Seminar Series – Chuck Korr

“Sport and the Struggle Against Apartheid”

Thurs. Mar. 17, 2011 ~ 12:30 – 2:00 PM

Michael Smith Laboratories, 2185 East Mall, Room 102
Refreshments will be served in Room 101 after the talk

For almost thirty years, Robben Island was notorious as the place where the apartheid regime in South Africa imprisoned political prisoners in an effort to break them and to destroy the opposition to apartheid. One of the ways in which the prisoners retained their spirit of resistance and maintained their dignity and self-respect was through the creation of a series of highly organized sports leagues. They used sports as way to maintain their spirits and to train them for the time when they would be called upon to govern a free and democratic South Africa.

Host: Dr. Patricia Vertinsky, Professor, School of Kinesiology

About Dr. Korr

Dr. Chuck Korr is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Missouri – St. Louis. He is the author of four books including the prize winning “The End of Baseball As We Knew It” which the Wall Street Journal designated as one of the five best books dealing with baseball, “West Ham United: The Making of a Football Club” and “More Than Just a Game: Soccer v Apartheid” which is the basis for a film of the same name. He currently is a visiting research Professor in the International Centre for Sport History and Culture at De Montfort University in England.