If you like baseball then you have heard of Jackie Robinson. But do you remember why he is famous? He broke the color barrier of professional baseball when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. From that point on, professional baseball would be integrated because for decades before Jackie Robinson wore the Dodgers’ uniform, seven leagues had existed that only had Black players. At the time, they were called the Negro Leagues, and the teams only had Black players and only played each other.
So though Robinson became a civil rights hero, his recruitment into the MLB also meant that Black players could play for the formerly all-white teams, which was the death knell for the Black teams. Today the Negro League teams and players are mostly forgotten, but they are just as important as Major League Baseball.
The Origins of the Negro League
When the Civil War ended in 1865 and slavery was outlawed, the period of Reconstruction began but only lasted until 1877. This happened from 1877 until 1960 when the civil rights movement forced the government to give African Americans equal rights.
So between 1877 and 1964, Black Americans lived under a regime called Jim Crow, which kept every part of American life segregated. Buses were segregated. Restaurants were segregated. Schools were segregated. Universities were segregated. Neighborhoods were segregated. Sports were also segregated. So during Jim Crow, if a Black man wanted to play baseball what could he do?
The Negro National League was created in 1920, which gave Black baseball players a chance to play professional baseball. Eventually, six other leagues of black-only players existed until the 1950s. In 1924 the Negro Leagues even began hosting their own Negro World Series. The World Series saw the best teams from the various Negro Leagues play against each other, and had they been allowed to play against the MLB teams of the day, the talented Black players could have easily gone head to head against the best white-only teams.
The Rise of Black Baseball Players
On December 7, 1941, the United States was attacked by the Japanese Empire, and WWII began. This meant that millions of young men were drafted into the military and that included professional athletes who were drafted or volunteered to serve. The 1941-1945 seasons saw some of the best players missing since they were fighting the war.
The Negro Leagues benefitted from the racism of the U.S. military since African-Americans were limited in serving in large numbers in the military, but factories and industries that supported the war effort hired millions of women, black and white, as well as Black men who could not join the military. This meant that the Negro Leagues not only continued playing games, but lots of African-Americans now had good-paying jobs, and they spent their money going to see Negro League ball games.
When the war ended, African Americans began demanding that they be treated as equal citizens. Millions of African Americans supported the war effort either in uniform fighting abroad or working in war industries that provided necessary supplies for the war effort. If the United States had just won a war against totalitarianism to promote democracy and equality then that should result in African-Americans enjoying the same rights and liberties as white Americans.
Major League baseball was mostly against integrating, but a few individuals saw that if the teams were integrated then that would mean being able to attract talented Black players which would result in bigger profits as Americans of all colors would attend games being played by the best players in the country.
In April 1947, Jackie Robinson began playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and all of a sudden other teams began recruiting other Black players who accepted higher-paying contracts with the Major Leagues, which left the Negro Leagues stuck with mediocre players. By the early 1950s, the Negro Leagues ceased to exist though a few teams survived but played mostly exhibition games or had a gimmick that was for entertainment and not necessarily baseball.
Everyone has heard of the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, and St. Louis Cardinals, but very few know about the Newark Eagles, New York Lincoln Giants, Baltimore Black Sox, St. Louis Stars, or the Pittsburgh Crawfords but they were just as good as the white teams and fielded some of the greatest baseball players of the 20th Century.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the MLB, after being petitioned by former Negro League players and fans, began honoring Black baseball players who never played for the MLB but were just as important to the history of the game. The Baseball Hall of Fame has been spending the last 30 years inducting Negro League players into the Hall of Fame as a way to recognize the Black players and tell the story of American baseball.
