Sports have played and continue to play a fundamental role in American history and culture. Baseball provided an escape from the stress and frustration of World War II, a beacon of light in difficult times, and later helped influence integration. Athletes became symbols of what it meant to be a true American, and many sports enhanced American culture. One of the most prolific changes sports brought to our society was the beginning of racial equality on the field. He encouraged and aided the nascent equal rights movement that evolved in the 1960s. African-American athletes were considered second-class citizens until sports provided the first taste of equality. Team Life: The Indians, Dodgers, and Giants paved the way for all teams to accept black players on equal footing. Other sports then followed, helping to pave the way for the equal rights movement. African American athletes provided a spark of social and cultural change as America was in the midst of the emergence of the civil rights movement. Discrimination and segregation of African Americans had existed for generations. Blacks and whites were separated in schools, churches, buses, restaurants, and playgrounds. In the early 1900s there wasn't just prejudice against African Americans; many lived in adjoining neighborhoods, minimizing interaction with other Americans. Even sports in which African Americans once demonstrated dominance, such as cycling and horse racing, were discriminated against. Cyclist Marshall “Major” Taylor once dominated American cycling until “jealous white rivals conspired to force Taylor to see his livelihood in Europe by 1901” (Wiggins, p.158). Taylor was a pioneer for African American athletes. He “overcame the constraints of a society bound by racial hypocrisy...... middle of paper......l, 1945-1972. Bison book original. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Voigt, David Quentin. 1983; 1966. American baseball. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Tygiel, Jules. 2001; 2000. Time Past: Baseball as History. Oxford England; New York: Oxford University Press. Dorinson, Joseph and Joram Warmund. 1998. Jackie Robinson: Race, Sports, and the American Dream. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.Lanctot, Neil. 2004. Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Fall of a Black Institution. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Miller, Patrick B. Wiggins, David K. Sports and the Color Line: Black Athletes and Race Relations in Twentieth-Century America. 2004. The Journal of Southern History 70 (4) (November 2004): 990. Simon, Scott. 2002. Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Baseball. Turning points. Hoboken, NJ: J. Wiley & Sons.