PHILADELPHIA — In an era where the soul of traditional high school basketball is increasingly traded for national spotlight and transactional deals, one Philadelphia powerhouse is drawing a line on the hardwood of its home court. The Neumann-Goretti Saints boys’ basketball program today announced the launch of the “Patron Saint Donor Campaign,” a clarion call to preserve the last vestiges of Philly’s traditional scholastic basketball.
The campaign is not merely a fundraiser; it is an innovative and ncessary mobilization. It is a bid for reinforcements in a quiet but intensifying war for the very identity of the sport. For decades, elite basketball was forged in the crucible of local rivalry—in the packed, echoing gyms of neighborhood Catholic and public schools where the dreams were city titles, district crowns, and state championships. The heroes wore the names of their communities on their chests.
That era is fading. Today, the gravitational pull of national basketball academies, with their focus on individual rankings and nascent NIL empires, is siphoning talent from the historic bastions of the game. Iconic programs like Neumann-Goretti, Roman Catholic, DeMatha, Camden, Imhotep, and Chester—institutions that are pillars of their cities—find themselves battling not just for wins, but for their existential relevance.
Yet, Neumann-Goretti refuses to cede the court. The Saints continue to compete at the highest national level, consistently facing off against well-funded, coast-to-coast academies. Their strategy is not to emulate these new models, but to defeat them through the very traditions that built the program: deep local talent, ferocious team identity, and the unbreakable bond between a team and its community.
“This campaign is an innovative response to a national problem,” said Delgreco Wilson, Black Cager Sports. “Neumann-Goretti is not a franchise. It is a Philadelphia institution. To win this fight, they need the army that has always been their foundation: their community.”
The Patron Saint Donor Campaign offers basketball purists and Philadelphia loyalists a direct stake in this struggle.
For the 2025-26 season, a limited cadre of just 20 supporters will be enlisted as “Patron Saints.” A donation of $100 secures this enlistment, granting:
Free entry to all Neumann-Goretti HOME games, guaranteeing a seat at every battle, even sellouts against national opponents.
A distinctive Patron Saints t-shirt, a uniform of solidarity.\
A $10 coupon for the official team store.
“We are calling on anyone who loves what high school basketball was, and what it still should be,” said Assistant Coach Pat Sorrentino. “When you become a Patron Saint, you are not just buying a ticket. You are enlisting in the cause. You are helping to ensure that the future of this game isn’t shaped solely in impersonal academies, but continues to thrive on the home floors where passion is born and legends are made.”
The offer is intentionally exclusive, mirroring the prized, hard-fought nature of a spot on the Saints’ roster itself.
The mission is clear: to provide the resources for Neumann-Goretti to continue its dual quest—to hunt national titles while fiercely guarding the local, communal soul of the sport.
To learn more and to enlist as a Patron Saint for the 2025-26 season, visit the Neumann-Goretti Athletics website. All 20 spots are expected to be claimed swiftly by those who believe the fight is worth the price of admission.
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About Neumann-Goretti High School: Neumann-Goretti High School, a Catholic secondary school in the Franciscan tradition located in the heart of South Philadelphia, has long been a national epicenter for basketball excellence. Its program is defined by a profound commitment to community, discipline, and the development of young men as both athletes and citizens, producing countless collegiate standouts and professional players.
PHILADELPHIA, PA – To watch Shedeur Sanders play quarterback—with his pre-snap poise, his audacious no-look passes, his celebrated, unflappable “Shedeur Face”—is to witness more than a talented athlete. It is to observe a cultural reclamation project. His overwhelming support within the Black community, often chalked up simplistically to his confidence and swagger, is rooted in something far deeper than style. It is a profound, collective recognition. It is the applause of a community that sees in his assured success not just one man’s triumph, but a symbolic redress of a brutal, systemic history—a history whose scars are woven into the very DNA of Black American experience.
The Foundation: American Apartheid on the Playing Field That history is an American Apartheid, a regime of exclusion not confined to the Deep South but sanctioned at the highest levels of national life, including the playing fields. From its inception in 1906 through the early 1970s, the NCAA operated as a gentlemen’s agreement for segregation, formally barring Black athletes from member institutions, particularly in the powerhouse conferences of the South. For seven decades, the Paul Robesons, Jackie Robinsons, and Jesse Owenses were brilliant, solitary exceptions proving a cruel rule. The Civil Rights Movement forced the gates open, leading to the rapid “tanning” of revenue sports by the 1980s. But the institutional response was not embrace, but a strategic recalibration of exclusion.
The Bureaucratic Barrier: When “Eligibility” Became the New Gate When blatant segregation became illegal and immoral, the mechanisms of denial became bureaucratic. The NCAA’s evolving “initial eligibility” rules—Proposition 48, the Core Course requirements, sliding GPA scales tied to standardized tests—were weaponized as a more nuanced gate. Legends like Georgetown’s John Thompson II and Temple’s John Chaney, towering figures who used their platforms without apology, called this what it was: racism. “The NCAA is a racist organization of the highest order,” Chaney declared in 1989, framing the rules as a new punishment for Black kids already punished by poverty. Thompson saw the cynical cycle: athletes were used as integration’s pawns under the guise of benevolence, then discarded with the same paternalistic logic when their numbers grew too great.
The Instinctual Knowledge: A Community Remembers What Was Lost This is the buried trauma in the collective memory of Black sports fandom. It is the instinctual knowledge that for every Shedeur Sanders lighting up a Power 5 stadium today, there were countless Willie “Satchel” Pages, “Bullet” Bob Hayeses, and Doug Williamses of yesteryear who were denied the stage, their stats relegated to the glory of HBCU lore, their professional careers delayed or diminished. It is the understanding that the path was not cleared, but grudgingly conceded, inch by contested inch.
This brings us back to Shedeur. His journey is a direct rebuke to that entire historical project of exclusion.
Shedeur as Historical Agency, Not Just Athletic Talent He began not at a traditional blue-blood program, but at Jackson State University, an HBCU, under his father’s tutelage. There, he didn’t just play; he dominated, showcasing a talent so undeniable it forced the mainstream to look to the HBCU, reversing the decades-long drain of talent from them. His subsequent transfer to Colorado and his record-shattering performance—37 touchdowns, 4,134 yards, Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year—wasn’t an assimilation. It was an annexation. He carried the HBCU-developed swagger into Boulder and made it the epicenter of college football.
His confidence, therefore, is read by the Black community as more than personal bravado. It is historical agency. It is the embodiment of a truth: “You could not keep us out forever, and now that we are in, we will not perform with grateful humility. We will excel with the unmistakable flair of those who know the cost of the seat we now occupy.” His much-discussed “swagger” is the posture of liberation from the historical narrative of being the excluded, the regulated, the “problem” to be managed by NCAA legislation.
The Echo in the Draft: A Familiar Story Reinforces the Bond The fact that his prolific college career culminated in a fifth-round NFL draft pick—seen by many as a slight given his production—only reinforces the narrative. The community, schooled by history, sees the echoes: the subtle devaluation, the search for flaws in the Black quarterback, the institutional reluctance to anoint him the franchise cornerstone his college play warranted. Yet, even in that perceived slight, the support does not waver; it intensifies. Because the story is no longer about what the gatekeepers decide. It’s about what Shedeur, and by extension the community that sees itself in him, has already proven.
An Unfinished Battle, and a Symbol of Its Progress The contemporary NCAA debate continues, now often couched in the softer language of “unintended consequences” for minority students, as noted by groups like the National Association for Coaching Equity and Development. But the shift from Chaney’s and Thompson’s explicit charges of racism to today’s milder objections itself tells a story of a battle partly won, yet ongoing.
Shedeur Sanders walks onto the field bearing the weight and the defiance of that unfinished battle. The Black community’s embrace is a celebration of his individual talent, yes, but it is also a collective, cathartic affirmation. It is the joy of witnessing a grandson of American Apartheid not just cross the forbidden line, but do so with a dismissive wave, a nod to the crowd, and a perfect spiral into the end zone. His confidence is their vindication. His swagger is their memory, weaponized, and set free.
By Delgreco K. Wilson, Contributing Opinion Writer
For centuries in America, a grim and paradoxical transaction has shadowed the Black quest for advancement: the exchange of communal fidelity for individual freedom. It is a bargain as old as the nation itself, rooted not in the brutality of the whip, but in the insidious mechanics of psychological and economic leverage. Today, we witness a modern, media-saturated iteration of this dynamic. In the sprawling arena of sports commentary, figures like Stephen A. Smith and Jason Whitlock have built lucrative empires. Their success, however, is shadowed by a persistent and bitter accusation from within the Black community: that they are “coons,” a devastating label of racial betrayal. Their critics are identifying a pattern that feels like a 21st-century performance of meritorious manumission—a striving for personal elevation and favor by servicing narratives that comfort a powerful, predominantly white conservative audience, often at the expense of Black solidarity.
The Historical Bargain: Labor for a Glimmer of Freedom
The foundation of this American transaction is centuries deep. The economic architecture of the early republic was built on Black labor without Black liberty. From the cotton fields that fueled the national economy to the domestic servitude that sustained its households, Black work was the indispensable engine. Yet, the profit from that labor was perpetually alienated. The promise, always dangling, was that exceptional service, superhuman diligence, or unwavering loyalty might be rewarded with a sliver of relief—a less cruel master, a chance to buy one’s family, a mythical pathway to acceptance. This established a corrosive template: advancement could be contingent on reinforcing the system’s logic and calming its conscience. The doctrine of “racial uplift” that followed Emancipation demanded impeccable, respectable conduct to assuage white America’s fears and guilt, proving worthiness for basic citizenship. Diligence became a currency, not just for wages, but for attempting to purchase dignity from a system that withheld it by design.
The Modern Marketplace: From Plantations to Podcasts
The post-Civil Rights era did not erase this template; it digitized and broadcast it. The terrain shifted from physical plantations to cultural and ideological ones. As structural and institutional racism persisted, a new marketplace emerged for Black voices willing to translate Black struggle for white audiences, particularly those eager to believe the work of racial justice is complete. This is where the spectacle of figures like Smith and Whitlock becomes a case study. Their playbook is not one of outright bigotry, but of strategic division and absolution, performed for mass consumption. They operate within a media ecosystem that generously rewards controversy that confirms existing biases, creating a powerful incentive to mine intra-community conflict for content that resonates with a broader, whiter audience.
The Playbook of Modern Manumission
Their performance manifests in several consistent, damaging patterns:
The Dilution of Collective Grievance. When vandals scrawled a racial slur on LeBron James’s home, Jason Whitlock dismissed it as a “disrespectful inconvenience,” arguing racism is “primarily an issue for the poor” and that wealthy Black people should not “embrace victimhood.” This is a classic maneuver. By creating a class hierarchy of pain, he fractures communal empathy and offers a narrative of exception. It tells white audiences that systemic racism is either overstated or a crutch for the unsuccessful, while offering successful Black individuals a ticket out of collective identity—if they renounce it.
The Policing of Black Expression. Stephen A. Smith faced backlash for instructing Black Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett on how she “should talk to the President,” a moment critics saw as enforcing respectability politics. This echoes the historical demand that Black anger be polished into palatable, non-threatening discourse. The transaction here is clear: temper your tone, conform to my comfort, and your voice will be amplified on my platform. It is a modern-day echo of being rewarded for “knowing one’s place” in the conversation.
The Strategic Alliance. Perhaps most revealing is the alignment with architects of racial backlash. Smith’s frequent appearances on Sean Hannity’s show are not incidental. Hannity, who trafficked in the racist “birther” conspiracy against President Barack Obama, represents a media ecosystem invested in denying the very structural racism that defines so much of Black American life. To be a welcomed guest in that house is to perform a powerful act of reassurance. It signals that the analysis will not be too sharp, the history not too inconvenient, the demands not too disruptive. This alliance is the clearest evidence of the transaction: access and platform in exchange for a veneer of ideological diversity that demands little substantive change.
A Spectacle Within the Spectacle: The Smith-Whitlock Feud
The bitter, very public feud between Smith and Whitlock themselves underscores the performative nature of this space. They trade nuclear insults, with Smith calling Whitlock “the devil in the flesh” and “worse than a white supremacist,” while Whitlock labels Smith a “fraud” and a “pathological liar” installed by corporate powers. This is more than personal animus; it is a brutal competition within a narrow lane. They are jousting for the crown of the most compelling Black voice in the conservative-coded spectacle, each accusing the other of the very inauthenticity and opportunism their critics see in them both. It is a meta-commentary on the transaction itself, exposing the ruthless jockeying for position and favor that underlies it. Their conflict dramatizes the ultimate isolation of this path: a solitary pursuit of status that necessitates tearing down the nearest competitor, leaving solidarity in ruins.
The Justification for Disavowal: Preserving Collective Struggle
And so, the community’s fierce condemnation—the label of “coon,” the disavowal—is not a denial of their right to individual opinion. It is a historical and political judgment. It is the recognition that their chosen path to “merit” mirrors the old, soul-crushing bargain. They are seen as seeking manumission from the burdens of racial solidarity by performing a service: managing Black anger, explaining away Black pain, and validating the view that the primary remaining barriers are personal, not systemic.
The justified fury they provoke is born of a deep understanding that true liberation has never been won through these solitary transactions. The March on Washington, the Civil Rights Act, the political power of the Black electorate—these were won through collective struggle, un-bought and un-bossed. To see Black media elites today build personal wealth and brand power by seemingly undermining that collective project feels like a profound betrayal. It is the spectacle of the historically shackled selling a blueprint for lighter chains, and calling it freedom.
Conclusion: The Unfinished Story and the Refusal
In the end, the saga of Smith and Whitlock is a painful reflection of an unfinished American story. It reveals that the marketplace for racial commentary still rewards those who make the complex simple, the systemic personal, and the uncomfortable soothing. Their success is a testament not to their individual genius, but to the enduring demand for a certain kind of Black voice—one that, for a price, helps assuage a nation’s guilt without demanding the fundamental change that true absolution requires. The Black community’s disowning of this model is not an act of censorship, but an act of preservation. It is a refusal to let the transaction of the past define the value of their future. It is a declaration that some forms of meritorious manumission are, in fact, a more sophisticated bondage.
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Delgreco Wilson
Wilson formerly taught Comparative Politics and International Relations at Lincoln University. He is a leading political analyst, educator, and advocate whose work centers on empowering Black Americans through a deeper understanding of political strategy and its historical roots in the fight against systemic racism and white supremacy. A prominent voice in the Greater Philadelphia Region, Wilson brings a wealth of academic rigor and real-world insight to his analysis of Black political thought and action.
Wilson’s expertise extends beyond the classroom. His incisive columns and articles have been featured in prominent publications such as the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Tribune, Baltimore Afro-American and Delaware County Daily Times. A sought-after commentator, he regularly contributes to radio programs and podcasts across the Mid-Atlantic region, offering sharp analysis and actionable strategies for advancing racial justice and equity.
CAMDEN, NJ – When the logic of the market replaces the ethics of democracy in political discourse, we all lose.
In the annals of American sports commentary, few declarations have been as revealing as Stephen A. Smith’s famous professional mantra: “I wake up every day asking, ‘how can I make my bosses more money?’ and then ‘how can I get some of it?'” This philosophy has propelled him to the pinnacle of sports entertainment, culminating in a recent ESPN contract worth over $100 million for five years. But when this same transactional worldview—where value is measured exclusively in revenue and influence is calibrated for profit—extends into the realm of political analysis, it threatens to degrade our democratic discourse and undermines the particular responsibilities of Black public figures in an era of political crisis.
Smith’s foray into political commentary and his openness to a 2028 presidential run have made him a lightning rod in Black intellectual circles, where his commentary is increasingly viewed as vacuous at best and dangerously aligned with MAGA interests at worst. The controversy surrounding him represents more than just another celebrity dabbling in politics; it exemplifies the dangerous convergence of entertainment and governance in modern America and resurrects painful historical questions about the pressure on Black figures to seek validation from white-dominated institutions.
The Profit Motive in Political Commentary: When Everything Becomes a Business
Stephen A. Smith’s business philosophy, however successful in sports entertainment, becomes profoundly problematic when applied to political analysis. The fundamental incompatibility lies in their core values: democratic discourse requires truth-seeking, principled argument, and concern for the common good, while market logic prioritizes profit, audience growth, and personal brand expansion. Smith has explicitly acknowledged his lack of political expertise, telling The Washington Post, “I’m certainly not an aficionado by any stretch of the imagination… Most Americans are not aficionados. They don’t know all the intimacies and intricacies of every single issue”. Yet rather than humbly acknowledging these limitations, he presents them as a credential of authenticity.
This approach has tangible consequences. Political analysis driven by entertainment values gravitates toward sensationalism over substance, conflict over consensus, and viral moments over nuanced truth. Smith’s commentary follows this pattern—loud, confident, and often lacking in policy depth. As journalist Carron J. Phillips noted in The Contrarian, “Politics, like elections, have real-world consequences. Thick skin is mandatory in the political landscape. And, given recent examples, Smith hasn’t proved he can take a punch in this arena”. The same performance that works for sports debate becomes irresponsible when discussing issues like tariffs, foreign policy, or civil rights.
Smith’s political rise reflects what happens when celebrity status masquerades as expertise. His appearance in presidential polls and his serious consideration of a 2028 run—despite having never held office or demonstrated deep policy knowledge—speaks to our degraded political landscape. As Bill Whalen, a former media consultant for Arnold Schwarzenegger, observed, “The question is, what does Stephen A Smith believe in at the end of the day?… Where is Stephen A Smith on abortion? Where is he on DEI? Where is he on quotas and affirmative action? Where is he on crime? Where is he on spending? The list goes on. You just don’t know”.
Historical Context: The Burden of Seeking White Validation
To understand the strong reaction to Smith’s political commentary within Black communities, one must appreciate the historical burden of what it has meant for Black Americans to navigate white-dominated institutions and seek acceptance within them. This dynamic is not rooted in any inherent trait of Black people but in powerful structures created by centuries of oppression:
The Legacy of Slavery and Jim Crow: For centuries, Black people were systematically dehumanized, with the slave master’s approval often meaning the difference between better treatment and brutal punishment. Under Jim Crow, access to resources, justice, and safety frequently depended on being deemed “respectable” by the white power structure.
Respectability Politics: This strategy emerged whereby marginalized groups attempted to police their own members to align with dominant culture’s values, hoping this would grant them social mobility and rights. The unspoken promise was that if Black people acted “properly,” they would be seen as more human and deserving by white society.
Gatekeepers of Opportunity: Throughout American history, the primary gatekeepers of economic, political, and cultural power—CEOs, university admissions officers, publishers, Hollywood executives—have been overwhelmingly white. Gaining validation from these gatekeepers often appeared the most direct path to economic mobility, educational access, and cultural representation.
Against this historical backdrop, Stephen A. Smith’s approach reads to many critics as a modern manifestation of these dynamics—a Black public figure gaining platform and reward through amplifying viewpoints that align with white conservative interests rather than community needs.
Stephen A. Smith’s Political Evolution and Black Opposition
Smith’s political positioning has evolved into what he describes as a “fiscal conservative and a social liberal” who is “utterly disgusted” with the Democratic Party. While he claims the mantle of an independent thinker, his commentary consistently aligns with MAGA talking points that have drawn criticism from Black intellectuals and community members.
Table: Stephen A. Smith’s Political Positioning and Community Response
Smith’s commentary on Black voting patterns has been particularly contentious. He has lamented what he calls Black voters’ “unconditional loyalty” to Democrats, arguing that this “disenfranchises” the community by reducing its political leverage. While this argument contains a strategic logic, many critics note that it ignores the historical reasons for Black alignment with Democrats—including the party’s support for civil rights legislation and the Republican Party’s embrace of voter suppression tactics and politicians with white nationalist ties.
The backlash against Smith reflects a broader rejection of what many see as his transactional approach to racial justice. His commentary often frames political choices in terms of market-style negotiation rather than principles of justice or historical solidarity. This approach strikes many Black critics as not just politically naive but historically ignorant of how racial hierarchy actually functions in America.
The perception of Smith as aligned with MAGA interests intensified when Donald Trump himself endorsed a potential Smith presidential run, saying he’d “love to see him run” and praising his “great entertainment skills”. For many Black observers, Trump’s endorsement confirmed Smith’s alignment with political forces that have shown consistent hostility to Black civil rights and democratic participation.
Conclusion: Beyond Transactional Politics
Stephen A. Smith’s extension of his profit-first philosophy into political commentary represents a dangerous narrowing of democratic possibility. It reduces citizenship to a transaction and political discourse to entertainment. The strong negative response from Black intellectual circles reflects not just disagreement with his specific positions but a profound understanding of what happens when community interests are subordinated to personal brand-building and revenue generation.
The challenge for Black communities—and for American democracy broadly—is to resist the siren song of transactional politics that measures value primarily in ratings and revenue. What makes Stephen A. Smith’s political commentary so concerning is not that he holds conservative views, but that his entire approach to politics appears to mirror his approach to business: everything is a negotiation, every principle has a price, and the highest value is expanding one’s own platform and profit.
As we navigate the complex political landscape of 2025 and look toward future elections, the need for authentic representation grounded in community accountability has never been more urgent. The alternative—a political discourse dominated by entertainment values and personal profit motives—threatens to complete the corrosion of our democratic institutions. Black communities’ rejection of Stephen A. Smith’s political brand represents not closed-mindedness but a hard-won understanding that some things—justice, representation, human dignity—should never be put on the auction block.
PHILADELPHIA, PA – The tectonic plates of college sports have shifted, and the landscape will never be the same.
For decades, the world of college athletics operated as a coherent, predictable universe. It was a system where the term “student-athlete” was sacrosanct, amateurism was the guiding creed, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) was the unquestioned governing authority. This model, however, has not merely evolved. It has been violently upended. The past five years have witnessed what the philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn would term a “paradigm shift”—a revolutionary, non-cumulative break from the old order, driven by legal challenges that shattered the NCAA’s foundational principles.
Temple alum and former NBA player, Marc Jackson announcing the La Salle vs Temple matchup
The emergence of name, image, and likeness (NIL) compensation and unlimited transfers with immediate eligibility has not reformed the system; it has created a new one, fundamentally altering the nature of college sports, especially football and men’s and women’s basketball.
The Kuhn Framework: How Revolutions Unfold
To understand what is happening in college sports, one must first understand Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions. In his seminal 1962 work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn argued that scientific progress is not a linear, cumulative process. Instead, it occurs through violent ruptures he called “paradigm shifts”.
La Salle forward Jerome Brewer
A paradigm is a framework of beliefs, values, and techniques shared by a community. For a time, it provides model problems and solutions in a process Kuhn labeled “normal science.”
But eventually, anomalies—observations the prevailing paradigm cannot explain—accumulate, leading to a period of crisis. This crisis deepens until the old paradigm is overthrown and replaced by a new, incompatible one. The new paradigm is “incommensurable” with the old; they are so different that proponents of each see the world differently, use different definitions, and fundamentally talk past one another. This is not a change in degree, but in kind. It is a gestalt switch, where a drawing that was once seen as a duck is now seen as a rabbit, and it is impossible to see both at once.
The Age of ‘Normal Science’ in College Athletics
For the better part of a century, college athletics existed in a prolonged state of Kuhn’s “normal science.” The dominant paradigm was the “amateur ideal.” Its core tenets were simple and universally accepted within the industry:
Camden resident and Big 5 fan, Hunner Cotton
No Pay-for-Play: Athletes were “amateurs” who could not be compensated for their athletic performance beyond the cost of attendance
Limited Mobility: Transfers were heavily restricted, often requiring athletes to sit out a year of competition, thereby discouraging movement
Institutional Control: The NCAA and its member institutions held absolute power to set and enforce the rules
This paradigm was not merely a set of rules; it was a worldview. It defined the very product. As Kuhn might have observed, it told everyone in the system—administrators, coaches, athletes, and fans—how to think and behave. It provided a stable, predictable environment where seasons unfolded with rosters fans could recognize from year to year, and where the NCAA’s authority was as assumed as the rules of gravity.
Accumulating Anomalies and the Onset of Crisis
The facade of this stable world began to crack under the weight of mounting anomalies. The commercial reality of college sports—the billion-dollar television contracts, massive coaching salaries, and lavish facilities—increasingly clashed with the amateur ideology.
Joe Mihalich, Special Assistant to the Head Coach at La Salle University
The sight of athletes, particularly in revenue-generating football and basketball, generating immense wealth without sharing in it became an undeniable contradiction.
This set the stage for a crisis, triggered by a series of legal challenges that acted as Kuhn’s “extraordinary research”. The courts became the laboratory where the old paradigm was tested and found wanting.
The Alston Decision: The pivotal blow came in 2021 from the U.S. Supreme Court in NCAA v. Alston. While the case specifically dealt with education-related benefits, Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion unequivocally declined to grant the NCAA “immunity from the normal operation of the antitrust laws”.
Justice Kavanaugh’s Concurrence: The true harbinger of revolution was Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s blistering concurrence. He called the ruling a necessary “course correction” and laid bare the anomaly at the system’s core: “Nowhere else in America can businesses get away with agreeing not to pay their workers a fair market rate on the theory that their product is defined by not paying their workers a fair market rate,” he wrote. “The NCAA is not above the law”.
This judicial dismantling of the NCAA’s legal shield created a state of deep crisis. The old paradigm was no longer tenable, and the search for a new one began.
Adam Fisher, Temple Head Coach
The Revolution Unleashed: A New World Order
The collapse of the old model under legal pressure has rapidly given way to a new paradigm, characterized by two revolutionary changes:
Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL): Since 2021, athletes have been allowed to profit from their fame through endorsements, appearances, and social media promotions. This was the death knell for pure amateurism.
Unlimited Transfers with Immediate Eligibility: Following relentless antitrust lawsuits from state attorneys general and the U.S. Department of Justice, the NCAA’s transfer restrictions have been eviscerated.
Athletes can now enter the transfer portal multiple times and play immediately at their new school, creating a system of year-round free agency.
The following table contrasts the core elements of the old and new paradigms in college athletics:
This new system is not merely an adjustment. It is a fundamental redefinition of what college sports are.
Bob Jordan, Temple Assistant Coach
Living in Incommensurable Worlds
The chasm between the old and new paradigms is so vast that they are, in Kuhn’s terms, incommensurable. Stakeholders are effectively living in different realities.
Different Standards: Concepts like “loyalty” and “team-building” now have entirely different meanings. A coach bemoaning a player’s lack of loyalty, based on the old standard of a four-year commitment, cannot communicate with a player operating in a new world where loyalty must be re-earned by the program year after year through NIL offers and playing time
Different Worlds: Coaches now navigate a “transactional culture”. As one soccer coach lamented regarding new roster limits, the focus is on “hit[ting] on virtually all of the 5-6 commits each year,” turning recruiting from an art of potential into a science of immediate ROI . Meanwhile, athletes see themselves not just as students, but as entrepreneurs managing their own brands.
Communication Breakdown: The same words mean different things. An “offer” from a school once meant an athletic scholarship. Now, it is a complex package of scholarship, NIL money from a collective, and potential branding opportunities. When administrators, coaches, athletes, and fans use the term “college sports,” they are, quite literally, talking about different things.
Temple star guard Aiden Tobiason
The View from the Palestra: A Case Study in Revolution
The human cost of this revolution is etched into the history of Philadelphia’s Big 5. For more than six decades, the rivalry between LaSalle, Pennsylvania, St. Joseph’s, Temple, and Villanova was a unique institution in college basketball, a frenetic and beloved intracity competition housed in the musty, hallowed halls of the Palestra.
Big 5 basketball as it existed for generations is dead.
The paradigm shift has turned its teams into annual collections of mercenaries. This year’s rosters at Temple, Villanova, and La Salle are not built through years of patient development and freshman recruiting classes. They are assembled through the transfer portal, featuring 12 to 15 new players who are, in effect, paid free agents. The continuity that allowed for deep, city-wide narratives and enduring player legacies has been shattered. The old-timers who cherish the traditions of the Palestra and the new-age fans who track transfer portal rankings now inhabit incommensurable worlds, looking at the same court but seeing entirely different games.
Darris Nichols, La Salle Head Coach
The Uncharted Future
Where this new paradigm will ultimately lead is still uncertain. The revolution has created winners and losers, bestowing newfound wealth and freedom on some athletes while creating instability and uncertainty for others. The core challenge of this nascent paradigm is its sheer chaos—a lack of uniform regulation, concerns over the exploitation of young athletes, and the erosion of any semblance of a level playing field.
Thomas Kuhn taught us that paradigm shifts are not about progress in a moral sense, but about the replacement of one worldview with another. The old paradigm of amateurism is gone, discredited by the courts and abandoned by the culture. The new paradigm of athlete empowerment and free agency is still crystallizing, its final shape unknown. The revolution is complete. The incommensurable has arrived. The games will continue, but they will never be the same.
I miss Micheal Brooks, John Pinone, Mo Martin, Rodney Blake, Howie Evans, Lionel Simmons, Mark Macon, Tim Perry, Mike Vreeswyk, Jameer Nelson, Rap Curry, Bernard Bunt, Jerome Allen, Matt Maloney and Rashid Bey on the court.
I miss John Chaney, Fran Dunphy, Bruiser Flint, Phil Martelli, John Giannini and Rollie Massimino on the sidelines.
PHILADELPHIA, PA – In the aftermath of the assassination of far-right commentator Charlie Kirk, a predictable and distressing pattern has emerged. His death has been met with solemn tributes from powerful allies who have chosen to whitewash a legacy defined by racial animus. Among them is Bruce Pearl, the high-profile head coach of Auburn University’s men’s basketball team. In voicing his “unequivocal support” for Kirk and stating that Kirk “was right about everything he said,” Pearl has offered a profound insight into his own worldview.
For the elite Black basketball prospects being relentlessly recruited by Pearl, and for the parents who entrust their sons to him, this endorsement is not a minor political aside. It is a glaring red flag. It reveals an alignment with a ideology that fundamentally devalues their humanity. In the high-stakes world of college athletics, where coaches wield immense power over the young men in their program, aligning with a coach who champions a racist provocateur is not just a risk—it is an unacceptable compromise.
The Unvarnished Racism of Charlie Kirk
To understand the gravity of Pearl’s endorsement, one must first confront the uncontested record of Charlie Kirk’s rhetoric. This was not a man engaged in good-faith political debate; he was a propagandist who built a career on dehumanization and racial stereotyping. His comments, meticulously documented over years on his show, reveal a deeply ingrained pattern of racism and white supremacy.
Kirk’s philosophy was rooted in the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, a white supremacist trope that claims a deliberate plot is underway to diminish the influence of white people. He stated, “The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different”. This theory, which has inspired mass shooters in Pittsburgh, El Paso, and Buffalo, was not a fringe element of his commentary but a central pillar.
His views on Black Americans were particularly venomous and relied on the oldest and most harmful stereotypes. He trafficked in the racist notion of Black criminality, asserting without evidence that “prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact”. He repeatedly questioned the intelligence and competence of Black people, especially in positions of authority. Upon seeing a Black pilot, his first thought was, “boy, I hope he’s qualified” . He reduced accomplished Black women to affirmative action tokens, crudely speculating that a Black customer service worker might be a “moronic Black woman” who got her job not through excellence but through quota systems. He went further, claiming that prominent Black women like Michelle Obama and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson lacked the “brain processing power” to be taken seriously and had to “steal a white person’s slot”.
His revisionist history on race was equally alarming. In a debate, he callously argued that “Black America is worse than it has been in the last 80 years,” downplaying the horrific era of Jim Crow lynching that saw thousands of Black Americans murdered by racist mobs. When confronted with this history, he dismissed it. He even labeled the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 a “mistake” that was turned into an “anti-white weapon.”
This body of work—a relentless campaign to question, demean, and belittle Black achievement and Black pain—is what Bruce Pearl has deemed “right about everything.”
The Power of a Coach and the Failure of Leadership
The role of a major collegiate basketball coach extends far beyond drawing up plays. For the young athletes who leave their homes to play for them, coaches become surrogate parents, mentors, and the most significant authority figures in their lives. They shape not only athletes but young men. Their influence touches on everything from discipline and work ethic to mental health, social awareness, and personal identity.
A coach’s worldview matters. It permeates the culture of the team. A coach who believes, as Kirk did, that systemic racism is a myth, will be ill-equipped to understand or support a player grappling with the realities of being a Black man on a predominantly white campus or dealing with racial abuse from fans. A coach who tacitly endorses the idea that Black people are prone to criminality will bring that bias to his interactions with his players. A coach who champions a movement that frames their very presence as a “replacement” of white America cannot be a true guardian of their well-being.
Bruce Pearl has voluntarily disqualified himself from this sacred trust. By fully embracing Kirk’s ideology, he has signaled that he operates in a reality where the legitimate fears, struggles, and historical oppression of Black people are either invisible or irrelevant to him. How can a young Black man expect empathy from a coach who applauds a man that called George Floyd a “scumbag”? How can a player trust a mentor who aligns with someone who believes the Civil Rights Act was an “anti-white” mistake?
This is not a partisan issue; it is a human one. It is about basic dignity. As an article in First and Pen argued, Pearl’s support for Kirk is part of a pattern of “racial politics” infused with “niceties” to aid recruitment, a strategy that allows him to benefit from the labor of the very people whose humanity his chosen ideology denigrates.
Auburn’s Troubling Environment and the Viable Alternatives
This is not an abstract concern. Auburn University has recently been grappling with its own serious allegations of racial inequity. A lawsuit filed by Travis Thomas, a former Black athletic academic advisor, alleges a hostile work environment and wrongful termination after he reported being berated by white supervisors and raised concerns about a grade being changed for a football player. While a court dismissed the hostile work environment claim due to the high legal bar for such cases, it allowed his claims of race discrimination and retaliation to proceed, noting a pattern of antagonism that followed his complaints. This case paints a picture of an athletic department where Black employees can feel marginalized and where speaking up carries risk.
Furthermore, the broader environment for Black college athletes is often psychologically taxing. They frequently compete at Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) where they are a minority, face racial microaggressions, and often feel unsupported by their institutions. They are pushed to their physical and mental limits by a system that has been criticized for profiting from their labor. In this high-pressure context, the need for a coach who is not just a tactical genius but a compassionate leader who understands their experience is paramount.
Prospects have a choice. They are not obligated to subject themselves to a coach who has endorsed a racist worldview. There are countless programs across the country with coaches who not not only excel at winning games but also actively strive to create an inclusive, supportive, and empowering environment for their Black players. These coaches understand that nurturing a player’s mental health and personal growth is just as important as developing his jump shot. They see the whole person, not just the athlete.
A Choice About More Than Basketball
For a top recruit, the decision often seems to be about television exposure, tournament appearances, and pathway to the pros. These are important factors. But the choice of a coach is also a choice about what values will be reinforced during some of the most formative years of a young man’s life.
Playing for Bruce Pearl means playing for a man who has stated that the provocateur who trafficked in the “great replacement” theory and called Black pilots unqualified was “right about everything.” It means accepting that your coach is on record supporting a movement that sees your success as a threat and your presence as a problem.
Black athletic talent is not a commodity to be harvested by those who would deny its full humanity. It is a gift that should be nurtured by leaders who respect it, who understand the context from which it comes, and who are committed to defending the player as fiercely as they coach him. Bruce Pearl, by his own admission, is not that leader. Elite Black prospects and their families would be wise to believe him, and to take their talents to a program where they are valued not for what they can do on the court, but for who they are.
PHILADELPHIA, PA – The brutal murder of Charlie Kirk, the polarizing right-wing activist and founder of Turning Point USA, presents a complex moral quandary, particularly for the Black Americans he so frequently targeted. How does a community mourn a man who dedicated his public life to questioning its humanity, intelligence, and rightful place in this nation? The answer lies not in the simplistic binaries of celebration or grief, but in a clear-eyed analysis of the system he served and a reaffirmation of the values he sought to undermine.
First, a necessary human gesture: to his family, friends, and loved ones, we extend sincere condolences. The loss of a son, a partner, a friend is a profound and private sorrow, a pain no one deserves. Our empathy for their personal grief is a measure of our own humanity, a quality that was often absent in the object of their mourning.
But public figures live a public life, and their legacy is rightly subject to public scrutiny. To assess Kirk’s impact, one must move beyond a laundry list of vile comments—though the list is long and telling. His mocking of Black pilots, his demeaning of Black women like Michelle Obama as lacking “the brain processing power” to be taken seriously, his characterization of George Floyd as a “scumbag,” his promotion of the antisemitic “Great Replacement” theory, and his relentless crusade against any effort to teach America’s racial history or promote diversity—these were not gaffes or slips. They were, as Neely Fuller Jr. would frame them in his seminal work, The United Independent Compensatory Code/System/Concept, consistent, functional components of a larger system.
Fuller’s conceptualization of racism/white supremacy is not about individual malice but about a comprehensive, global power structure. He posits that this system operates through established patterns across ten areas of human activity: economics, education, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, sex, and war/counter-war. Its goal is the continued domination of white people over non-white people. Through this lens, Charlie Kirk was not an outlier but a highly effective mechanic for this machine.
His activism was a case study in applying Fuller’s framework. In education, he fought to dismantle diversity initiatives and silence teachings on systemic racism, ensuring a curriculum that maintains a white-dominated historical narrative. In economics and labor, his rhetoric casting Black professionals as unqualified “diversity hires” was a direct action to undermine their economic standing and justify their exclusion from opportunity. In law, his dismissals of police brutality victims sought to legitimize state violence against Black bodies. In politics, his organization worked to mobilize a youth base around a platform that explicitly framed racial justice as a threat.
Kirk understood that in the entertainment arena of modern media, outrage is currency. He capitalized on racist activism, monetizing contempt and building a lucrative brand by feeding a hunger for a world where white grievance remains central and unchallenged. He was not a lone wolf howling into the void; he was a prolific supplier for the vast network of what Fuller would call the “system of white supremacy.”
So how do well-intentioned Black people—the primary targets of his project—respond to his death? With a steadfast refusal to be consumed by the very hatred he peddled.
The most powerful response is not to dance on his grave—that would be to engage in the same dehumanization he practiced. Nor is it to perform a forgiveness not yet earned. It is to continue the diligent, unglamorous work of building a world that renders his ideology obsolete. It is to:
1. Mourn the Harm, Not the Man. Grieve for the people his words wounded, for the college student who heard her existence debated as a “slot” stolen from a white peer, for the professional whose achievements were clouded by his toxic narrative. Channel the energy of outrage into shoring up these very communities, supporting Black mental health initiatives, and defending the DEI programs he attacked, which remain critical pathways to equity.
2. Expose the System, Not Just the Symptom. Kirk was a symptom of a enduring disease. His death does not mean the disease is cured. Use his legacy as a teachable moment to explain, using Fuller’s comprehensive model, how such figures are manufactured and rewarded. Analyze how they plug into the areas of economics (fundraising off hate), politics (voter mobilization through fear), and law (shaping judicial nominees). The goal is to dismantle the machinery, not just applaud the breaking of one cog.
3. Reclaim the Narrative with Unassailable Excellence. The ultimate rebuttal to a man who questioned Black capability is to live in defiant brilliance. To fly the planes, lead the corporations, teach the classes, create the art, and write the laws with unwavering excellence. It is to live in the full, complex, and triumphant humanity that his ideology denied.
Charlie Kirk’s death is a footnote. The struggle he exemplified is an ongoing volume. The appropriate response from the Black community is a collective, weary sigh for the unnecessary pain he caused, followed by a deep breath and a renewed commitment to the work. It is the work of affirming life in the face of his death-driven rhetoric. It is the work of building, in Fuller’s terms, a “justice system” to replace the “white supremacy system.” That work—dignified, determined, and unstoppable—is the most profound mourning and the most powerful rebuke imaginable.
PHILADELPHIA, PA – The contemporary push by MAGA Republicans to redraw congressional maps in states like South Carolina, Texas, Florida, and Ohio represents nothing less than a 21st century iteration of the Jim Crow-era voter suppression tactics that systematically disenfranchised Black Americans following Reconstruction. This modern assault on Black political power—exemplified by South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Ralph Norman’s bid to eliminate the state’s sole majority-Black congressional district—follows the same playbook white supremacists used after the Civil War: using ostensibly race-neutral mechanisms to achieve racially discriminatory outcomes while maintaining a thin veneer of legal justification. As these efforts intensify, Black student-athletes who power the billion-dollar high major college sports industrial complex face a moral imperative: withhold their talents from institutions in states actively suppressing Black votes, just as civil rights activists used economic boycotts to combat segregation.
The Blueprint of Suppression: From Reconstruction to Redistricting
The post-Reconstruction dismantling of Black political participation provides the historical template for today’s Republican redistricting schemes. Following the 15th Amendment’s ratification in 1870, southern states implemented an arsenal of discriminatory measures—literacy tests, poll taxes, grandfather clauses, and all-white primaries—that reduced Black voter registration to single digits within decades. Mississippi’s 1890 constitutional convention openly admitted its purpose was to “reduce the colored vote to insignificance” without explicitly violating the 15th Amendment. The results were catastrophic: by 1920, Louisiana’s 130,000 registered Black voters dwindled to just 1,342.
Today’s MAGA Republican mapmakers employ nearly identical tactics with updated jargon. The Supreme Court’s 2024 Alexander v. South Carolina NAACP decision—which upheld South Carolina’s congressional map despite evidence it “bleached” 30,000 Black voters from Charleston County—established a troubling precedent. Writing for the 6-3 conservative majority, Justice Samuel Alito created nearly insurmountable barriers for proving racial gerrymanders, requiring plaintiffs to “disentangle race and politics” in regions where race and party affiliation correlate at 90%. This legal framework enables what Justice Elena Kagan condemned as “sorting citizens by race” under the guise of partisan gerrymandering.
The South Carolina Case Study: MAGA’s Modern-Day Vardaman
Ralph Norman’s push to dismantle Rep. Jim Clyburn’s 6th District mirrors the rhetoric of Mississippi Governor James Vardaman (1904-1908), who vowed to use “any device” necessary to maintain white supremacy. Norman’s public rationale—that a 7-0 Republican delegation would help “President Trump pass his agenda”—masks the racial impact: eliminating South Carolina’s only Black-majority district in a state where 30% of residents are Black. The 6th District was originally created in the 1990s to comply with the Voting Rights Act after centuries of Black political exclusion.
Legal experts note this violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires minority communities to have “an opportunity to elect representatives of their choice.” The ACLU’s Allen Chaney calls Section 2 an “impenetrable bulwark” against such plans, but the Supreme Court’s recent rulings have weakened these protections. Norman’s proposal follows South Carolina Republicans’ successful 2021 redistricting that made the neighboring 1st District safely Republican by excising Black Charleston neighborhoods—a move the Supreme Court sanctioned in Alexander.
The National MAGA Playbook: Texas, Florida, and the New Voter Suppression Complex
South Carolina’s efforts are part of a coordinated national MAGA strategy:
Texas Republicans seek to gain five new GOP House seats through redistricting, with Trump declaring they’re “entitled” to them
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a 2022 map dismantling two Black-performing districts, which courts initially blocked before conservative appellate rulings allowed it
Ohio Republicans repeatedly defied state Supreme Court orders to stop using unconstitutionally gerrymandered maps
These states share Reconstruction’s sinister innovation: using technical legality to mask racial disenfranchisement. Just as Mississippi’s 1890 poll tax avoided mentioning race while devastating Black turnout, today’s GOP cites “partisan fairness” while surgically removing Black voters from competitive districts. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project gives South Carolina’s map an “F” for fairness and competitiveness, creating districts where general elections are irrelevant and representatives cater only to far-right primaries.
“If 5-star recruits en masse chose Michigan over Alabama, or UCLA over Texas, the message would resonate louder than any court ruling.“
The Athletes’ Dilemma: Billion-Dollar Bodies, Second-Class Citizenship
Black athletes—particularly in revenue-generating football and basketball programs—face a moral contradiction: their labor funds universities in states actively suppressing their communities’ votes. Consider:
Southeastern Conference (SEC) schools generated $852 million in 2022 athletics revenue, predominantly from Black football players
Clemson (SC) and Texas A&M football programs each exceed $150 million annual value
NCAA Tournament basketball broadcasts net $1 billion yearly, powered, primarily, by Black athletes
Yet these same states:
Host 63% of all restrictive voting laws passed since 2021 (Brennan Center)
Contain 9 of 10 worst Black voter suppression states (Northern Illinois University)
Are dismantling majority-minority districts like Clyburn’s
The Boycott Imperative: Leveraging Athletic Capital for Civil Rights
A coordinated boycott by elite Black recruits could achieve what lawsuits cannot: imposing economic consequences for voter suppression. Potential strategies:
Targeted Recruitment Strikes
Top 300 football and Top 100 boys and girls basketball recruits pledge to avoid SEC/ACC schools in suppression states
Current suppression state players transfer to HBCUs or northern schools (Michigan, Ohio State)
2. Game-Day Protests
Kneeling during alma maters in state capitols (e.g., South Carolina State House visible from USC stadium)
Wearing “Votes Over Victories” jerseys during warmups
3. NIL Collective Bargaining
Athlete-led protests demand universities lobby against suppression laws
Redirect a portion of endorsement money to voting rights groups
History shows economic pressure works. The Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56) crippled transit revenues, forcing desegregation. Today, a 20% decline in SEC football ratings could cost ESPN $285 million annually—enough to spur change.
Counterarguments and Complexities
Critics will claim:
“Sports and politics shouldn’t mix”: But stadiums fly state flags; coaches earn millions from public funds
“It hurts Black athletes’ futures”: Yet NFL/NBA scouts will find talent anywhere (see: Antonio Brown from Central Michigan)
“It’s unfair to students”: More unfair than losing voting rights?
The NCAA’s own history shows activism works. After 1969, when Black Texas Western players boycotted segregated facilities, the Southwest Conference integrated.
Conclusion: From Reconstruction to Redistribution of Power
The MAGA redistricting push proves that voter suppression remains the GOP’s most potent tool—updated with GIS precision rather than burning crosses. As in 1896, when Plessy v. Ferguson sanctioned “separate but equal,” today’s Supreme Court has greenlit racialized gerrymandering through Alexander.
Black athletes now stand where sharecroppers once did: exploited for economic value while denied full citizenship. Their predecessors fought poll taxes with protest; today’s stars must weaponize their billion-dollar leverage. If 5-star recruits en masse chose Michigan over Alabama, or UCLA over Texas, the message would resonate louder than any court ruling.
As Rep. Clyburn—whose district faces elimination—told the Post and Courier, this is about “absolutism.” The response must be equally absolute: no Black knees on fields in states that kneel on Black necks at ballot boxes. The playbook exists—from Reconstruction’s martyrs to Colin Kaepernick. Time to run the damn play.
PHILADELPHIA, PA — On a bright afternoon this week, my family gathered at the Blanche A. Nixon/Cobbs Creek Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia for a rededication ceremony honoring my great-aunt’s legacy. Blanche Nixon was a petite but formidable woman, a relentless advocate for the children of Southwest Philadelphia, who believed fiercely in their potential. “There’s no such thing as a bad child,” she often said, and her life’s work reflected that conviction. She understood that civil society—the network of libraries, schools, churches, and community organizations operating outside direct government control—was the lever by which marginalized youth could be uplifted, their talents nurtured, and their futures secured.
The Free Library of Philadelphia, Blanche A. Nixon Branch, Cobbs Creek
The timing of this celebration could not be more significant. As America’s 250th anniversary approaches, the nation finds itself at a precarious juncture, one in which the very foundations of an inclusive, truthful historical narrative are under siege. Public institutions—particularly libraries—will be called upon as never before to sustain democracy by preserving access to knowledge, fostering civic engagement, and resisting the erosion of fact in favor of political expediency.
The Assault on Truth and the Role of Civil Society
Recent years have seen a deliberate campaign to narrow the scope of American history, stripping it of its complexities and contradictions. President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting so-called “critical race theory” in schools was just one salvo in a broader effort to enforce a sanitized version of the past—one that ignores the competing traditions of liberalism, civic republicanism, and the ascriptive hierarchies of racism, nativism, and sexism that have shaped the nation.
Delgreco K. Wilson (author), Kim Wilson (sister) and Lea Wilson (mother)
Republican-led states have accelerated this trend, passing laws that restrict how race, gender, and systemic inequality are taught. The result is a distorted narrative, one that suggests America’s political culture has been defined solely by individualism and egalitarianism, rather than a continuous struggle between these ideals and the forces of exclusion.
In this environment, civil society must become the keeper of inconvenient truths. Libraries, universities, advocacy groups, and cultural institutions—organizations that operate independently of government and corporate control—are now essential counterweights to state-sponsored historical revisionism. They provide the spaces where marginalized stories can be told, where banned books remain accessible, and where citizens can engage in the kind of informed discourse that democracy requires.
Kelly Richards, President and Director, Free Library of Philadelphia
Why Libraries Are Democracy’s Lifeline
Public libraries, in particular, stand as one of the last truly democratic institutions in America. They are not just repositories of books but civic hubs—what sociologists call “third spaces”—where people of all backgrounds can gather, learn, and debate without the pressures of commerce or partisan influence.
Guardians of Truth in an Age of Misinformation In an era of algorithmic echo chambers and politicized media, libraries provide free access to vetted information. They are among the few remaining places where individuals can engage with diverse perspectives, fact-check dubious claims, and develop the media literacy necessary to navigate a fractured information landscape.
Sanctuaries for Banned Knowledge As school boards and state legislatures remove books on race, gender, and sexuality from curricula, public libraries often become the only places where such works remain available. In doing so, they fulfill their historic role as defenders of intellectual freedom.
Community Anchors in Neglected Neighborhoods Blanche Nixon understood that libraries are more than just buildings—they are lifelines for underserved communities. They offer job training, after-school programs, and safe spaces for children who might otherwise lack them. In neighborhoods like Cobbs Creek, they are often the only institutions providing free internet access, literacy programs, and legal resources to residents shut out of traditional power structures.
Archives of Local History Beyond their role in education, libraries serve as living archives, preserving the stories of ordinary people whose struggles and triumphs are too often excluded from official narratives. In doing so, they ensure that history is not merely the domain of the powerful but a collective inheritance.
Daneen Nixon (Blanche Nixon’s Granddaughter), Delgreco K. Wilson (Blanche Nixon’s nephew)
The Fight Ahead
The challenges facing American democracy are not abstract. They manifest in the closure of rural libraries due to funding cuts, in the intimidation of educators who teach about systemic racism, and in the growing partisan divide over what constitutes “acceptable” knowledge.
But the rededication of the Blanche A. Nixon Library is a reminder that resistance is possible. It is a testament to the power of civil society—of individuals and institutions that refuse to let communities be defined by neglect or historical amnesia.
State Senator, Anthony Hardy Williams
Blanche Nixon’s legacy teaches us that the work of democracy is not just about elections or laws but about the daily, unglamorous labor of sustaining spaces where people can learn, question, and grow. As the nation moves toward its semiquincentennial, the survival of its democratic experiment may well depend on whether institutions like public libraries can continue to fulfill that role.
The alternative—a nation stripped of its full history, where access to knowledge is dictated by ideology—is one that figures like Blanche Nixon spent their lives fighting against. The best way to honor her memory is to ensure that fight continues.
Next Thursday, American history’s getting made, plain and simple. Two Black coaches—Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman and Penn State’s James Franklin—about to go head-to-head for a shot at the big prize: the National Championship. For Black folks, this ain’t just about football; it’s about kicking down doors that’ve been bolted shut for far too long. But, like clockwork, social media’s lit with white fans scratching their heads, asking why we’re even talking about race. To them, it’s just a game. To us? It’s a revolution.
Black folks know that for most of the 20th century, NCAA D1 colleges and universities wasn’t fuckin’ with us… At all…
The Long Shadow of Jim Crow
See, college ball didn’t always have space for Black excellence. For far too long, American Apartheid shaped collegiate sports. Back in the Jim Crow days, Black athletes were locked out of big-name programs, forced to shine in HBCUs while white players soaked up all the national mainstream media attention and glory. When integration finally hit in the 1970’s, Black players broke through, but the coaching ranks? That’s where the gate stayed locked.
And don’t get it twisted—the system wasn’t just about who could run the fastest or throw the farthest. In ‘87, Al Campanis, a Dodgers exec, told the world Black folks didn’t have the “necessities” to lead. Translation? “We don’t trust y’all to steer the ship.” Those words stuck, seeping into locker rooms, boardrooms, and beyond. Today, that bias may not wear the same ugly face, but it’s still lurking.
Breaking Through the Ceiling
Now here come Freeman and Franklin, rewriting the script. Many of the same cameras and microphones that have been prominently positioned in front of Coach Prime since August, will be pointed at these brothers. With everything on the line, Freeman and Franklin ain’t just holding clipboards; they’re running powerhouse programs, proving that leadership ain’t tied to skin color. For Black fans, it’s more than bragging rights; it’s decades of sweat, tears, and unshakable determination finally paying off.
But the pushback always comes. Some folks argue that sports should be colorblind, that the game’s about skill, not skin. Sounds nice on paper, but let’s be real: race has always been a lead actor in the American story. Black folks have felt the sting of fewer opportunities, lower pay, and higher scrutiny. That’s the backdrop to Thursday’s game, whether well-meaning white folks want to admit it or not.
A Call for Grace
To the white fans who don’t get the hype: this ain’t about excluding you; it’s about uplifting us. When we cheer for Freeman and Franklin, we’re cheering for progress—for the young Black kid watching the game, dreaming of calling plays someday.
Grace ain’t hard to give. It’s about understanding a joy that might not be yours to feel but is yours to witness. It’s about letting us celebrate without questioning the why. Because in moments like this, the why is woven into our history… American history.
Eyes on the Prize
This game’s bigger than football. It’s a chance to honor how far we’ve come and to fuel the journey ahead. For Black America, it’s a rare and beautiful milestone. For everyone else, it’s a reminder that progress, no matter how slow, is always worth the cheer.
So let’s savor this moment, not as a wedge but as a bridge. Let’s lift our voices for what’s right and what’s righteous. Because when the dust settles, it’s not just about who won the game—it’s about who changed the game.
The Light Skin Brother Bowl is ’bout to be lit like a Muthafucka…
The Black Cager 