Tenth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

This proposed colloquium of four papers and a chair focuses on black involvement in so-called mainstream or majority golf. Two of the papers treat the black caddie experience in white golf settings. Ryan Anderson’s paper zooms in on Pinehurst Golf Club and examines agency among caddies who often understood themselves as skilled laborers in opposition to the low expectations of their white employers. Craig Gill’s paper, a more general exploration of the occupation’s unequal power relations , is about the difficult struggle for dignity of black caddies often in the face of harsh exploitation and undoubted subordination. Jeffrey Sammons’ paper on James R. “Jimmie” Devoe explores the important but little-known life and career of a man who emerged from the caddie ranks, to play a leading role in the separate world of black golf before becoming the first self-identified black to straddle the line between black and white golf worlds in a sustained non-servile capacity. Ashley Brown’s paper on Althea Gibson explores, through Queer Theory, the great tennis champion’s transition from one exclusive sport to another even more unwelcoming. Fittingly, Devoe gave Althea her first four lessons before she honed her game within the black United Golfers Association (UGA) prior to qualifying for the Ladies Professional Golfers Association (LPGA ) where she fought against outsider status as a black woman in a white country club world . The chair of this proposed session is Eric Allen Hall, author of Arthur Ashe: Tennis and Justice in the Civil Rights Era.