Wil Haygood has offered stories of influential African American before, including 1993’s King of the Cats: The Life and Times of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., 2003’s In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr., 2013’s The Butler: A Witness to History about White House butler Eugene Allen, and 2015’s Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination that Changed America.
(Tigerland: 1968-1969 writer Wil Haygood in front of East High School in Columbus, Ohio).
In September of 2018, Wil Haygood brought us a more modest cast of characters. Upon the start of the 50th anniversary of Columbus, Ohio‘s East High School‘s remarkable sports season, Wil Haygood delivered Tigerland: 1968-1969: A City Divided, a Nation Torn Apart, and a Magical Season of Healing. Tigerland: 1968-1969 is the story of how an all-African American school of students won state championships in basketball and baseball 55-days apart.
(The 1968/1969 East High School basketball team was portrayed in the book Tigerland: 1968-1969 by Wil Haygood).
Tigerland: 1968-1969 adds up to more than the sum of its parts. The book tells the story of two sports teams that overcame the serious odds of segregation to win the state title for the same school. Tigerland: 1968-1969 tells the story of a bigoted system of schools in a racially divided city in a racially divided state that segregated schools in a way that produced separate and unequal educational opportunity and results by systemic design, per court determination in the case of Penick v. Columbus Board of Education. Tigerland: 1968-1969 tells of assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, the 1968 Mexico City Olympics with racial protests by athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, and the cultural awareness of the players, the community supporting East High School, and the communities actively working against the team and its athletes.
(The 1969 East High School baseball team was portrayed in the book Tigerland: 1968-1969 by Wil Haygood).
In getting into the personal stories of the players, parents, hopeful teachers, administrators, and in-depth and active hatred, discrimination, and petty hurts leveled at the people surrounding these teams, to claim the feat of two championships in the face of the cultural and real adversity faced indeed makes for an arguably epic tale of underdogs overcoming those obstacles to achieve. The tone of Tigerland: 1968-1969 by Wil Haygood feels fair and even tempered to me, a 44-year-old Caucasian male. The read is compelling, and important in a time of fractured politics in America. My rating for Tigerland: 1968-1969 by Wil Haygood is 4.0-stars on a scale of one-to-five.
Matt – Wednesday, August 7, 2019
Matt Lynn Digital 