States such as Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and Louisiana moved to redraw and eliminate majority-Black districts after the Voting Rights Act was weakened, muting Black political voices. These states share a strong cultural and economic dependence on college football, an institution dominated by Black athletes. The NAACP called on Black high school athletes to boycott universities in states gutting voting rights for Black residents. The proposal sparked questions about whether leveraging college football can drive political change, whether NIL money would affect participation, and whether it is fair to ask 16-year-old athletes to sacrifice opportunities. The campaign also raised issues of solidarity and whether white athletes should be included. Dr. Harry Edwards, a longtime organizer of Black athletes as a community with power, is presented as a key voice, including his role in the 1968 Olympic Project for Human Rights boycott attempt.
"After the Supreme Court gutted the crown jewel of the civil rights movement, the Voting Rights Act, states such as Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and Louisiana immediately moved to redraw and eliminate majority-Black districts, muting their political voices. What those states have in common-aside from revanchist politicians pining for a return to Jim Crow-is a social, political, and economic addiction to college football, an institution dominated by Black athletes."
"In response, the NAACP dropped a political bomb last week, calling upon Black high school athletes to boycott universities in states that are gutting the voting rights of Black residents. Their call immediately sparked a series of debates: Can threatening the South's obsession with college football produce positive political change? Will teenagers and their families being offered NIL (name, image, likeness) money accede to this? Is it even fair to ask 16-year-old Black kids to sacrifice these kinds of opportunities?"
"Why should they have to deal with the failures of older generations, to protect what so many sacrificed to achieve? And shouldn't this call extend to white athletes as well, in the name of solidarity, if nothing else? The NAACP's new campaign has launched a thousand opinions-but there is one we should care about hearing above all others: that of Dr. Harry Edwards."
"Now 83 years old, the sociologist and activist has spent his career organizing Black athletes to see themselves as a community that can exercise power, make demands, and speak their minds. Dr. Edwards is perhaps best known as the lead organizer of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, which led the attempted boycott by Black athletes and their supporters of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City."
Read at The Nation
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