WE'VE GOTTEN USED TO a certain kind of narrative about the integration of sports. In Remember the Titans, which chronicles the integration of T. C. Williams High School in Virginia, black and white youth use football as a way to break down their own racial mistrust, leading the entire community to see past race. In becoming a team committed to a single goal, they have no other choice but to trust each other and work together. Ultimately becoming brothers on and then off the field, the players teach their classmates and the entire community that success can come about only through racial unity — a lesson that everyone is able to learn rather easily by the film's end. In other Hollywood films, too — Glory Road, Invictus, The Express — racial tension and misunderstanding are lessened through shared sacrifice, teamwork, and people learning about each other. 

In answering the perennial liberal question "Why can't we all just get along?", the Hollywood sports film offers a laissez-faire solution to racism: Put everyone in the same uniform, let them duke it out for 90 minutes or so, and, eventually, we all will. It's human nature.

In reality, though, the integration of American sports was anything but a natural or organic process. It was a struggle, a history of athletes and non-athletes carrying the mantle of civil rights on the field and in arenas, sidestepping the dangers of would-be-defenders and resistance from segregationists. Erasing the violence of integration and institutional racism, these films obscure the activism and organizing that facilitated the integration of American sports culture, from the collegiate realm up to the professional ranks. Nor did integration come about because of the singular efforts of heroic individuals like Herman Boone, Jackie Robinson, Ernie Davis, or Don Haskins. They were part of the larger struggle for civil rights in America. 

In fact the integration of sports, like American integration in general, had many causes, and must be interpreted holistically, as Lane Demas does in Integrating the Gridiron: Black Civil Rights and American College Football. Documenting "both a tedious, long struggle and a dramatic transformation," Integrating the Gridiron challenges the "great man" theory of sports history, one that emphasizes the determination, personal fortitude, and athletic greatness of a few transcendent figures. Instead of individuals, Demas focuses on institutions. Light on heroes overcoming adversity (from avoiding would-be-tacklers to overcoming limited talent and resources) or rags-to-riches, pull-yourself-up-by-your-shoelace narratives, Demas offers a story of teams — college teams, the team of the black press, civil rights organizations. He tells a story of collective agitation that brought athletes and their allies together to change the sporting landscape forever. 

"Neither a single 'colorline' nor a single integrating figure in college football emerged," Demas writes; "instead, a tediously slow and arduous process spanned eight years and countless players." Whereas public accommodations, American schools, and even baseball saw dramatic challenges to segregation during the 1940s and 1950s, football lagged behind the tide of integration. Successful challenges that led individuals to integrate specific teams never grew into a movement that was linked to iconic figures or dramatic challenges. There was no Little Ro...