Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete

Describing Michael Jordan as “one of the most intriguing athletes of the century” (196), Rhoden uses this chapter to explore Jordan’s career and to castigate him outright for trading his potential political might in exchange for financial security. Rhoden writes, “black athletes like Jordan have abdicated their responsibility to the community with an apathy that borders on treason” (200).

Rhoden lists the many instances in which Jordan refused to contribute to any agenda other than his own. He refused to publicly denounce segregationist Jesse Helms, who was running for Senate. He offered little or no comment when informed that Nike used Asian sweatshops. Upon hearing news of young people killing each other over his expensive footwear, Jordan simply asked the victims to surrender. Given an opportunity to get involved in student demands for a separate Black Studies department at his alma mater, Jordan refused. Finally, on the victory stand during the 1992 Summer Olympics, Jordan draped the American flag over his Reebok-designed sweat suit, not, Rhoden concludes, as a show of “patriotism or protest, but to hide the Reebok label” (217).

Rhoden also considers Jordan to be an invention of sorts: His sports attorney, David Falk, realized the marketing potential that Jordan possessed and had a hand in controlling Jordan’s image of neutrality, securing heavy profits for both of them in return.

The final irony for Rhoden is that Jordan, once he was no longer useful as an athlete, expected to be put in a partnership with the owner of the Washington Wizards. Instead, he was dismissed, “effectively taken out into the yard,” Rhoden writes, “and shot like a dog” (206).

Rhoden seeks to answer the question of why Lusia Harris, Olympic medal winner and “the first dominant force in women’s basketball” (219), has been all but forgotten. In 1975, Harris led her unknown team from Delta State University in Mississippi to win their first of three consecutive national championships. While teammates and other players of Harris’s generation found later success in the sports industry, “Harris is largely unknown, and there has been no sustained effort to resuscitate her memory” (220). While Harris did have a brief professional career, her ambition was to coach at her alma mater. She was, however, passed over in favor of a white man. She would end up at Houston’s Texas Southern University, only to be fired after two seasons.

Rhoden notes that, despite the advances of Title IX—a law intended to create equality in the funding of men’s and women’s programs within educational institutions—players like Harris were doomed to obscurity because of the double burden of being black and being a woman: “African American women have not had an extended moment in the sun; the women’s movement in sports has suffered as a result” (227).

Rhoden traces the plight of African American women to Sojourner Truth, who addressed the issue of feminism in 1951 during a speech at a women’s rights convention. Truth pointed to white feminists as failing to address the situation of African American women; this idea continues in the sports world, Rhoden argues, suggesting that feminist leaders must address issues of race and class to achieve an inclusive movement.