History of Race in Sports

I’m studying for my History class and need an explanation.

1400 word essay

Bill Shankly, the legendary manager of Liverpool Football Club, once said “some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s much more serious than that.” Perhaps not example drives home Shankly’s point as clearly as the example of apartheid-era South Africa, where sport came to play a key role in the struggle against white minority rule and in the struggle for a South Africa for all its inhabitants. In an essay, explore the role played by sport, as a question of racial restriction, global resistance, and, ultimately, reconciliation on the part of South African people. How did sport shape South Africa’s racialist society? How did the supposed values of sport reveal the contradictions of South African society? How did sport function in the lives in the different groups that made up the country? How did the world confront apartheid through the lens of sport? What role did South Africans play in the international sports campaign? What can this story tell us that is either unique, or connected to the larger questions our class has raised? What role did Dennis Brutus play in this story? What examples from countries around the world came to play in the struggle against apartheid.

You need not answer all these questions specifically, but use them to guide you as you work.

Please try and utilize the materials from all the readings and videos, and feel free to engage the questions that were part of the module overview.