Cover image for Jim Brown : last man standing
Jim Brown : last man standing
First Title Value for Searching:
Jim Brown : last man standing
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
320 pages : illustrations, photographs ; 24 cm
General Note:
Includes index.
Summary:
Jim Brown is recognized as perhaps the greatest football player to ever live. But his phenomenal nine-year career with the Cleveland Browns is only part of his remarkable story, the opening salvo to a much more sprawling epic. Brown parlayed his athletic fame into stardom in Hollywood, where it was thought that he could become "the black John Wayne." He was an outspoken Black Power icon in the 1960s, and he formed Black Economic Unions to challenge racism in the business world. For this and for his decades of work as a truce negotiator with street gangs, Brown--along with such figures as Muhammad Ali, Bill Russell, and Billie Jean King--is revered as a socially conscious athlete. On the most hypermasculine cultural canvases of the United States--NFL football, the Black Power movement, Hollywood's blaxploitation films, gang intervention both inside and outside prison walls--Jim Brown has made his mark. Yet in the landscape of the most toxic expression of "what makes a man"--numerous accusations of violence against women--he has left a jagged mark as well. Dave Zirin's book redefines an American icon, and not always in a flattering light. At eighty-one years old, Brown continues to speak out and look for fights. His recent public support of Donald Trump and criticism of Colin Kaepernick are just the latest examples of someone who seems restless if he is not in conflict. Jim Brown is a raw and thrilling account of Brown's remarkable life and a must-read for sports fans and students of the black freedom struggle.
Contents:
Introduction: "It just is what it is" -- Man of the steel (the Superman trap) -- The boy they called man -- Man among Browns -- Jim Brown's black power : "If I ever march, I'll march alone" -- Almost a leading man : the Hollywood hustle -- Man up : gangsters, shot-callers, and fighting to make peace -- Toxic : manhood and violence against women -- Last man standing.
Audience/Lexile:
Adult
Publication Info:
New York : Blue Rider Press, [2018]

©2018
Subject:
Football players -- United States -- Biography
Football players
Brown, Jim, 1936-2023
Brown, James, 1936-2023
Brown, James Nathaniel, 1936-
Brown, Jimmy, 1936-2023
College football players
High school football players
SAILS ISBN:
9780399173448