Book description
On September 6, 1892, a diminutive Black prizefighter brutally dispatched an overmatched white hope in the New Orleans Carnival of Champions boxing tournament. That victory sparked celebrations across Black communities nationwide but fostered unease among sporting fans and officials, delaying public acceptance of mixed-race fighting for half a century. This…
Why read it?
1 author picked George Dixon as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Winders captures the hardening racial attitudes of America’s “Gilded Age” and white society’s embrace of segregation and exploitation in his study of one of the all-time great fighters.
A man of contradictions, George Dixon would become a famous world champion and one of North America’s richest and most popular Black men. Dixon would also die of alcoholism, destitute, alone, and forgotten. Winders claims that, to the then fledgling Black culture in North America, “Dixon was the single-most significant athlete of nineteenth century.”
Yet at the same time, he was a man “who could be indifferent to his race.” Satisfied to…
From Jason's list on The best books taking seriously the impact of sport on social history.
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