The State of New York and the Legal Struggle to Desegregate the American Bowling Congress, 1944-1950 (Essay‪)‬

In the years between World War I and World War II, bowling became the most popular participant sport in America, due in large part to its encouragement by the United States Armed Forces. (2) Though blacks and whites made up the largest bowling contingents, the American Bowling Congress (ABC), the sport's national organizing body since 1895, had in 1916 inserted in its constitution a "white male sex" clause, ensuring segregation in its sanctioned tournaments. (3) Forced to form their own organization, African Americans established the National Negro Bowling Association (NNBA) in 1939. (4) The sport's rise in popularity during WWII and the slightly changing racial climate, however, brought ABC's discriminatory clause to the forefront, and protests against this racist policy quickly began to emerge. (5) As early as 1944, Roman Catholic priest Father Charles T. Carow, an ABC Executive Council member and a leader in the New York Catholic Youth Organization (CYO), feeling that the time had come to end segregation in bowling, became the first to speak out against it. (6) That same year, the United Auto Workers-Congress of Industrial Organizations (UAW-CIO) made considerable attempts to rectify the ABC problem. The union adopted a resolution denouncing the ABC's bigoted policy, and it's Recreation Director Melvin West and Fair Practices Director George W. Crockett endeavored numerous times to persuade ABC officials to remove the segregation clause. (7) These early efforts by Father Carow and the UAW-CIO all suffered the same fate. Indeed, it would not be until the ABC's May 1950 convention that it capitulated, eliminating the "white male sex" provision from its constitution.