Howard Bryant on the History of Protests in Sports

Hosted by Paul Holdengräber, The Quarantine Tapes chronicles shifting paradigms in the age of social distancing. Each day, Paul calls a guest for a brief discussion about how they are experiencing the global pandemic.

Today on episode 93 of The Quarantine Tapes, Paul Holdengräber and sports journalist Howard Bryant deep dive into how the sports world is responding to the ongoing protests, as well as parse what is performative and what is powerful in the response from both athletes and the corporate sports culture in the past weeks. Paul and Howard also dig into the history of protest in sports and talk about how Howard has been thinking lately about figures like Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson. Finally, Howard offers his opinion on what dissent and protest in sports may look like in the future.

To listen to the episode, as well as the whole archive of The Quarantine Tapes, subscribe and listen on iTunes or wherever else you find your favorite podcasts.

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Howard Bryant is the author of nine books, Full Dissidence: Notes From an Uneven Playing Field, The Heritage: Black Athletes, A Divided America and the Politics of Patriotism, The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron, Juicing the Game: Drugs, Power, and the Fight for the Soul of Major League Baseball, Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston, the three-book Legends sports series for middle-grade readers, and Sisters and Champions: The True Story of Venus and Serena Williams, illustrated by Floyd Cooper, and contributed essays to 14 others. He has been senior writer for ESPN since 2007 and has served as the sports correspondent for NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday since 2006. In 2017, he served as the guest editor for the Best American Sports Writing anthology. Previously, Mr. Bryant worked at the Washington Post, the Boston Herald, The Record (Hackensack, NJ), the San Jose Mercury News, and the Oakland Tribune.