Herbert Lowe authors articles on Black athletes and artisans from American history
Herbert Lowe, University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications Journalism senior lecturer, has authored recent articles focusing on the history of Black baseball players in the annual All-Star Game as well as the Declaration of Independence and its impact on Black artisans and athletes. They were recently published on Black History… Listed on Substack.
“30 Players. 77 Years. One Amazing Lineup.” concentrates on how Black players have elevated the All-Star game – and baseball itself – since they were first allowed to play in the Midsummer Classic in 1949. Coinciding with the 2026 All-Star Game held Tuesday (July 14) in Philadelphia, Lowe names 30 players chosen from among the 140 Black All-Stars selected across nearly 80 years. Many before them had for too long been excluded by rules rather than by talent.
Lowe chose the 30 by using four criteria: total All-Star Game selections, positional balance, representation from as many of the current 30 franchises as possible and the weight of a player’s story with the larger context.
“25 Athletes. 250 Years. An Unfinished Argument,” published on July 4, looked at how the Declaration of Independence could be considered a sports document. Lowe writes that in the past 250 years of American history, sports have tested the promises of the document more consistently than any other part of society.
“No stage has demanded more of its performers – or revealed more about the country watching them – than the arenas, tracks, rings and fields where Black athletes have been making the Declaration’s argument with their bodies since before the republic was a decade old,” he writes.
Lowe lists 25 Black figures from across 250 years and according to six Declaration themes that he argues are an expression of the same argument that the founding founders made in 1776. They are self-determination, equal participation, righteous resistance, full citizenship and recovery and visibility.
“This list is the record of how they did it,” Lowe writes. “Twenty-five figures drawn from 250 years of Black athletic history and selected for one reason above all others: the clarity and indefensibility of the Declaration argument each one makes. Not championships. Not statistics. Not fame, though some of these figures earned plenty of it.”
Lowe also authored “Free to Make Nothing, They Made Everything” which follows 25 African-American artists, designers, composers, choreographers and writers who also answered both the Declaration’s premises and faults with the work itself, emphatically and triumphantly.
“For all of them – and for the 25 on this list – the work outlasted every condition designed to prevent it,” Lowe writes. “That is the Declaration argument they make. The tradition will keep making it long after any list has been forgotten.”
Category: College News, Sports
Tagged: Herbert Lowe Journalism
Subscribe to our News Digest
