In an alternate reality where community is a greater motivating factor than personal prosperity, the NAACP wants Black boys to lead. It’s their bodies and their talent that propel and bankroll the dominant Southeastern Conference in football and basketball. And yet, across the South, it’s their people’s representation and their people’s rights under the 15th Amendment that could suffer if the Republican Party is allowed to redraw congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterms.
And so, in what feels like a state of emergency for the Black vote, the NAACP is trying to recruit junior foot soldiers to make a vow and save the day. Recently, the NAACP publicized its request for Black college athletes to pledge that they won’t play in the eight Southern states where Black voting power is most at stake, and for Black fans and alumni of those college institutions to withhold their financial support.
It is an oath of solidarity. And it’s a big ask.
It is admirable. And to be sure, it’s impossible. But mostly, it’s unfair.
The oldest civil rights organization in America wants to sign up athletes in their teens and 20s and showcase them as virtuous leaders. These athletes, many of whom may have the body of Adonis and still the mind of a child, do possess a semblance of power. They can withhold their services and forgo millions from rich boosters if they want to send a message to Southern lawmakers. But it’s unreasonable to expect someone whose frontal lobe hasn’t fully developed to move to the front lines of a civil rights fight.
Kids, and that’s exactly what they are, should never be looked upon as perfectly formed moral beings. Not even adults can achieve such a standard, including the adults these kids most desire to become — professional athletes.
This idea of a community of athletes rising and coming together to fight alongside their fellow man does not match our current times. In fact, this romantic past doesn’t even match reality. The Cleveland Summit in 1967, when influential Black athletes gathered and spoke, resulted in a news conference in which they voiced support for one man, their brother Muhammad Ali, and his right to refuse to be drafted into the U.S. military. It was a day. Yet it feels more weighty when viewed through the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia. Also, those pregame demonstrations when NBA players wore “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirts and NFL players dropped to one knee made headlines, but eventually the attire went away, and the protests stopped. These acts represented moments in time, not a new and sustained standard.
This idea of a community of athletes rising up and coming together to fight alongside their fellow man — such as with the Cleveland Summit in 1967 — does not match our current times. (Robert Abbott Sengstacke / Getty Images)
When the peak of activism dies down, business returns to normal and the resistance retreats. It’s seen in the ambivalence of the most influential basketball player in the state of Minnesota, when Anthony Edwards can only muster flaccid support (“I’m behind whatever they with …”) after thousands of residents protested the occupation of immigration enforcement agents in his NBA city. It’s evident when tuning into one of Jaylen Brown’s long-winded Twitch streams. Although he once drove 15 hours to participate in a Black Lives Matter protest, he now keeps busy in his offseason by beefing with Stephen A. Smith.
These pros aren’t feeling the pressure to stand up for voting rights. The NAACP’s appeal isn’t for NBA and NFL free agents to avoid signing multimillion-dollar contracts in Georgia, Texas or Florida. Maybe because this would be a ridiculous request, laughed down or outright ignored.
Instead, this is an ask of Black kids, to place on their shoulders the burdens of society. It’s a fantasy. However, the idea of the citizen athlete can exist.
In 2015, Missouri football players staged a boycott in solidarity with a Black graduate student’s efforts to bring attention to the university’s failure to condemn racist episodes around campus. Then in 2020, several football teams, including Texas, Kentucky and Ole Miss, programs spread across many of the same states the NAACP is now targeting, cancelled practices or staged walkouts in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
Without the protection that money could buy LeBron James and Patrick Mahomes — or any of the superstar professionals who had lent their fame to the Black Lives Matter movement — these amateurs jeopardized their college careers. Especially in Missouri, where Tiger football players risked taking on members of the state’s Republican Party, who proposed a bill that would revoke their scholarships if they refused to play.
Still, they stood with the people. Their youth and the Power 5 bubble in which they lived did not dull their awareness. Nor fool them into thinking that they wouldn’t be just another Black face on campus slurred as a n—–, or that they are immune from becoming the next name chanted by protesters who march against police brutality.
Protesters celebrate after the resignation of the University of Missouri president, Timothy M. Wolfe. (Brian Davidson / Getty Images)
However, that sense of communal unity seems so long ago. Today, college athletes are their own CEOs. The bios on their social media pages offer contacts for business inquiries. They are running, tackling, dunking, breathing brands. The best among them have the opportunity to reap millions from the top programs, many of which happen to be based below the Mason-Dixon line.
Georgia running back Nate Frazier hails from Compton, Calif., and grew up in poverty, according to an interview with his mother. Texas wide receiver Ryan Wingo has roots in a humble, inner-city neighborhood in St. Louis, one in which a headline suggested that his White teammate, Arch Manning, was “fearless” for visiting. As far-fetched as it would be to ask pros to shun millions from teams based in Southern states, it’s even more absurd to expect someone like Frazier, Wingo or any other teenage athlete to not shake the hand of an SEC booster and become a lot richer.
Face it, the collective good of the people will never be as strong as the allure of fortunes from NIL collectives.
Still, the NAACP forges ahead with its impossible request.
I will not allow my talent, labor, name, image, likeness, family, or community pride to be used to enrich institutions in states that are working to silence Black voters, the organization’s “Out of Bounds” pledge reads.
Until fair representation is restored, I commit to exploring HBCUs, institutions in states that respect Black political power, and programs that publicly stand with our communities. And above these words, athletically gifted Black boys are asked to place their names, addresses and phone numbers.
This righteous, yet unrealistic, movement will require stamina and selflessness. However, the volunteers for this fight won’t be found within the boundaries of college sports, where the money is too big, and the athletes are too young. And the reality is the NAACP shouldn’t ask this year’s recruiting class, nor the next 10 years of Black recruits, to possess the moral clarity that even most adults cannot.
