‘There’s a lot more to come’ with athletes and activism
After record turnout in 2020 elections, activism from Black athletes is only beginning.
“There’s an opportunity for the leagues to really sort of dig in and dive in with their players, to figure out how they are not going to just sort of follow the next uprising, but get ahead.” Rashad Robinson Color of Change’s executive director
During Black History Month, with the series 28 Black stories in 28 days, USA TODAY Sports examines the issues, challenges and opportunities Black athletes and sports officials face after the reckoning on race in 2020.
On Jan. 27, LeBron James quote-tweeted an article about Georgia’s proposal to limit absentee voting, which had keyed Democratic victories in the presidential and both Senate races.
“I hope y’all understand Black voter suppression doesn’t stop on Election Day,” James wrote. “It’s just going to get worse because they know what we did.”
This was three weeks after the Georgia Senate runoff that capped off an election cycle with record turnout statewide and nationally. What James, his organization More Than A Vote and other coalitions of Black athletes “did” across the country was use their platform on an unprecedented scale, on social media and in the streets.
His tweet signaled that while the movement began last year, large-scale athlete activism – particularly among Blacks – is just in its beginning stages.
Black athletes have long been on the forefront of activism and societal reform. Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics. Muhammad Ali. Arthur Ashe. The WNBA pursued racial and criminal justice long before it became popular less than a year ago.
Groups such as More Than A Vote, which seeks to combat voter suppression and other causes, and Color of Change, an online racial justice organization, demonstrate their value by helping bridge the gap between athletes’ goals and policy change while offering resources and connections.
More Than A Vote executive director Addisu Demissie told USA TODAY Sports in November that Election Day was the beginning, not the end, of his group’s mission. The 2020 experience – the heartbreak and outrage that followed Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Jacob Blake – made athletes realize that reform is an ongoing struggle.
“Change takes time and in many ways is painful as you walk down that road,” Demissie said then. “There’s a lot more to come.”
As James said, although athletes’ relationship with the White House might be less
adversarial compared to the previous administration, that doesn’t mean the work stops.
“The changes in the White House don’t change the prosecutor’s office,” Rashad Robinson, Color of Change’s executive director, told USA TODAY Sports by phone. “They don’t end the racist actions of police unions that might be right inside of their community. Some of the most powerful activism of athletes happened during the Trump administration. You saw so many athletes building relationships with organizations, building their own organizations, taking huge risk.”
Dr. Joseph N. Cooper, the chair of sport leadership and administration at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, believes Black athletes should engage in “hybrid resistance” – engaging in different types of strategic approaches to enact change in a political system or in a social context. Examples include James consulting with former President Barack Obama during the work stoppage in the wake of Blake’s shooting, an example of flexing power earned, and Jaylen Brown marching with Black Lives Matter protesters.
There are other examples. The WNBA’s Atlanta Dream organized against their former owner, Kelly Loeffler, to lift Rev. Raphael Warnock to victory, especially after her comments that derided the Black Lives Matter movement.
In the NBA, players have participated in work stoppages to highlight police violence toward the Black community; after the Blake shooting, the Milwaukee Bucks organized a phone call with Wisconsin state leaders. Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton wore a shirt that called for the arrest of the police officers who killed Taylor.
Power Five college football programs marched in community protests. The MLB Players Alliance, comprised of nearly 100 former and current Black players, has raised $41.7 million for Black communities since its founding less than a year ago.
This is only the beginning, and experts say coalitionbuilding is key.
“The (star) athletes don’t have to be on an island by themselves,” Cooper told USA TODAY Sports. “I think a lot of times we expect LeBron James or Serena (Williams) to be the spokesperson for these social justice movements ... they don’t have to be the end-all beall in every case.”
Community issues such as health disparities, lack of resources for educational attainment and economic deprivation are some causes championed by Black athletes on top of racial, criminal and social justice reform, Cooper said. The professor, whose soon-to-bereleased book traces the history of Black sports activism, highlighted that the beliefs of those engaging in political activism are not a monolith, and that not all Black athletes are required to be activists. But whether they are allies, advocates or embodying another role, “I hope they not only engage with the White House and the executive branch, but also their state and local politicians,” he said.
Athletes are vital to groups like Color of Change because of their ability to activate and mobilize the number of people needed to be involved. The onus for progress shouldn’t completely fall on the shoulders of Black athletes, Robinson said – leagues and teams can take initiative.
“There’s an opportunity for the leagues to really sort of dig in and dive in with their players, to figure out how they are not going to just sort of follow the next uprising, but get ahead,” Robinson said.
To Robinson, the reality is that professional and college sports are behemoth industries that rely on – and in some cases exploit – Black talent and Black labor, with the expectation of the employees remaining silent. That leads to teams and leagues trying to “initiate” their way out of problems that are structural.
“Dialogues” don’t invoke significant change. Actions do. As Crystal Dunn of the U.S. women’s soccer team said Sunday, athletes are “past the protesting phase.” By marching in the street and using their voices, athletes helped make racial justice a majoritarian issue, Robinson said, a precursor to becoming a “governing majority” issue.
“And the question will be for the leagues is how are they going to work with their players to be on the right side of history? To not stand in the way of true progress? To not offer initiatives instead of structural change?” Robinson asked. “To actually be in service of actually dismantling the structures that have far-too-often created a hostile environment, created inequality, and created structures where there are too many people profiting from that.”
Signs of early success can be found in the data, Demissie said, with turnout increases among demographics More Than A Vote targeted – youth and African American voters, primarily.
“Now we expect, and the athletes expect, change in some of the things we talked about (in 2020) to actually become changes in policy,” he said. “Whether it be criminal justice reform, police reform, ending voter suppression, economic empowerment for Black communities, it’s time for elected officials of whatever party to deliver. I think that there’s definitely an understanding that it’s going to take sustained activism to do that.”