Baseball: The Negro Leagues

February 2, 2001
Web posted at: 4:45 PM EST (2145 GMT)

Overview - The first all-African-American baseball leagues were formed in the 1920s and were a separate component of "America's favorite pastime" until 1949, when baseball was re-integrated.

Objective: - Learn more about baseball's segregated period and the people who helped end it.

Suggested Timeframe: - Approx. 2 days.

Assignment: - Baseball has been a popular American sport since the mid-1800s. Most people believe that American baseball was always segregated, with African-Americans excluded from playing in the professional leagues. But that's not the case. While the amateur National Association of Baseball Players forbid teams to include African-American players in 1868, the professional leagues that started in 1869 were integrated (History of Black Baseball and the Negro Baseball Leagues. 1996. Blackbaseball.com. 7.20.00.). But as the century wore on, and "Jim Crow" laws enforced the doctrine of "separate but equal" in every aspect of American life, fewer African-American players were accepted on professional teams, and by 1903 the professional leagues were "whites only."

African-American teams were now on their own, and they played in loosely organized systems; Rube Foster pulled together some of them to create the Negro National League in 1903, and in 1923 Ed Bolden united others to form the Eastern Colored League. In 1933 a new Negro National League was formed and in 1937 it was followed by the Negro American League. These leagues are the ones people generally think of when talking about the "Negro Leagues." The Negro All-Star games were the biggest African-American sporting event in America from 1933 to 1948 (Ibid.)

When Jackie Robinson stepped onto the field in 1947 for the all-white, professional league Brooklyn Dodgers, tension, anger, hope and fear were thick in the thousands watching and the millions listening on the radio. How did he get there, and how did he manage to persevere and break the color barrier in American pro baseball? And what happened to the Negro Leagues? In this project, you'll find out.

1.Start your journey at Blackbaseball.com and click History at the upper left See "Jim Crow at the Bat: Apartheid in Baseball, 1846-1900" from Shadowball; click to read all four pages Then go to NegroLeagueBaseball.com and click Negro League FAQ Hit The Jackie Robinson Society and be sure to click on President Clinton's 1997 address Finish at Branch Rickey to learn a little more about the man who signed Robinson

2.SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS (all answers can be found at the Web sites above)

1. Why didn't African-American and white American teams ever play each other during segregation? 2. How did George Washington Stovey come to cement the "gentlemen's agreement" to make American baseball all-white? 3.What three things did President Clinton say Robinson would have wanted Americans to do in order to carry on his work? 4.Why did Branch Rickey sign the first African-American player to the majors? Was it for the money he could make for the Dodgers?