“Our Life Out of the Dungeon”

Abstract

Abstract “Our Life Out of the Dungeon” examines the life and career of Robert L. Vaughan, the legendary and longtime head basketball coach at Elizabeth City State University, an Historically Black University, and explores the racial and cultural politics of Black college basketball in the twentieth-century United States. Using oral history and Vaughan's words, this article moves Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Black college basketball to the forefront of African American history and sport history, providing a window onto the world of college basketball that existed on the other side of the color line and in the decades after segregation. African Americans at HBCUs revolutionized basketball and transformed the sport into a cultural staple that shaped Black people, communities, and institutions. Through Vaughan's words and experiences, we can understand the struggles and successes and the political and cultural language of Black college basketball within the context of what I call the “politics of Black athletic emancipation”—a Black athletic agenda that stood in opposition to racism and white supremacy and reverberated the ethos of self-determination and collective striving of African Americans who demanded the right to be free and the right to play basketball.