Sports and Social Justice

Historic events in which black U.S. athletes were specifically targeted by bogus laws, denied to compete, or received death threats for daring to break records.

• 1912: Jack Johnson (heavyweight champion) was the first person prosecuted under the Mann Act, which aimed to stop "prostition or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose". Thanks to its ambiguity with what's considered immoral, it was often used to criminalise consensual sexual behaviour between adults. (source)
• 1936: Jesse Owens, the most decorated American athlete of the 1936 Olympics in Germany was not allowed to visit FDR with the white athletes. (source)
• 1967: Muhammad Ali refused his call for military service in Vietnam, citing religious reasons. He was convicted of draft evasion, stripped of his heavyweight title, suspended from boxing, sentenced to five years in prison (later overruled by the Supreme Court with an 8-0 decision), and fined $10k. (source)
• 1968: Tommie Smith and Juan Carlos won 1st and 3rd place in the Olympics in Mexico City, and were stripped of their medals for raising their fist in solidarity with black people. This happened a few months after Martin Luther King was assassinated. (source)
• 1970: Arthur Ashe (a tennis player from the US) was denied a visa from South Africa to complete in the SA National Championship. (source)
• 1974: Hank Aaron (baseball player) faced death threats for beating the home run record previously held by Babe Ruth. (source)
• 1975: Lee Elder (a golf player) had to rent two houses to up his chances of surviving death threats to play in the Augusta Golf Championships. (source)