The first part of this feature was written by Tim Vandehey and published in the April 1989 issue of Black Belt. The second part was written by Adam James in 2022.
FORMER FIGHTERS WORK TO KEEP KIDS OUT OF GANGS
by Tim Vandehey
The year was 1969. Turmoil boiled throughout the United States — race conflicts, the battle over civil rights, protests over Vietnam and the general growing pains that came with overwhelming change. The great conflicts have been recorded in a thousand books and at least as many miles of news film. Our concern is with one of the smaller struggles, a world that stood as a microcosm of the change: the world of karate.
As in most other aspects of life, Blacks had come to realize that the deck was stacked against them in tournament karate. Many of the top Black fighters on the circuit, some of whom were among the best in the country, were being pitted against each other in a deliberate attempt to thin the field of Black fighters. Two strong Black martial artists, often from the same school, would be set against each other and at the end of the fight, one would be eliminated.
Black fighters also were getting the short end of the stick at the judging table. Many said they were not receiving credit for effective techniques simply because they were fighting white opponents.
To compound the problem, there was no cohesive, effective voice to speak for Black fighters as there was for fighters in the Japan Karate Association or the United States Karate Association. “I thought I had no one to speak for me because I was a Black fighter,” says Steve Muhammad, who was known then as Steve Sanders but changed his surname after converting
