Before we were athletes, we were warriors, healers, scholars, and artists. We came from kingdoms and kinships that celebrated our bodies not for labor but for legacy. Then came the ships. Then came the chains. Then came the auction block, where the same bodies once praised for agility and intellect were reduced to weight, age, and price. The Black body built America. Not figuratively. Literally. From the cotton fields of the South to the construction of railroads, tobacco warehouses, and sugar plantations, it was our forced labor and agricultural expertise that turned struggling colonies into economic empires. The colonizers, who would have starved and destroyed the land through ignorance, were sustained by the same people they enslaved, people who knew how to work the soil, rotate the crops, preserve the harvest, and build the systems that fed both body and market. Our sweat soaked the soil. Our backs bore the burden. We weren’t just excluded from the table. We built the damn table and then were denied a seat.
The Fear of Our Talent
We didn’t choose exclusion. They did. But because they excluded us, we built our own. We built the Negro Leagues, the Black college circuits, the barnstorming tours. And when they finally opened the gates, they didn’t integrate to include us, they integrated to absorb and erase us. They dismantled what we built with the illusion of inclusion and called it progress.
Their meritocracy couldn’t risk being exposed as myth. So, they banned Black boxers from title fights. They closed the doors of white-only leagues. They scheduled forfeits rather than face integrated teams.
They knew that if we were given the chance to play, really play, we’d dominate. And we did. Which is why they fought so hard to keep the gates shut for as long as they possibly could.
The Firsts Weren’t Celebrated. They Were Survived.
Jackie Robinson didn’t just break a color line; he stepped into fire. Althea Gibson wasn’t just a tennis champion; she was a target. Wilma Rudolph sprinted past racism as much as she did her competitors.
Every “first” carried the burden of being exceptional enough to enter a world that didn’t want us and resilient enough to stay in it.
Integration wasn’t about inclusion. It was containment. A way to exploit Black excellence without disrupting white comfort. It may have been something even more nefarious, to destroy the things we built that were better. Tulsa.
We Became the Game
So we entered. And once we did, we didn’t just compete, we changed the game. We bent it. Flipped it. Colored outside the lines they drew in white chalk.
They made the rules. We made the magic.
Today, we are the engine behind every major sport in this country. But don’t confuse presence with power. Just because we fill the rosters doesn’t mean we hold the reins.
In Division I college football and men’s basketball, over 56 percent of players are Black. But the institutions? Still led by white presidents, white athletic directors, white coaches. The profits? Billions. The players? Unpaid (enter NIL money). Uninsured. Disposable.
We wear the school’s colors on Saturdays. But off the field, out of uniform, in the wrong neighborhood, on the wrong side of a white fan’s comfort zone, the same young Black men could have the police called on them. Fame doesn’t equal safety. And loyalty doesn’t guarantee humanity.
In the NFL, 58 percent of players are Black. Yet out of 32 teams, only seven head coaches are Black in 2025, a drop from the nine we had just last season. Across all coaching positions—assistants, coordinators—Black representation hovers around 18 percent. Ownership? Still zero.
And the Combine? A televised ritual where Black bodies are measured, weighed, prodded, and tested, streamed in high definition, framed by slow motion replays and 40-yard dash times. It’s not a far leap from the auction block to the scouting report.
The NBA is over 70 percent Black. Only one Black man, Michael Jordan, ever held majority ownership. He sold his stake in 2023. The league sells Blackness: the culture, the charisma, the cool. But who cashes the checks?
What If We Sat This One Out?
What if, for just one week, we stopped?
No crossovers. No kickoffs. No backflips off the beam. No buzzer beaters. No highlight reels set to trap beats.
What if the jerseys stayed folded, the cleats unlaced, the arenas silent?
College programs would panic. ESPN would scramble. Fantasy leagues would freeze. The advertisers would fumble. Because the show doesn’t go on without us.
Bread and circuses.
And what if that absence stretched beyond the field?
What if the next time someone shouted, “Go back to Africa,” we did?
Not just the athletes. The musicians. The stylists. The inventors. The scholars. The teachers. The healers. The caretakers. The culture. The pulse. The power.
Without us, America doesn’t just lose its flavor, its style, or its rhythm, it loses its reflection, like a vampire. It’s unrecognizable. Because whether we were forced to build it or fought to belong in it, we’ve always been the rhythm this country moves to.
We’ve Always Been More Than Players
We are not just participants in someone else’s game. We are the cornerstone of every American movement toward justice, equality, and civil rights.
Without us, there is no blueprint for resistance. No Montgomery bus boycott, no March on Washington, no Civil Rights Act. Without Black struggle, Black organizing, and Black sacrifice, no other marginalized group would have had a paved path to walk.
Our victories opened doors for others to enter. Our resilience created space for inclusion. Our fight redefined what this nation claimed to stand for.
So, if we ever chose to step away fully, completely, this country would not just feel our absence on the field, but across every courtroom, campus, workplace, and movement.
Because we’ve never just played the game. We’ve led the fight.
But maybe this time, we don’t march to the front lines. Not with a rising tide of white nationalism, not with a president flirting with martial law and hungry for a flashpoint, Black bodies in his crosshairs.
Maybe this time, we don’t protest in the streets so they can weaponize our presence and call it rebellion.
Maybe we sit back. Maybe we hold each other close. Maybe we dance, and pop our fans.
Maybe Black joy is the resistance.
And maybe, just maybe, this time we let the country fight for itself.
Because we’ve already paid more than our share.
