ABSTRACT
Activism and other acts of resistance involve a variety of actors utilizing a variety of tactics. If targets of activism can ‘include cultural, corporate, not-for-profit, and even religious authorities’, the institution of sport is one of the ‘cultural’ institutions open to change and protest. As prominent as the actions of athletes such as Curt Flood, Billie Jean King, and Dave Meggyesy were, there is little doubt that the highest-profile athlete activism of the 1960s took place in Mexico City. Unsurprisingly, athlete activism was prominent among groups marginalized both within and beyond sport: African-Americans and women. Like Tommie Smith and John Carlos, Colin Kaepernick found himself ostracized by the power structures of sport. To illustrate the distinctions examples are drawn from a particular chronological/geographical nexus, but ultimately a broad focus captures the diversity of sporting activism.
