Comprehensive history of Black US athletes in the Olympic Games

Christoph Wagner
Université Gustave Eiffel

The book Black Mercuries, titled after the Roman god and divine messenger Mercurius, delves into the complex relationship between African American athletes, their country and the modern Olympic Games. The authors, David K. Wiggins, Kevin B. Witherspoon, and Mark Dyreson are established scholars in this field and have published extensively on this topic. It is a comprehensive exploration of race, participation, performance, and representation of African American athletes in the Olympics since the inception of the Modern Games in 1896.

The book proceeds chronologically from the Athens Games in 1896 to the most recent editions of Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo and is divided into nine chapters, each dedicated to a period: Chapter 1 looks at the age of the pioneers from 1896 to 1920, chapter 2 focuses on sports during the Jazz Age, the 1920s, while chapter 3 looks at the “Turbulent 1930s”. The Cold War is the topic of the fourth chapter. Protests (1960s and 70s) and Boycotts (1970s and 80s) are the subjects of chapters five and six, respectively, while chapter 7 looks at the Games immediately after the end of the Cold War, the 1990s, before chapter 8 dealing with the Olympics during the “Age of Globalization”, and finally the recent Games in 2016 and 2022 in chapter 9. Throughout these stages, Black athletes have not only performed at almost each Olympics but also proved highly successful, winning medals in many athletic disciplines. Sports, the authors argue, was and is a way out of poverty and offers possibilities to transgress color lines. This sentiment was best expressed by David Maraniss who wrote about Rafer Johnson, who was the first Black flag bearer of an American team at the 1960s Olympics. Johnson, he noted,

refused to feel manipulated, yet he could not escape the burden of carrying other people’s expectations and dealing with their contradictory demands.

Johnson represented a nation that treated people of color like second-class citizens while at the same time, he felt, he could do nothing but advance their cause by doing what he did best: excel at sports (p. xv).

While the 1930s saw an increased debate about whether women should engage in physical activity, the athletes demonstrated just how good sports were for women from the 1950s onwards. Once again, Black women came to the fore, especially in athletics as white athletes increasingly withdrew.

Sports and music, jazz music especially, served as emblems of Black identity for their communities: “Athletes became the avatars of the Jazz Age Black urban renaissance” (p. 29), despite most of them still living in the segregated South. In return, both sports and music, as well as their protagonists were promoting “an idealized vision of America to domestic and international audiences”, according to the US Olympic movement leader Colonel Robert Means Thompson (p. 30). In other words: sportswashing before the term was even coined.

Due to its prominent place in the Olympics, athletics was the sport in which the first Black Mercuries appeared and only slowly did African American athletes succeed in other sports such as boxing, but also swimming and basketball. The book not only presents the male athletes and their sporting and post-sport careers but also includes coaches and trainers as well as African American women athletes who also enjoyed successful athletic careers. The authors have decided to leave out the Winter Olympics, where the number of Black athletes increases, due to space limitations.

An exclusively white American sports establishment was not able to ignore Black athletes and in 1904, George Coleman Poage became the first African American athlete to win an Olympic medal at the Games in St. Louis. He earned bronze in the 200m hurdles (aborted after 1904) and 400m hurdles. He and William H. “Billy” Morris became the “pioneers” as one chronicler of Black athletes, Edwin Bancroft Henderson labelled them (p. 2). They laid the foundations for those who would follow, the likes of Jesse Owen. Morris later became a mentor and trainer in the 1920s and 1930s and that way became one of the longest-serving members of the staff for the American Olympic team. The authors emphasize the importance of the Games in St. Louis as an Olympic host city and as a hub placed at the meeting point between the South, the West and the North, a city in which segregation was still rife but which also attempted to appear as a progressive city with regards to racial sensibilities. The success of Poage and the fact that it took place in St. Louis sparked a growing involvement in sports by Black athletes. For the United States, the St. Louis Games proved to be a turning point in relation to the Olympics as the country had regarded this movement with suspicion; henceforth, the US embraced the Olympics and have become one of the greatest sporting nations.

From being at the fringes of American Olympic teams, Black athletes became the anchor of almost all teams since the 1930s (p. 57). The Black Mercuries, particularly the female athletes, had not only to overcome color lines but in addition had to challenge gender stereotypes. These most often circled around issues of beauty and aesthetics; issues which prevail to this day in female sports. One sportswriter wrote about Alice Coachman, a self-taught high jumper from Albany, Georgia:

[Coachman is] definitely effeminate. [She’s] got charm, personality, and dimples, and she cuts a nice figure – running, walking, or standing (p. 91).

While the 1930s saw an increased debate about whether women should engage in physical activity, the athletes demonstrated just how good sports were for women from the 1950s onwards. Once again, Black women came to the fore, especially in athletics as white athletes increasingly withdrew.

Reading the book, I have had a problem with the large number of athletes mentioned; at times it’s been difficult to follow and keep track of them all. At the same time, the multitude of actors is also one of the key points that make this book so valuable and important: Not only do the authors cover the major athletes such as Jesse Owens or Simone Biles but also lesser-known names such as Rodney Milburn and thus provide an ideal starting point for further research. The book is recommended reading for undergraduate as well as postgraduate students but also for those with an interest in African American sports during the 20th. and 21st. centuries.

Wedged in between the notes and the index, the authors have included an essay on the sources they have used for their research. Once again, this is a veritable starting point for further research into the matter. The essay is structured into several sub-sections which treat different materials: newspapers, most notably the Black press but also archives and biographies of athletes and coaches, either self-penned or ghosted.

In conclusion, Black Mercuries is an important contribution to the growing body of literature on African American sports personalities and their successes on and off the track and field. It offers a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between race, sport and the Olympic Movement.

Copyright © Christoph Wagner 2024