How the football codes in liberal democracies confronted racism

During the 1960s, however, as sport became more professional and society was made more aware of injustices in this era of television, many factors led to much greater racial integration in sport.

This included mass protests in the US about racial issues and federal intervention, an aspect also evident in Australia with the 1967 referendum finally upholding the natural citizen rights of Aboriginal people.

Economics also played its role as money and competition encouraged complete integration of teams with the effort often led by white college and university administrators, athletic directors, and coaches.

By 1971, the University of Mississippi became the last Southeastern Conference football team to integrate its team.

Of course, racism did not go away in the 1970s and 1980s in the US, or in any other liberal democracy.

In the early 1980s, when Paul Canoville became Chelsea's first black player, some fans stayed home in protest, while English fans on a flight home from the Brazil in 1984 abused the Football Association's chairman for allowing "sambos" in the team despite the black player John Barnes scoring a great goal for England against Brazil.

In 1988, the famous NBA player Shaquille O'Neal, then an 18 year old playing at a small high school in Texas and an All-American, noted references to him as a monkey or gorilla with a tree outside one school having "a black, 7‑foot scarecrow hanging from the tree with my jersey on it".

In 1993, a journalist watching a football game in a London pub in 1993, recalled a person making monkey noises each time John Barnes got the ball drawing laughter from his friends.

That same year, the AFL player Nicky Winmar, after being taunted all day by rival supporters, turned to a section of the crowd, lifted his guernsey, pointed to his stomach and declared "I'm black and I'm proud to be black".

But general attitudes were changing as many more whites embraced black athletes as their sporting heroes and abandoned their abhorrent racist attitudes.

As noted by Brian Reade in 2018, who spent the late 1970s in the West Midlands of England, it was the first generation of black players that "killed racism as a mass participation sport on our terraces by confronting it with the force of their own talent".

Referring primarily to West Brom's three black players Laurie Cunningham, Brendon Batson and Cyrille Regis, Reade notes how the "Three Degrees play was a combination of technique, pace and power which set them apart from many of the plodders around them".