MLK Day: Activist Athletes Discussion To Be Held In McLean

MCLEAN, VA—For Martin Luther King Jr. Day, McLean residents can hear a timely discussion on athletes becoming social activists. From John Carlos and Tommie Smith's Black Power salute to Colin Kaepernick and LeBron James' National Anthem protests, black athletes have used sports as a platform to speak out on civil rights. Award-winning sports columnist William Rhoden will be speaking at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 14, at The Old Firehouse (1440 Chain Bridge Road) for the McLean Community Center’s 2018 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration.

A former New York Times sports journalist and author of “Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete,” Rhoden will detail how those in the sports world have fought for social justice. He has been a guest on ESPN’s longtime Sunday morning show “The Sports Reporters.”

Rhoden has written documentaries including the Emmy-award winning "Breaking the Huddle" about integration of college football, Peabody-award winning "The Journey of the African-American Athlete" and “Third and A Mile: The Trials and Triumphs of The Black Quarterback.”

A graduate of Morgan State University, he also worked Rhoden worked for Ebony Magazine and The Baltimore Sun. He retired from the New York Times in 2016 and now hosts the podcast “Bill Rhoden On Sports” and serves as a writer-at-large for blog, “The Undefeated.”

Image via McLean Community Center