Strong Inside: Perry Wallace and the Collision of Race and Sports in the South by Andrew Maraniss

Abstract

STRONG INSIDE: Perry Wallace and Collision of Race and Sports in South. By Andrew Maraniss. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. 2015.In February 2015, Serena Williams surprised world when she announced that she would return to Indian Wells; a tournament she had boycotted permanently. In 2001, a predominately white crowd booed and harangued then-nineteen-year-old entire match because they believed that her sister, Venus, had pulled out of a match at last minute to avoid playing Serena in semifinals. Distraught and traumatized, Serena, then 19-years-old, wept in locker room for several hours and vowed never to return. For years Indian Wells officials begged her to return. For thirteen years she declined, but in February of 2015 she had a change of heart after reading Nelson Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. She learned that victims are expected to extend sentiment and gesture of reconciliation.Andrew Maraniss's Strong Inside: Perry Wallace and Collision of Race and Sports in South seems to follow a similar pattern as it outlines traumatic journey of first African American to play in South Eastern Conference (SEC). In this narrative, Wallace resolves that bitterness would only earn him scorn. The contemporary reader who annually watches University of Kentucky trot out five blue-chip African-American freshman basketball players in hopes of capturing a national title may be astonished to discover what Kentucky used to be and Wallace's pioneering efforts. The Kentucky of Perry's era would never have considered starting five freshmen-and certainly not a single African-American player. Few contemporary players realize that they have Perry Wallace to thank. Wallace's inner strength and resolve to withstand unimaginable strife, vitriol, and abuse to break racial barriers deserves more notice.In Strong Inside, Maraniss, a former member of Vanderbilt University athletic department, tells story of Perry Wallace's historic effort to successfully break SEC color line. Maraniss is perhaps best person to write about Wallace's historic trials and tribulations and his journey to desegregate SEC basketball because he wrote about Wallace while he an undergraduate at Vanderbilt. He interviewed Wallace, and, at one time, he director of media relations for Vanderbilt Athletic Department. Thus his knowledge of institution and its culture, along with his access to key archival material, prepared him to tell as whole of a story as possible. The book falls within trajectory of recent books about race and sports like Kenneth L. Shropshire's Sports Matters: Leadership, Power, and Quest for Respect in Sports, Jennifer H. Lansbury's A Spectacular Leap: Black Women Athletes in Twentieth Century America, and James Conyers, Jr. edited book Race in American Sports, among others.A strength of Maraniss's Strong Inside is that it is several connected stories. Not only is it about Wallace, but also about his teammate Dillard, South, Vanderbilt University's racist past, civil rights struggle in South led by James Lawson, and Chancellor Heard's struggle to uphold his belief in universities as spaces where one's plea for fuller freedom can be calmly debated and heard.The narrative gets especially interesting once Wallace's black teammate, proud Godfrey Dillard appears. Maraniss is to be commended for making Dillard such a significant part of Wallace's narrative. Dillard, who signed with Vanderbilt seven days after Wallace, is often a forgotten figure. A native of Detroit, Dillard not your typical African-American recruit of 1960s. He attended an integrated Catholic school in Detroit, and unlike Wallace he wanted to go to South. His reverse migration about becoming the SEC's first black ballplayer and it was only reason [he] wanted to head south (107). …