The Colorline In Sports

Between 1945 and the early 1960s, the color line in virtually every sport in the United States was broken. African Americans, in increasingly large numbers, were able to participate in leagues and on teams that had previously been blocked off to them. At the same time, however, most of the leagues and teams African American sports administrators had organized in response to being excluding from white-run sport had to be discontinued. In a well-organized essay, discuss the benefits and drawbacks from such a development. Which leagues and athletes benefited the most? What, in particular, was lost? Were there any ramifications of such a loss? In what ways do we see the color line continuing in the decades after the early 1960s?