Racial Tensions

Since the entirety of “The Sport of Kings” takes place within the American South, in either Kentucky or Ohio, each generation explored within the novel has its own unique tensions between the white characters and the black characters. These tensions begin even before the generation of John Henry Forge being the patriarch of the Forge farm: Marie and Allmon’s ancestor, Scipio, is literally a runaway slave who has risked his life by attempting to cross the Ohio River, which was at that time the legal boundary between slavery and freedom. The racial tensions during Scipio’s time are obvious: as a victim of the era of slavery, Scipio’s life has been completely controlled and manipulated by whites, on account of Scipio’s own race. Even though Scipio does manage to acquire legal freedom by successfully crossing the Ohio River, he is never spiritually...