This document provides a detailed history of Negro League Baseball from its origins in the late 1800s through the 1950s, as well as key events in the parallel civil rights movement. It notes that while blacks were initially allowed to play on integrated teams, by the 1880s it became socially unacceptable for white teams to include black players. In response, Andrew "Rube" Foster established the first Negro National League in 1920. The document then summarizes the founding and dissolution of several Negro Leagues and their most prominent stars like Satchel Paige through the 1930s-40s, as well as the growing popularity of the East-West All-Star exhibition games attracting tens of thousands of fans. It also discusses early civil rights advances

1. Negro League Baseball
Civil Rights Onlooker/Participant
Or
Separate Entity

2. “If We Can Stop Bullets Why
Not Balls”

3. Pre-1920
 Late 1800’s (post civil
war) Blacks and whites
played together on
baseball teams
 Early 1880’s it became
seen as a social stigma if a
black man was on your
team
 Social stigma develops
into an unwritten rule Post
1880’s in which no blacks
may play on white teams.
 This only means that they
cannot play with, does not
bar playing against. (I.E.
Barnstorming)

4. 1920
 Andrew “Rube” Foster
 “Pitfalls in Baseball”
 Negro National League
www.baseballhalloffame.org

5. 1921
 Many teams left league
 Chicago American Giants only constant
 Tulsa Race Riots
 “No government can wave a magical wand and
take a race from bondage to citizenship in half a
century.”

6. 1922
 NAACP
 Dyer Anti-lynching Bill
 Passed in H.O.R.
 “Congress, speaking for the American people, has
finally set the stamp of disapproval on mob
murder.”
 Downed in Senate

7. 1923-1924
 Eastern Colored League formed (1923)
 Many teams dismantled
 NNL losing money and players
 Negro League World Series formed
 NLWS and All Star Game become the basis of
East-West game (TBDL)

8. 1923-1924 (cont.)
 Tulsa makes news again!
 Martial Law
 Civil Rights History?!
 Nope just kidding…

9. 1925-1932 Baseball
 “Rube” was the “Glue” in 1925 rumblings of his
managerial style prompted him to resign, realizing
this would leave more work, owners simply shut
up.
 1927 saw “Rube” Foster admitted to a hospital for
“losing his mind”

10. 1925-1932 Baseball (cont.)
 1930 “Rube” Foster dies of mental illness, with
him ECL dies
 1932 Having been without Foster for 5 years, NNL
folds.
 1932 Cum Posey Erected the East-West League,
this league folded quicker then it’s inception

11. 1925-1932 Civil Rights
 A. Phillip Randolph, Sleeping Car Porters
 “Scottsboro” boys
 “In March 1931, nine young black males, aged 13 to 21, riding in an open freight
car through rural Alabama were jailed and put on trial after being accused of
raping two white women”
 “Powell v. Alabama” (1932) Legal Counsel

12. 1925-1932 Sports
 The all black New York Rens defeated the
Original Celtics, in the first world basketball
championship. (1932)

13. 1933
 “Gus” Greenlee Re-institutes the NNL
 Much like the East-West league the previous year
the end seemed near
 East-West game!!!
 Similar to modern day all star games, separated
geographically by East and West.
 Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, Baltimore
Afro-American, and the Kansas City Call

14. 1933 East-West Game
 Inaugural game
 Satchel Paige
 20,000 Fans
 Major League Owners present

15. 1934
 NFL adopts a “gentlemen’s agreement” much like
MLB’s barring blacks from professional
competition.
 Joe Louis, becomes light-heavyweight champion
in boxing
 “They are, on the whole, better hitters than the
Detroit Tigers”

16. 1934 E-W Game
 Some found it to not be prosperous, but a cash cow
 20,882 viewed the game
 Estimated 4,000 fans were white
 Depression Era was hurting White Baseball, Black
baseball (E-W Game) Prospering

17. 1935 E-W Game
 27,000 fans attended
 Assumption…
 White fan base increased proportionally

18. 1936
 Other sports had interracial success…
 Jesse Owens (4 medals, contested WR)
 NAACP put forth a lawsuit to end pay discrimination
between Black and White teachers.
 “I see no reason why Negroes should not be admitted to major
league baseball. If it weren’t for them, where would America be in
Hitler’s Olympics? There is no place for racial discrimination in the
American national game” – New York Daily Mirror (w)

19. 1936 (cont)
 “…In the interest of fair play and sportsmanship,
we must wipe out this Jim-crowism and allow
Negro ball players of ability on big league teams…
There is no place for racial discrimination in the
American plan of fair play and sportsmanship.”

20. 1936 E-W Game
 30,000 attended
 Satchel Paige the biggest drawing power again
 With arguments arising from the Olympics the
baseball integration issue became very hot

21. 1937
 Joe Louis becomes the Heavyweight Boxing
champion in front of 45,000 people
 NAACP, begins rallying support for baseball
integration through newspapers
 First direct connection to CRM

22. 1937 E-W Game
 No less then 20,000
 Decline from previous year, but number still does
not dip below 20,000

23. 1938 (Damn Yankees)
 Jake Powell Utility outfielder for Yankees is
recorded in interview as making racist remarks
 He states that his off-season activities include
“cracking niggers over the head” as a police
officer
 Powell suspended 10 day

24. 1938 E-W Game
 30,000 view the game
 White newspapers start to compliment the black
players in articles even dubbing them superior in
some ways

25. 1939
 All but one major league stadium had integrated
their seating.
 Two black papers began interviewing MLB execs
about their ideas on integration
 Many replied they were not unwilling to accept the
talent that the NL’s could offer.

26. 1939 E-W Game
 Joe Louis threw out the first pitch
 40,000 (a record at that time) viewed the game
 Even more heard the game over the radio for the
first time (in the New Orleans area)
 A second E-W game was played in Yankee
Stadium (12-17,000 attended, comparable to the
first Chicago crowd)

27. 1940 E-W Game
 No Satchel Paige
 Only 25,000 in attendance

28. 1941
 NAACP protested segregated military units
 Executive Order by President Roosevelt is issued,
banning “discrimination in war facilities and
military training camps.”
 Pearl Harbor ambushed

29. 1941 E-W Game
 Satchel Paige returned
 50,000+ attended, many were turned away (exact
number unknown)

30. 1942
 “Can you read, Judge Landis?” Campaign
 “…Negroes are not barred from organized baseball by the
commission and have never been since the 21 years I have
served. There is no rule in organized baseball prohibiting
their participation to my knowledge…”
 Jackie Robinson and Nate Moreland arrive unexpectedly
at Chicago White Sox training camp asking for tryouts…
nothing came of it.

31. 1942 E-W Game
 48,000+ Attended, with thousands more again
being turned away.
 Same teams played an Army-Navy relief
fundraiser, raising nearly nine thousand and five
hundred dollars

32. 1943 E-W Game
 Satchel Paige still playing
 51,000 in attendance
 Avg. of 49,000 fans per game over three years
prompted one Black Sportswriter to say “…This is
not only the biggest Negro sports event, but the
largest proposition in the nation from the point of
view of patron interest to the extent of paying an
admission price…”

33. 1944
 Judge Landis Dies
 Satchel Paige refuses to play in E-W game over
monetary dispute
 E-W Game sees 50,000 in attendance

34. 1945
 NAACP helps to initiate the passage of the Fair
Employment Practices Commission (FEPC)
 End Jim Crow in Baseball Committee is formed as a result
 New league formed by Greenlee, and Branch Rickey
called the “United States League” this league folded in
less then a year
 Branch Rickey signs Jackie Robinson to the Montreal
Royals, the farm team of the Brooklyn Dodgers

35. The East-West game would continue on until 1953,
eight years after the signing of Jackie Robinson.
Eventually the Major leagues would be fully
integrated, and it was every baseball player for
himself, to find his way on to a Major league
roster.

36. My Conclusion…

37. The End