--- title: Five Best: Black Athletes Can Teach Us More than Just Sports description: Black athletes can teach us about more than just sports, struggling local farmers are building joint-use solar and mushroom farms & more. canonical: https://time.com/4957087/black-athletes-can-teach-us-more-than-just-sports/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-09-26T16:00:30.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:58:27.958Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Black Athletes Can Teach Us More than Just Sports og:description: And four more of today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4957087/black-athletes-can-teach-us-more-than-just-sports/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Black Athletes Can Teach Us More than Just Sports twitter:description: And four more of today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Black Athletes Can Teach Us More than Just Sports by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Sep 26, 2017 4:00 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Sep 26, 2017 4:00 PM UTC **1\.** [**Black athletes can teach us about more than just sports.**](http://hechingerreport.org/black-athletes-can-teach-us-just-sports/) By Andre Perry in the _Hechinger Report_ **2\.** [**In Japan, struggling local farmers are building joint-use solar and mushroom farms.**](https://www.fastcompany.com/40469425/these-solar-farms-have-a-secret-hiding-under-them-mushrooms) By Adele Peters in _Fast Company_ **3\.** [**Can’t get to the gym? Any activity — vacuuming, scrubbing the floor — will protect your heart.**](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/21/vacuuming-scrubbing-floor-enough-exercise-protect-heart-extend/) By the _Telegraph_ **4\.** [**Make sure you’re in a good mood for your flu vaccine this fall. It’ll work better.**](https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/pressreleases/2017/september/study-finds-being-in-a-good-mood-for-your-flu-jab-boosts-its-effectiveness.aspx) By the _University of Nottingham_ **5\.** [**Child abuse rewires the brain of survivors.**](http://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/child-abuse-affects-brain-wiring-270024) By _McGill University_  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4957087/black-athletes-can-teach-us-more-than-just-sports/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4957087/black-athletes-can-teach-us-more-than-just-sports/"},"headline":"Black Athletes Can Teach Us More than Just Sports","datePublished":"2017-09-26T16:00:30.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:58:27.958Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/4957087/black-athletes-can-teach-us-more-than-just-sports/","keywords":["Five Best Ideas","Innovation","Exercise","Athletes","abuse","Farming","flu"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/five-best-ideas/","name":"Five Best Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4957087/black-athletes-can-teach-us-more-than-just-sports/","name":"Black Athletes Can Teach Us More than Just Sports"}}]}] ```