ate: Recollections of African American Foods and Foodways from the Slave Narratives, by Dwight Eisnach, Herbert C. Covey, $59.95, Greenwood, May 2009, ISBN-10: 031337497X, ISBN-13: 978-0313374975, pp. 311.
