More Than an Athlete: Jim Brown, Black Capitalism, and the Black Economic Union

Jim Brown, a first-round NFL draft pick, played fullback for the Cleveland Browns until 1965. Born in 1936 in Georgia, Brown was a child of the Great Migration who faced racial discrimination throughout his football career. He formed the Negro Industrial and Economic Union in 1966, later known as the Black Economic Union (BEU), to advocate for civil rights. The BEU combined elements of the civil rights and Black Power movements with a call for African Americans to benefit from the United States' economic infrastructure through entrepreneurship and government programs.
In More Than an Athlete, author Robert A. Bennett III explores the BEU as part of Brown's legacy to answer larger questions about the role of Black athletes as activists, and how their activism impacted their careers and the movements they supported. The book examines the years following the famed 1964 meeting of Brown, Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, and Sam Cooke, revealing how Black professional athletes leveraged their social capital in the fight for civil rights. Bennett provides life sketches of important BEU figures, highlights the experiences that shaped their political consciousnesses, and weaves the BEU mission in alongside ongoing organizing efforts of the era. A compelling analysis of the intersection of fame, sports, and race, More Than an Athlete is a thoughtful look at Black professional athletes' sustained contributions to social justice movements.