NBPC Also Calls Upon Black Professional Athletes to Follow Suit
The National Black Players Coalition (NBPC) supports and applauds the NAACP’s launch of their “Out of Bounds” campaign, a national call for Black athletes, families, fans, alumni, and consumers to withhold athletic and financial support from public universities in states that have moved to limit, weaken, or erase Black voting representation in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais. The Callais decision shattered what remained of the Voting Rights Act. The NAACP is targeting eight priority southern states – Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Georgia.
The impact of the Callais decision where Southern states are rushing to redraw maps to eliminate majority-Black congressional districts – potentially threatening 19 of 62 Congressional Black Caucus members – is devastating to all Black communities everywhere either directly or indirectly. Black athletes at both the collegiate and professional levels hold tremendous economic power that can be leveraged to change the course of this nation as pertains to voting and civil rights in all aspects of life in America, whose history was founded on brutal human bondage, followed by devastating Jim Crow segregation laws, and ongoing racial discrimination. Today, while our nation is celebrating its 250th Anniversary, we are witnessing an all-out effort to reverse all hard-fought progress towards racial equality by eliminating the power of the Black vote – through oppressive state voter ID laws that immediately followed the landmark 2013 Shelby County v. Holder U.S. Supreme Court decision that invalidated Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – and now through the Callais decision through racially exclusive redistricting.
The National Black Players Coalition, established on the campus of Howard University in 1994,is dedicated to seeking equal opportunity for African American men and women in the world of sports. We are now in a time when Jim Crow 2.0 is raising its ugly head! A time when 10 NFL head coaching positions were vacant and not one was filled by a Black head coach, and when 10 quarterbacks were drafted/hired in the NFL and only one of them was Black. The NBPC urges Black professional athletes in the National Football League (NFL), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), Major League Baseball (MLB), and other professional sports to leverage their talent and economic power by refusing to play if they, their families, and their communities are denied equal political representation at all levels of government and if progress in ending racial discrimination in their sport is reversed! Black athletes who no longer play or never played but have a platform can use their voices on sports talk shows and various mediums to also support the call for racial justice, especially now when Black voting rights are under grave attack.
In NBPC’s September 14, 2022, “OPEN LETTER TO NFL COMMISSIONER ROGER GOODELL, The 1963 March on Washington & The NFL,” that was also sent to all NFL owners, the NPBC reminded the NFL that 70% of the labor force on the field is Black. Indeed, nearly 90% of starting players on the field in any given NFL game are Black. While the 16-page letter focused on comprehensive reforms and key demands of the NFL regarding racial discrimination at the head coaching and quarterback positions, and the lack of representation of Black women in the NFL and television sports networks, our letter indeed emphasized that Black players “ARE THE NFL.” Even Commissioner Goodell stated, “Without Black players, there would be no National Football League.” Our letter made the link between the power that sports have to go beyond the game and the powerful role that the NFL can play in addressing voting rights issues at that time. The letter stated:
Outside football, the Black community is facing dangerous attacks on its hard-fought freedoms, especially when it comes to voting rights where voter suppression and interference laws have sprung up like weeds all around the country, as well as efforts that are underway to eliminate the teaching of Black history in our schools and through our books. The NFL is a powerful force in American society. If the NFL wishes to remain true to its Social Justice Initiative “Inspire Change” then in addition to the changes we demand in this letter, the NFL must accept its responsibility to protect the rights of the Black community, beginning with voting rights and protecting our Black history in education. This means that there should be no NFL games played or aired in any state or community where voting rights are under attack through voter suppression and interference laws and where Black history is being pulled from our schools. Major League baseball demonstrated successfully how this is done by suddenly moving its 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta, Georgia to Denver, Colorado because of Georgia’s draconian voter suppression law.
Commissioner Goodell, the NFL and its team owners must always remember that on any given Sunday, including Super Bowl Sunday, NFL players – Black and White – could plan and decide that they will no longer tolerate the NFL’s discriminatory practices and be willing to finally take dramatic action by simply WALKING OFF THE FIELD!
Fast-forward to today’s voting rights challenges brought on by the Calais decision allowing states to limit, weaken, or erase Black voting representation, the call to action by the NAACP to boycott collegiate sports in key Southern states, and the National Black Players Coalition’s call to boycott professional sports in states that jeopardize the Black vote and racial progress in sports must be heeded NOW! THERE IS NO TIME TO WASTE! “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter” (Martin Luther King, Jr.).
