6. African Americans in Baseball

Not long after the Civil War the first public baseball game was played against African American teams. Brooklyn played Philadelphia but lost on their home field. Over the next twenty years over 200 Black teams would be formed.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/

Although some Blacks were able to play on some teams in the Northern states, Jim Crow laws and racism kept them from participating in most profession teams. The Nation Association of Baseball Players made a "gentlemen's agreement" to bar Blacks from participating. It wasn't until 1920 that the first Black professional league was created, The Negro National League. A year later The Negro Southern league was formed and in 1923 The Eastern Colored League came about.

It wasn't until 1946 that we saw the beginning of the end to the segregation of Blacks and Whites on the field. Jackie Robinson (number 42) was signed onto the Brooklyn Dodgers and is known as the first professional Black player to join the National League. A couple years later the rest of the Negro Leagues slowly dissolved into the National and American League ending the racism in baseball.













http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/african-american-baseball/