The integration of Major League Baseball (MLB) in 1947 has long been considered a triumph in America’s ongoing battle with racism and racial discrimination. An undeniably significant accomplishment, Branch Rickey’s signing of Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers organization in 1946 indubitably evokes altruistic feelings of racial progress in America. However, Bell’s interest convergence principle argues that elite Whites in America will not further the status of Black Americans without receiving equal or greater benefit in return for their so-called altruism. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to provide readers with a worthwhile and critical new perspective regarding the integration of MLB by analyzing it through the lens of the interest convergence principle.
Balkin, J. ( 2004). What Brown teaches us about constitutional theory. Virginia Law Review, 90(6), 1537-1578.
2.
Bell, D. ( 1980). Brown v. Board of Education and the interest-convergence dilemma. Harvard Law Review, 93(3), 518-533.
3.
Brown, D.A. ( 2007). Race and class matters in tax policy. Columbia Law Review, 107(3), 790-831.
4.
Brown, T.N. ( 2003). Critical race theory speaks to the sociology of mental health: Mental health problems produced by racial stratification. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 44(3), 292-301.
5.
Castagno, A.E., & Lee, S.J. ( 2007). Native mascots and ethnic fraud in higher education: Using tribal critical race theory and the interest convergence principle as an analytic tool. Equity & Excellence in Education, 40(1), 3-13.
6.
Crenshaw, K. ( 1988). Race, reform, and retrenchment: Transformation and legitimation in antidiscrimination law. Harvard Law Review, 101(7), 1331-1387.
7.
Crenshaw, K. ( 1995). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. In K. G. Crenshaw, N. Gotanda, G. Peller, & K. Thomas (Eds.), Critical race theory: The key writings that formed the movement (pp. 357-383). New York: New Press .
8.
Davis, T. ( 1999). Essay: Racism in athletics: Subtle yet persistent. University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review, 24, 881.
9.
DeCuir, J.T., & Dixson, A.D. ( 2004). "So when it comes out, they aren’t that surprised that it is there": Using critical race theory as a tool of analysis of race and racism in education. Educational Researcher, 33(5), 26-31.
10.
Delgado, R. ( 2006). Rodrigo’s roundelay: Hernandez v. Texas and the interest-convergence dilemma. Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, 41(1), 23-65.
11.
Donnor, J. ( 2005). Towards an interest-convergence in the education of African-American football student athletes in major college sports. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 45-67.
12.
Dudziak, M. ( 2004). Brown as a cold war case. Journal of American History, 91(1), 32-42.
13.
Forman, J., Jr., (2007). The rise and fall of school vouchers: A story of religion, race, and politics. UCLA Law Review, 54(3), 547-604.
14.
Fort, R., & Maxcy, J. ( 2001). The demise of African American baseball leagues: A rival league explanation. Journal of Sports Economics, 2(1), 35-49.
15.
Gaines, K. ( 2004). Whose integration was it? An introduction. Journal of American History, 91(1), 19-25.
16.
Gerken, H. ( 2007). Justice Kennedy and the domains of equal protection. Harvard Law Review, 121(1), 104-130.
17.
Haney-Lopez, I. ( 1996). White by law: The legal construction of race. New York: New York University Press.
18.
Harris, C. ( 1993). Whiteness as property. Harvard Law Review , 106(8), 1707-1791.
19.
Ladsen-Billings, G., & Tate, W.F., VI (1995). Toward a critical theory of education . Teachers College Record, 97(1), 47-68.
20.
Lanctot, N. ( 2004). Negro league baseball: The rise and ruin of a Black institution . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
21.
Lapchick, R. ( 2008). The 2006-2007 racial and gender report card: College sport. Orlando: University of Central Florida.
22.
Leavy, W. ( 1995, June). 50 years of Blacks in baseball. Ebony, pp. 38-40, 42, 128.
23.
Lobel, O. ( 2007). The paradox of extralegal activism: Critical legal consciousness and transformative politics. Harvard Law Review, 120(4), 938-988.
24.
Lomax, M.E. ( 2003). Black baseball entrepreneurs 1860-1901: Operating by any means necessary. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.
25.
Manley, E. ( 1948, August). Negro baseball isn’t dead. Our World, pp. 27-28.
26.
Miller, P. B., & Wiggins, D. K. (Eds.). (2004). Sport and the color line: Black athletes and race relations in twentieth-century America . New York: Routledge.
27.
Milner, H.R. ( 2008). Critical race theory and interest convergence as analytical tools in teacher education policies and practices. Journal of Teacher Education, 59(4), 332-346.
28.
Ogden, D., & Rose, R. ( 2005). Using Gidden’s structuration theory to examine the waning participation of African Americans in baseball. Journal of Black Studies, 35(4), 225-245.
29.
Perea, J. ( 2004). Buscando Amee: Rica: Why integration and equal protection fail to protect Latinos. Harvard Law Review, 117(5), 1420-1469.
30.
Peterson, R. ( 1970). Only the ball was white. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
31.
Powers, J. ( 2007). The relevance of critical race theory to educational theory and practice. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 41(1), 151-166.
32.
Rogers, J., & Oakes, J. ( 2005). John Dewey speaks to Brown: Research, democratic social movement strategies, and the struggle for education on equal terms. Teachers College Record, 107(9), 107-126.
33.
Rubin, E. ( 1996). The new legal process, the synthesis of discourse, and the microanalysis of institutions. Harvard Law Review, 109(6), 1393-1438.
34.
Shiu, A. ( 2006). On loss: Anticipating a future for AsianAmerican studies. MELUS, 31(1), 3-33.
35.
Singer, J.N. ( 2009). African American football athletes’ perspectives on institutional integrity in college sport. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 80(1), 102-116.
36.
Snipes, V.T., & Waters, R.D. ( 2005). The mathematics education of African Americans in North Carolina: From the Brown decision to No Child Left Behind. Negro Educational Review, 56(2/3), 107-126.
37.
Tate, W. ( 1997). Critical race theory and education: History, theory, and implications. In M. Apple (Ed.), Review of research in education (Vol. 2, pp. 191-243). Washington, DC: American Educational Association.
38.
Taylor, E. ( 1998). A primer on critical race theory. Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 19, 122-124.
39.
Taylor, E. ( 1999). Critical race theory and interest convergence in the desegregation of higher education. In L. Parker , D. Deyhle, & S. Villenas (Eds.), Race is . . . race isn’t: Critical race theory and qualitative studies in education (pp. 181-204). Boulder, CO: Westview.
40.
Ward, G., & Burns, K. ( 1994). Baseball: An illustrated history. New York: Knopf.
41.
Ward, G., Burns, K., & O’Connor, J. (1994). Shadow ball: The history of the Negro leagues. New York: Knopf.
42.
Wing, A. ( 1996). Critical race feminism and the international human rights of women in Bosnia, Palestine, and South Africa: Issues for LatCrit theory . University of Miami Inter-American Law Review, 33, 337-360.
