Isaac Murphy : the rise and fall of a Black jockey
Mooney, Katherine Carmines2023
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The rise and fall of one of America's first Black sports celebrities. Isaac Murphy, born enslaved in 1861, still reigns as one of the greatest jockeys in American history. Black jockeys like Murphy were at the top of the most popular sport in America at the end of the nineteenth century. They were internationally famous, the first African American superstar athletes - and with wins in three Kentucky Derbies and countless other prestigious races, Murphy was the greatest of them all. At the same time, he lived through the seismic events of Emancipation and Reconstruction and formative conflicts over freedom and equality in the United States. And inevitably he was drawn into those conflicts, with devastating consequences. Katherine C. Mooney uncovers the history of Murphy's troubled life, his death in 1896 at age thirty-five, and his afterlife.
Main title:
Isaac Murphy : the rise and fall of a Black jockey / Katherine C. Mooney.
Author:
Imprint:
New Haven : Yale University Press, 2023.New Haven : Yale University Press, 2023.
Collation:
192 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 22 cm.
Series title:
ISBN:
9780300254426 (hbk)
Dewey class:
920 MUR
Language:
English
Subject:
BRN:
2809785