Black Ball: Rethinking the "Dark Ages" of Professional Basketball

FAIN: FZ-266901-19

Theresa Runstedtler
American University (Washington, DC 20016-8200)

Research and writing leading to a book for a popular audience on the history of race, labor, and the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the 1970s.

Playing on the multiple meanings of the expression “Black Ball,” my book recasts the history of the NBA’s “Dark Ages.” According to popular wisdom, the league’s waning profitability and popularity in the seventies was the fault of a new generation of immature, selfish, lazy, and greedy Black players who came to dominate the professional ranks. Only after white league executives and team owners regained control did the NBA rebound in the 1980s. However, the actual history is much more complicated. It is also more revealing about the ongoing significance of anti-Black racism in U.S. sport and society in the post-Civil Rights era. Combining narrative history and cultural analysis, Black Ball argues that the misnamed “Dark Ages” were pivotal years in the rise of the NBA as a profitable powerhouse, thanks largely to the efforts of Black players in fighting for greater compensation and control over their labor and in reshaping the game with aesthetics and ethics of urban Black streetball.

Associated Products

The Milwaukee Bucks Led the Way as Athletes Took a Stand Over Jacob Blake. Players Decades Ago Helped Win Them the Power to Speak Up (Blog Post)
Title: The Milwaukee Bucks Led the Way as Athletes Took a Stand Over Jacob Blake. Players Decades Ago Helped Win Them the Power to Speak Up
Author: Theresa Runstedtler
Abstract: When the Milwaukee Bucks refused to take the court for their scheduled playoff game against the Orlando Magic on Wednesday night, in protest of the police shooting of a Black man named Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis., they were not alone. On Wednesday and Thursday, not only were NBA playoffs and WNBA games delayed, but athletes from Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer also refused to take to the field; football practices were nixed and hockey games postponed. And the Bucks’ decision to strike was also part of a longer history of intersecting race and labor struggles in the NBA. In fact, decades ago, another Milwaukee Buck, legendary guard Oscar Robertson, played a key role in establishing the political power of basketball players—and without his earlier actions, the current team would likely have been unable to make this week’s powerful statement.
Date: 08/29/2020
Website: https://time.com/5884624/milwaukee-bucks-nba-history/

Black Ball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation that Saved the Soul of the NBA (Book)
Title: Black Ball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation that Saved the Soul of the NBA
Author: Theresa Runstedtler
Year: 2023
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=1645036952
Primary URL Description: WorldCat entry (1645036952)
Publisher: Bold Type Books
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 1645036952

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