Tigerland : 1968-1969; a City Divided, a Nation Torn Apart, and a Magical Season of Healing

The inspiring story of two sports teams from a segregated high school that won it all amidst the racial turbulence of 1968-1969. From the bestselling author of The Butler. In 1968 and 1969, Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. Race relations were frayed as never before. Cities were aflame. Riots and demonstrations spread across the nation. But in Columbus, Ohio, the Tigers of poor, segregated East High School did something no team from one school had ever done before: they won the state basketball and baseball championships in the same year. They defeated bigger, richer, whiter teams across the state and along the way brought blacks and whites together, eased a painful racial divide throughout the state, and overcame extraordinary obstacles on their road to success. In Tigerland, Wil Haygood has crafted a spirited and stirring account of this improbable triumph, taking us deep into the personal lives of these local heroes. And he puts the Tigers' story in the context of the racially charged sixties, giving us an illuminating and important social history, profoundly relevant to the racial backdrop against which we are all living today.