by Emily Pecot
The sports world may appear more integrated than other career paths, but Black athletes face racial inequity as well.
In the aftermath of the Civil War, Black athletes thrived in some sports, but none more so than in horse racing, which is America’s oldest sport, dating back to the early 1700s. In fact, 13 of the 15 jockeys that competed in the first Kentucky Derby, held in 1875, were Black. The winning jockey that first year was Oliver Lewis, a Black man born into slavery in 1856, who rode a horse named Aristides to victory. In the Derby’s first 28 years, 15 of the winning jockeys were African American.
In a piece that ran on a Louisville, KY television station, Chris Goodlett, the Kentucky Derby Museum’s Director of Curatorial and Education Affairs, said it was only natural that African American men would excel in horse racing.
“The South was a plantation economy, and those plantations were largely run by African Americans,” Goodlett said. “They were taking care of the horses, they were training the horses, and they were riding the horses.”
Goodlett revealed, “As racing became more of a business, there were intentional methods on behalf of those in charge of racing to not license African American jockeys or give fewer licenses to African American jockeys.”
Intimidation also played a part in the decline of Black jockeys. Goodlett noted that white jockeys would run Black jockeys and the horses they were riding into the rails of the track, endangering both horse and rider. Owners were less likely to sign Black jockeys because of that, Goodlett said.
Black jockeys were eventually banned from racetracks across the country, including Churchill Downs, where the Kentucky Derby is run. In 1921, the last Black jockey rode in the Derby and there would not be another until 2000 when Marlon St. Julien rode the horse Curule to a seventh-place finish.
Contemporary equestrian historians are working to illuminate the legacy of African Americans in horse racing. African Cemetery #2 in Lexington, KY, for example, has so far documented more than 150 Black racing professionals laid to rest in the cemetery between 1894 and the 1930s.
Black leadership and the Rooney Rule
While there are many Black players on the football field, there are few in leadership roles, such as head coaches or general managers. The 2020 Racial and Gender Report Card from the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports (TIDES) states that 69% of National Football League (NFL) players are people of color, but only 35% of leadership positions are held by non-whites.
In 2002, a report titled “Black Coaches in the National Football League: Superior Performances, Inferior Opportunities,” brought this issue to the forefront. Written by labor attorney Cyrus Mehri and lawyer Johnnie Cochran, who gained notoriety during the 1995 O.J. Simpson trial, the report called attention to the “dismal record of minority hiring” of head coaches in the NFL. It also noted that since the NFL began in 1920, over 400 head coaches had been hired but only six were African American.
The NFL sought to rectify the disparities outlined in the report by adopting the Rooney Rule in 2003. Named after the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Dan Rooney, who was chairman of the football owner’s committee on diversity, the rule required teams to interview at least one person of color to fill coaching vacancies or the team would be fined $200,000 and could also potentially lose draft picks. After the rule was implemented, two Black coaches were hired in 2004 to fill seven vacancies.
In 2019, the Global Sport Institute at Arizona State University, along with the Paul Robeson Research Center for Innovative Academic & Athletic Prowess at the University of Central Florida, looked at the NFL’s hiring patterns across a 10-season window—the 2009-2010 season to the 2018-2019 season. Their analysis showed that “while most coaches from 2009 to 2019 were former players, and most players have been men of color, the vast majority of coaches were white.” In the 2018-2019 NFL season, 18 coaches were fired—15 were Black. So far, the Detroit Lions is the only team to be fined under the Rooney Rule and no team has lost draft picks for a violation.
In 2022, Brian Flores, a former head coach for the Miami Dolphins, filed a federal lawsuit against the NFL, the New York Giants, the Denver Broncos and the Dolphins, alleging racial discrimination and claiming that the Rooney Rule was not working, calling it a “well-intentioned failure.”
Flores’ lawsuit claims “the numbers of Black Head Coaches, Coordinators and Quarterback Coaches are not even close to being reflective of the number of Black athletes on the field,” which is evidence that the rule is not working.
In addition, the lawsuit states, “The Rooney Rule is also not working because management is not doing the interviews in good-faith, and it therefore creates a stigma that interviews of Black candidates are only being done to comply with the Rooney Rule rather than in recognition of the talents that the Black candidates possess.”
At press time, the Flores lawsuit was still pending.
An athlete that made change
Through the years, Black athletes have continually worked to improve their sports, usually at great cost to themselves. For example, when baseball players affirm their free agency and go on to garner multi-million-dollar contracts, they can thank Curtis Flood, a centerfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, who signed with the team in 1958.
At that time, Major League Baseball (MLB) contracts contained what is known as a reserve clause. That clause bound a player to a team for as long as the team—not the player—desired. The player could be traded, sold, or released, but the player himself could not initiate any moves on his own.
In 1969, the Cardinals traded Flood to the Philadelphia Phillies. He immediately wrote to MLB’s commissioner saying, “I do not feel that I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes.” His request not to be traded was denied.
Flood contended that the trade violated his “basic rights as a citizen” and was “inconsistent with the laws of the United States.” He sued Major League Baseball, and his case eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the 1972 case of Flood v. Kuhn, the Court sided with MLB, preserving its reserve clause. Although he lost his case, Flood set the wheels in motion for professional athletes. In 1975, MLB adopted free agency, which said that when a player’s contract with a team expires, he is eligible to sign with another team. The National Basketball Association and the NFL would eventually follow suit and offer free agency to its players as well.
The MLB’s decision, however, came too late for Flood. After the Court’s ruling, Flood went back to baseball but was never the same after sitting out season after season waiting for the case to work its way through the courts.
Honoring athletes
While racism in the sports world persists, efforts to highlight disparities and rectify institutional racism in sports are making inroads. Continued pressure by athletes, historians, and the public are incrementally leveling the playing field and honoring the legacy of Black athletes.
For example, in June 2024, the governing body of the MLB recognized the legacy of players who played from 1920 to 1948 in the Negro Leagues. The MLB incorporated Negro League statistics into the MLB’s numbers and posthumously inducted some Negro League players into the National Hall of Fame.
This move from the MLB shook up the stats and put Josh Gibson of the Negro League’s Homestead Greys ahead of Ty Cobb who played with the Detroit Tigers (1905-1926) and the Kansas City Royals (1927-1928). Gibson’s lifetime batting average of .372 edged out Cobb’s .367. The process of combining stats began in December 2020 when the MLB first announced it would be making the change.
At the time, MLB Commissioner Robert Manfred said, “All of us who love baseball have long known that the Negro Leagues produced many of our game’s finest players, innovations and triumphs against the backdrop of injustice.”
Discussion Questions
- Were you surprised by the dominance African Americans showed in horse racing? Why do you think they were pushed out?
- What do you think of the NFL’s Rooney Rule? Do you think the rule is working as it was intended? If yes, explain how. If you think it’s not working as intended, what else could sports teams do to create more diversity in coaching and leadership positions?
Glossary Words
integrated —something that has been made available equally to all races.
This article originally appeared in Respect’s Special Issue: Challenging Racism from Past to Present.