One by one, We will get There

Sport as an avenue contributed immensely to the black power philosophies of the twentieth century. It was this avenue where the whites, blinded by their self-absorbed beliefs, mistakenly allowed black athletes to compete against them, only to discover the real potential that lay in the Negro.

Muhammad Ali, Jessie Owens, Jack Johnson, and Sir Vivian Richards are but a few examples of the potential for greatness that lay dormant within the black race for centuries, realized, finally, in the eyes of the world, through competitive sports. For sport allowed black people to reclaim their freedom in full, liberating themselves of the final chains of psychological domination that the whites intentionally entrenched them in. Participation in sport became a representation of the fight for freedom. Where one man competed, his performance weighed on the heart of a nation. His achievements were proof of the greatness of his race, black or white.

Sport was no longer just sport. In fact, sport was never really sport. Sport was the liberation struggle for the oppressed people. And sport was a defensive struggle for the white people, to maintain their superiority in the perceived hierarchy. Both sides played a game within the game, carrying the burdens of their historical pasts. Thus, in cricket, the West Indian team competed against their ex-masters to prove how equal they were. Cricket was the medium to send a message to the white world by defeating it in a game that it itself had created. And truly, it was the first time that the rules of the game had been fair – that was the beauty of sport. The whites were allowed to keep their dignity by pretending it did not matter. Because In the categories of physical fitness, of mental toughness and strategic intelligence, sport contributed to the domination of the white man by the black for the first time in forever, laying much needed proof for Africans everywhere that they too possessed the seeds of greatness, but also proof for the white man which he had done everything to ignore.

Muhammad Ali was one of the prime examples of this proof. In the field of boxing, he proved to the world to be the greatest boxer of his time and arguably, to date. He represented the face of the African people. Even outside the boxing arena, his charisma charmed the world. In a world where blackness was considered ugly, he proclaimed his prettiness. In a world where whites considered themselves better, he forced them to acknowledge that he was the greatest. By doing so he allowed Africans everywhere to believe in themselves, he allowed them to ignore the white lies. In the face of the white world, his achievements in sport were something no white could sanely deny. And to the black world, they represented a moment in history that they had awaited forever.

Nobody could call the black man inferior any longer, at least in the realm of sport. It was far overdue that black people everywhere were acknowledged.