Harry Edwards

Social change and popular culture: seminal developments at the interface of race, sport and society

Outstanding achievement is enabled by the example of outstanding forerunners transmitted by traditions of community. This essay argues that the post-Second World War pattern of racial integration within the United States was one-way and selective, splitting the black community along class lines, giving the middle-class new access to the established institutions while leaving those left behind in deteriorating circumstances. These changes have been reflected in popular culture – including sports and feature films – and the escalating violence of many urban communities. The essay argues that this split has ruptured the cultural support for excellence in the black community. Reinforced by other changes within the US college and professional sport structures and exacerbated and accelerated by globalization, it has led to a spiralling decline in the number of black athletes in US sport.

The Free Enterprise Olympics

to showcase. This is neither unique nor inconsistent with recent Olympic history: Beginning with the 1952 Helsinki Games the first in which the Soviet Union entered a team the attention of the world gradually shifted from the performances of individual athletes competing for global recognition to a titanic &dquo;Cold War&dquo; ideological struggle acted out in the sports arena by the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. Over ensuing years, the athletes and Olympic officials of both countries have been reduced to little more than footsoldiers in a quadrennial propaganda battle carried out under