Pele visiting Howard University in the early 1970s. The historically black college in Washington DC was a major force in NCAA soccer in the 1970s - making national headlines - a story with roots to the 1920s explored by Tom Dunmore in XI Quarterly issue one.
In issue one of XI, Tom Dunmore is writing about the storied history of Howard University’s soccer team. Dunmore’s piece explores how soccer has been a tool for Howard to do outreach to the black diaspora, bringing in players for its team from various parts of the world. It also examines how the success of Howard was often a challenge to the college soccer system, which responded by putting up barriers to marginalize the historically black university, barriers that Howard’s teams have often overcome.
Howard University soccer team pictured in 1930, the first year of varsity competition in the sport at the historically black college in Washington D.C.
In issue one of XI, Tom Dunmore tells the groundbreaking and remarkable story of Howard’s soccer team, who in the 1970s became the first NCAA champions from a predominantly black college.
Photo courtesy of the National Museum of American History’s Addison N. Scurlock collection.
