Race Relations and the Sport of Golf: The African American Golf Legacy‪.‬

Introduction Sports are often depicted as being among the most "open" arenas in race relations. However, sports have reflected the historical racial trends in the larger American society, characterized by discrimination and efforts by minorities to overcome racism (Dawkins & Kinloch, 2000; Gilmore, 1995; Sammons, 1994; Braddock, 1989; Ashe, 1988; Wiggins, 1983). The history of race relations in sports mirrors the progression of relations between majority and minority populations, generally. In the case of the white majority and black minority populations in America, these historical stages range from exploitation or exclusion of African American slaves from participation in white-controlled sports during the plantation era, through the post-slavery period of segregation and discrimination in most sport activities, and, finally, to limited desegregation with continuing resistance by the white majority. In response to racism, African Americans formed their own organizations or "parallel structures" in such sports as baseball and basketball to World War II. The desegregation of race relations in sports began to accelerate after World War II in the major sports of baseball, basketball and football, but not in the case of golf. While white resistance to the integration of blacks into all the major sports continued after initial desegregation efforts, nowhere was this resistance more complete than in golf, where the maintenance of a system of overt and institutional racism prevailed for many decades after initial racial barriers were removed (Dawkins & Kinloch, 2000).