{"id":808132,"date":"2026-05-19T19:27:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T19:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/808132\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T19:27:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T19:27:14","slug":"naacp-urges-black-athletes-to-boycott-college-sports-in-the-south","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/808132\/","title":{"rendered":"NAACP urges Black athletes to boycott college sports in the South"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The NAACP is calling on Black athletes and fans to boycott the athletic programs of public universities in states that are taking steps that the nation\u2019s oldest civil rights group says are restricting Black voting rights<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Launched on Tuesday, the \u201cOut of Bounds\u201d campaign urges prospective Black athletes, their families, alumni and fans to \u201cwithhold athletic and financial support\u201d from major public universities in states that \u201chave moved to limit, weaken or erase Black voting representation.\u201d <\/p>\n

If Black athletes participate in the boycott, it could deplete rosters for powerhouse football and basketball programs across the Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference.<\/p>\n

The NAACP is among groups responding to a wave of gerrymandering in the aftermath of a U.S.<\/a>Supreme Court ruling<\/a> that winnowed a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.<\/p>\n

The boycott comes as civil rights activists have mobilized across the South<\/a> to protest redistricting plans by Republican state legislatures that eliminate majority-Black congressional districts after the high court\u2019s ruling. Activists have looked for pressure points to dissuade GOP-led states from redistricting maps, including calls for mass protests and economic boycotts.<\/p>\n

\u201cAcross the South, Black athletes have helped build some of the most profitable college athletic programs in America,\u201d said NAACP President Derrick Johnson. Johnson noted that the programs \u201cgenerate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue, national television value, alumni donations, merchandising sales, ticket sales, and brand equity \u2014 much of it powered by Black football and basketball talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NAACP\u2019s campaign calls out Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and South Carolina as states to boycott, arguing that the athletic programs of those states\u2019 flagship universities are especially reliant on Black athletic talent and should protect Black political interests.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlack athletes should not be asked to generate wealth, prestige, and power for state institutions while those same states strip political power from Black communities,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

The timing of the initiative comes at a moment in the college athletic calendar that might make it difficult for it to have any immediate impact. The transfer portals for the high-profile Division I sports of football and basketball are all closed until 2027.<\/p>\n

There may be an opportunity to influence prominent high school recruits who are still weighing their college prospects for the fall of 2027 and beyond. While many schools have received nonbinding verbal agreements from football and basketball players, those agreements won\u2019t become official until late fall at the earliest.<\/p>\n

The signing window for basketball opens in mid-November — about a week after the midterm elections — and the 72-hour early signing period for football arrives in the first week of December.<\/p>\n

There is a chance that recruits could attempt to put pressure on flagship institutions in the targeted states by threatening to sign somewhere else. The reality, however, is that the pockets of those schools run deep, and asking a teenager to factor politics into a decision that could produce a life-altering financial windfall before they are even old enough to vote could prove tenuous.<\/p>\n

Black lawmakers themselves are also putting pressure on athletic leagues to take action against Republican-led states that may redistrict longtime Black members of Congress. <\/p>\n

The Congressional Black Caucus on Monday sent a letter to the commissioners of the SEC and ACC athletic conferences, as well as NCAA President Charlie Baker, that its members will oppose the SCORE Act, a bill to standardize athletes\u2019 contracting rights across the country, unless conference leaders oppose GOP-led redistricting efforts in states that include major conference members.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Congressional Black Caucus believes institutions that profit from Black talent and Black communities have a responsibility to stand with those communities when their fundamental rights are under attack,\u201d the CBC said in a Monday statement. \u201cSilence in the face of injustice is not neutrality \u2014 it is complicity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The NAACP is calling on Black athletes and fans to boycott the athletic programs of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":808133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[27131,12955,38058,20148,132017,1428,1369,101122,6064,723,10104,57,4353,361,353,773,15337,47284,50,80,402,2068,32857,3036,31596,62,1229,358,6066,5028,61,67,132,68,76450],"class_list":["post-808132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","category-us","tag-al-state-wire","tag-alabama","tag-atlantic-coast-conference","tag-black-experience","tag-charlie-baker","tag-college-football","tag-college-sports","tag-derrick-johnson","tag-fl-state-wire","tag-florida","tag-ga-state-wire","tag-general-news","tag-georgia","tag-la-state-wire","tag-louisiana","tag-mississippi","tag-ms-state-wire","tag-naacp","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-protests-and-demonstrations","tag-race-and-ethnicity","tag-sc-state-wire","tag-south-carolina","tag-southeastern-conference","tag-sports","tag-tennessee","tag-texas","tag-tn-state-wire","tag-tx-state-wire","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-voting-rights"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=808132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}