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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Johnny Smith Johnny Smith, the Julius C. "Bud" Shaw Professor of Sports History and an associate professor in the School of History and Sociology, was quoted in the article, "From 'bottom of totem pole,' NBA begins its climb in 1950s," published October 20, 2021 on APNews.com.
An excerpt:
“But if you go back to the ‘50s and the ’60s, this was a moment of the civil rights movement, when Black athletes were breaking through, integrating professional sports leagues — the NBA, the NFL, you go back to Jackie Robinson and Major League Baseball — and they became symbols of racial pride, symbols of Black achievement and that mattered to folks in the Black community. They could look at someone who had broken a barrier, who had disproven the mythologies around white supremacy.”
