George Dixon: The Short Life of Boxing’s First Black World Champion, 1870–1908 by Jason Winders has won the 2022 Book Award from the North American Society for Sport History in the monograph category.
In this work of sporting and social history, we have a biography of Canadian-born, Boston-raised boxer George Dixon, the first Black world champion of any sport and the first Black world boxing champion in any division. George Dixon chronicles the life of the most consequential Black athlete of the nineteenth century and details for the first time his Carnival appearance, perhaps the most significant bout involving a Black fighter until Jack Johnson began his reign in 1908. Yet despite his triumphs, Dixon has been lost to history, overshadowed by Black athletes whose activism against white supremacy far exceeded his own.
George Dixon reveals the story of a man trapped between the white world he served and the Black world that worshipped him. By ceding control to a manipulative white promoter, Dixon was steered through the white power structure of Gilded Age prizefighting, becoming world famous and one of North America’s richest Black men. Unable to hold on to his wealth, however, and battered by his vices, a depleted Dixon was abandoned by his white supporters just as the rising tide of Jim Crow limited both his prospects and the freedom of Blacks nationwide.
Jason Winders is a journalist and sport historian who lives in London, Ontario.
The North American Society for Sport History (NASSH) presents two book awards each year to promote and honor outstanding research and writing in the field of sport history. Awards are made for distinguished books written in English on any subject of sport history, without chronological or geographical restriction.
The University of Arkansas Press has won the NASSH Book Award in the anthology category four times.
2019 – Defending the American Way of Life
2018 – San Francisco Bay Area Sports
2017 – Separate Games
2016 – DC Sports