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 and faced racial discrimination throughout his football career. His desire to work toward civil rights led him to form the Negro Industrial and Economic Union (NIEU) in 1966, later known as the Black Economic Union (BEU). The Union combined elements of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements with a call for African Americans to accumulate green power by participating in the US's economic infrastructure through entrepreneurship and government programs.
In More Than an Athlete, author Robert A. Bennett III explores the BEU as part of Jim Brown's legacy to answer larger questions about the role of Black athletes as activists and how the response to these actions impacted their careers and movements they supported. Set in the years following the famed 1964 meeting of Jim Brown, Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, and Sam Cooke, the book examines how Black professional athletes leveraged their social capital in the fight for Civil Rights throughout the 1960s. Bennett provides life sketches for important BEU figures, highlights the experiences that shaped their political consciousness, and weaves in the Union's mission alongside ongoing organizing efforts of the era.
A compelling analysis about the intersection of fame, sports, and race, More Than an Athlete is a thoughtful look at professional athletes' sustained contributions to social movements.
