Dixieball ― Race and Professional Basketball in the Deep South, 1947-1979

The author examines the role of race in the development of professional basketball in the Deep South between 1947 and 1979 and the clash between civic development and racism in the region. He describes how basketball came to the South with an established and overt racial identity and how the region embraced professional basketball slowly, illustrating the evolution of racial attitudes among white sports fans. He details the intersections between professional basketball and the Deep South in the two decades before the region's first major franchise; the birth of the first major Deep South team, the New Orleans Buccaneers; the move of the St. Louis Hawks to Atlanta; the creation of the New Orleans Jazz; and the region's first transcendent black basketball star, Dominique Wilkins. Annotation ©2019 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)