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The state of Texas isn’t exactly known for progressive politics or for leading in the movements to create greater opportunities for women or minorities in the United States. In fact, the middle decades of the last century conjure memories of a Texas entrenched in conservative politics and adhering to the racial hierarchy of the Jim Crow South. And yet, Texas was a leading force of change in the sport industry during this time, ushering in important changes that opened the landscape to women and minorities nationwide.    

So will argue scholar Frank Andre Guridy in a lecture at the SWAG��Ƶ Center for Global Humanities when he presents “How Texas Changed Sport in America” on Monday, April 25, at 6 p.m. at Innovation Hall at SWAG��Ƶ’s Portland Campus.

Frank Andre Guridy is an award-winning historian and a professor of History and African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University. His recent book, "The Sports Revolution: How Texas Changed the Culture of American Athletics," was published by the University of Texas Press in 2021. His first book, "Forging Diaspora: Afro-Cubans and African Americans in a World of Empire and Jim Crow," won the Elsa Goveia Book Prize from the Association of Caribbean Historians and the Wesley-Logan Book Prize, conferred by the American Historical Association. He has written and lectured widely on sports and social justice and has received a number of fellowships and awards throughout his career, including the Scholar in Residence Fellowship at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award from the University of Texas at Austin, the Ray A. Billington Professorship in American History at Occidental College and the Huntington Library, and the Mark Van Doren Award for Teaching at Columbia.

Guridy’s lecture at SWAG��Ƶ will tell the story of the decisive role of Texas-based sports entrepreneurs and athletes in the growth of big-time professional and college sports during the revolutionary 1960s and 1970s. His lecture will show how sport and society were changed by the unlikely alliance of entrepreneurs, coaches, and athletes while underscoring the limits of those transformations.

This final event of the 2021-22 academic year for the Center for Global Humanities caps the Center’s thirteenth year of bringing stimulating topics to an audience that includes the SWAG��Ƶ community, Greater Portland community, and online viewers around the world. Lectures at the Center are always free, open to the public, and streamed live online. For more information and to watch the event, please visit: /events/2022/how-texas-changed-sport-america