In the late 1800s, African-Americans began to play baseball on teams in the military, schools, and company teams. Some went on to play on professional teams with white players, but the integration was short-lived as Jim Crow laws and discrimination halted the integration of professional baseball teams by 1900. Black players began forming their own teams and playing anyone who would agree to compete with them, “barnstorming” across the country.
Black baseball teams were drawing crowds during the 1910s, but the popularity of the teams often did not lead to profits for the owners or players due to the machinations of white booking agents. Manager of the Chicago American Giants, Andrew “Rube” Foster said of the practice: “The wild, reckless scramble under the guise of baseball is keeping us down and we will always be the underdog until we can successfully employ the methods that have brought success to the great powers that be in baseball of the present era: organization.” Foster continued to advocate for a formal league organization for African-American teams throughout the 1910s, both through his conversations with other owners and through a series of columns in the Chicago Defender newspaper.
In 1920, an organized league was developed in the Midwest under the umbrella of the Negro National League. Foster and other team owners came together at a YMCA in Kansas City, Missouri to incorporate the official league. Soon thereafter, leagues formed in the southern and eastern states, leading to Black baseball teams throughout the United States, parts of Canada, and also parts of Latin America.
The Negro Leagues became beacons for economic development in many Black communities and maintained a high standard of play and entertainment for fans. Throughout the 1920s, the leagues grew, attracting spectators that rivaled or surpassed those of the white teams. Unfortunately, as the Great Depression took its toll on so many things in American life, so too did it end almost all of the Black baseball leagues.
In 1937, a new league emerged out of the ashes: the Negro American League, with many of the same teams as before. The Negro American League continued its success until the color barrier was broken by one of its own, Jackie Robinson, in 1947. Robinson’s recruitment led to the integration of Major League Baseball and the eventual end to the Negro Leagues.
Regardless of its end, Negro League Baseball is an important part of professional baseball history. “The leagues died having served their purpose,” said baseball writer Steven Goldman, “shining a light on African-American ballplayers at a time when the white majors simply did not want to know.”