Jennifer H. Lansbury formerly served as assistant professor of history and director of the sport and American culture minor at George Mason University, USA.
"Jennifer Lansbury brings much needed scholarly attention to the
lives of African American women athletes. She has written a
compelling, readable narrative that uses biography to illuminate
black women's place in sport history and, more broadly, U.S.
history." --Susan K. Cahn, author of Coming on Strong: Gender and
Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Women's Sport
"An important addition to the historiography of women and
sport."
--The Journal of American History
"A Spectacular Leap does an excellent job extending the
conversation beyond gender, explaining how race and class
intersected in women's sport history. Sadly, as Lansbury shows with
the Williams sisters, black women in sport continue to face
stereotypes based on all three social identifiers."
--Lindsay Parks Pieper, Sport in American History, December
2014
"Jennifer Lansbury's A Spectacular Leap is an example of great
scholarship ... [it] unlocks better understanding of black athletic
achievement by illustrating the intersection of gender, race, and
class, which is so intertwined that it is often simply conflated
and essentialized for African Americans--all African American
athletes are male, coming from economic hardship, and are
encouraged and respected as men for their athletic dominance.
Lansbury offers a kaleidoscopic image of black femininity attuned
to the fact that African Americans, currently and historically, are
not monolithic: they have lived throughout the country, with
distinguishable regional and local peculiarities; they have
belonged to all socioeconomic classes; and African American male
and female experiences have differed greatly. What stands out most
in Lansbury's work is the collective community action that has been
a hallmark of black achievement across time and space, albeit, at
times carried out under heavily gender oppressive conditions. ...
A Spectacular Leap is an insightful, well-researched, and
thought-provoking analysis of African American female athletes in
the last century and is more than a historical account, as it
considers gender, politics, economics, nationalism, activism, and
race."
--Scott N. Brooks, The Journal of African American History, Volume
102, Nos. 1-2
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