Shadowboxing: The Journey Of The African-American Boxer?

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African American’s went through a tremendous amount of emotional and physical abuse in the past because of their skin color. White people used to set strict rules for blacks and deprived them of living a life where they could enjoy freedom. We still have racial discrimination today, but I believe it’s not as bad. Sports, such as boxing saw racial discrimination occurring in their sport. Fans will shake their heads, get angry, and have an admiration for African American boxers from the past when they watch “Shadowboxing: The Journey of the African-American Boxer." Original Production and ESPN films created "Shadowboxing: The Journey of the African-American Boxer” in 1999. This incredible documentary shows us how African American fighters broke …show more content…

“Their struggle has been a struggle that every black person went through, one that grew from the seeds of slavery and took hold in a post-civil war America, when blacks gained their freedom (Shadow Boxing - The Journey of the African-American Boxer (Great Documentary), 2012).” It was interesting to learn from the movie that “reconstruction is a defining moment in African-American history in which blacks gained political rights in the south. With these rights, whites saw the blacks gain social equality. Fearing what they saw, whites brought a quick end to reconstruction. (Shadow Boxing - The Journey of the African-American Boxer (Great Documentary), 2012)." It would be interesting to interview people from the past to ask them why they think it 's okay to treat African Americans like that. It made me wonder what white people were thinking in the past. It brought tears to my eyes to learn that blacks quickly lost their new found freedom and lynching …show more content…

I never knew that blacks dominated the Kentucky derby by winning 13 out of 15 races. African Americans participated in baseball, and in boxing. It appears that the movie was trying to tell us that the success blacks had in sports led to stricter rules in boxing for them. It’s a shame that African Americans were only allowed to fight in the lower weight divisions at first. Black fighters struggled to earn an opportunity because several white fighters were drawing the colored line. This documentary also talks about how The National Police Gazette, which was the leading sports paper in the late 19th century in the USA, wrote about black fighters and how they deserved to receive opportunities. It angers me to hear how cruel white people were in the past, but it’s amazing that this paper helped black fighters out by writing about them. As an aspiring journalist, this inspires me to help people out by writing about them in the

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