HI 130: Game Changers: Hip Hop, Social Justice, and American Sports

This course considers American sports as a site of cultural expression, political struggle, and social transformation. From the Negro Leagues and Jackie Robinson to the Black Power raised fists of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Summer Olympics, to Dawn Staley and the creation of the WNBA and the rise of Deion “Prime Time” Sanders, to the kneeling protest of Colin Kaepernick in the National Football League and Megan Rapinoe and the US Women's Soccer Team’s landmark supreme court decision, students will explore how athletes have used their platforms to challenge injustice and redefine citizenship, democracy, and power. Placing sport in conversation with hip hop culture, the course specifically investigates how music, fashion, language, and media shape the political meaning of athletic performance. We will examine how hip hop emerged as a cultural response to structural inequality and how its influence transformed American sports into a global stage for cultural expression, intersectional justice, and economic freedom. Over the course of the semester, students will engage with a wide array of traditional and multimedia sources, including articles, books, interviews, magazines, music (individual songs & full albums), films, music videos, lyrics, and photography. By the end of the course, students will see athletes not only as competitors, but as cultural producers and political actors shaping the future of American democracy.