ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the history of protest and reform through football and athletics in the late 1960s. Focusing on the California State Colleges (now the California State Universities), it examines two aspects of athletic protest and reform. First, it considers the rise of athletic protest as a means of demanding change within sports on college campuses. Black athletes protested that they were only allowed to play secondary positions on teams, asserted that they were not given the same social opportunities as white athletes, and argued that off-campus housing traditions meant that black athletes and students only had access to second-rate housing. Through protests, sit-ins, and threats to cancel football games, these athletes demanded that the California colleges end discrimination against black athletes. Second, the chapter examines the ways in which these protests moved beyond athletics to focus on improving collegiate education more broadly. In the context of a national fascination with football, the black athletes understood the power of athletics, and they used their protests to demand black studies departments, an end to discrimination in fraternities and sororities, and new programs to enroll students from diverse backgrounds and extend the power of a college degree to more students.
