Distinguished Visiting Scholar Program presents Frank Guridy: "Football, Masculinity and Politics in the Making of 'Nixonland'"

When Donald Trump decided to add protesting NFL players to his long list of imagined enemies of the US American nation, he unwittingly revealed the deep investments Republican politicians have in the sport of football. These investments consolidated in the 1960s and early 1970s, when the Republican Party sought to capture the votes of white southerners and suburbanites during the presidency of Richard Nixon. Frank Guridy's talk will explore how Nixon's so-called southern strategy centered on the sport of football, showing that it was not merely a racial strategy, but a gendered one, designed to consolidate a white masculine ideal in the face of the anti-war, feminist, and Black Power movements.

Reception to follow.

Supported in part through funding from the Office of the Provost: Distinguished Visiting Scholar Program.

Co-sponsored by the History Department and African and African American Studies Department.