This work traces American football's movement from segregation to integration, It features a discussion of the various reasons why the game was segregated to begin with and then looks at the schemes that NFL owners came up with to ban African Americans from the league in the 1930s and 1940s.

Many are familiar with Jackie Robinson and the integration of Major League Baseball after all the years of separate black and white leagues, but few know of the segregation and then integration of the National Football League. The timing and sequence of events were different, but football followed a pattern similar to that of baseball. This work traces professional football's movement from segregation to integration, beginning with a discussion of the various reasons why the game was segregated to begin with. It describes the schemes that NFL owners came up with to ban African Americans from the league in the 1930s and 1940s, and tells how these barriers broke down after World War II. The author considers how professional football overcame the legacies of Jim Crow and how Jim Crow laws may still haunt the game.