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A collection of oral histories about Black basketball titled “Hoops and Dreams and the Politics of Racial Resistance and Change in Minneapolis” is now available in the Minnesota Digital Library.

Basketball game at Peavey Park, Minneapolis
Body

“Hoops and Dreams and the Politics of Racial Resistance and Change in Minneapolis” is an oral history project that uses experiences of Black basketball in Minneapolis as a lens onto the dynamics of race, community engagement, and social change in and around the Twin Cities, Minnesota, and beyond. The Minnesota Digital Library recently digitized the transcripts of six interviews from this project and made them available through our website.

Interviewees include former athletes, current coaches and parents; community-based sport organizers and advocates; and a longtime Hall of Fame Black sportswriter and reporter. The project is a collaboration between Professor Doug Hartmann at the University of Minnesota with local journalist and cultural producer Ralph Crowder III, with the support of the Institute for Advanced Study.

Primary interview topics include:

  • Their roles and relationships to Minneapolis basketball history;
  • Basic reflections and observations on life, social problems, racial unrest, and social change in Minneapolis in the past several decades and in the time since George Floyd’s killing;
  • General visions for real, meaningful social progress and social change—both in and through sport, but also in the city, state, and nation more generally—as well as the challenges and constraints that stand in the way;
  • Views on and experiences with athletes, sport, and the role of sport in the Black community in general, then with respect to the unrest, resistance, community engagement, and social change.

The underlying inspiration of the project is that Minnesota sport history can serve as a unique and revealing entry point onto social issues related to anti-Black violence and urban unrest. This new collection joins a wide array of other basketball-related materials in MDL, including materials contributed by the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board. Read through the new oral history collection in MDL today.

Image credit: Basketball game at the Peavey Park courts in Minneapolis, c. 1985. Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board collection, https://collection.mndigital.org/catalog/p16022coll55:2505 

Written by

Stephanie Hess
Digital Curator, Minnesota Digital Library
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