Du Bois, W. E. B. , Collector. African American baseball players from Morris Brown College, with boy and another man standing at door, Atlanta, Georgia. Georgia Atlanta, 1899. [or 1900] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/95507100/.
This photograph offers a unique perspective on the way(s) that members of the African American community created their own sports and competitive athletics leagues in the United States in the early 20th century. The photograph provides viewers with a glimpse of the complex issues that members of the African American community faced in terms of discrimination in college and professional athletics, and also how the members of this community worked together to circumvent them. The photograph can also serve as a study of stories, communities, and histories impacted by racism, and the efforts to work together across geographical expanses to overcome those barriers by creating safe spaces to celebrate sports competition.
This is one image of a collection of images of African American baseball players. It is an image page that focuses on sports and athletics representation in historically black colleges and universities in the United States.
“African American baseball players from Morris Brown College . . .” is a photograph from the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. It depicts African American baseball players posing for a team photograph. It is also part of an African American Photographs collection that was assembled for the 1900 Paris Exhibition. (Library of Congress Collection Link)
- How does this image of the African American collegiate baseball players shape our understanding of the ways marginalized communities, namely African Americans, created spaces for themselves to enjoy sports entertainment during the Reconstruction Era in the United States?
- What does this photo reveal to readers about the impact racial discrimination had on the African American community, namely in terms of sports and athletics, in the Reconstruction Era?
- How does this image of the African American baseball players demonstrate the power of nonviolent acts of resistance?
New York State Next Generation Learning Standards for ELA
9-10W1: “Write arguments to support claims that analyze substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence. 9-10W1a: Introduce precise claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from counterclaims, establish and organize clear relationships among claim(s), counterclaim(s), reasons, and evidence.”
- Students can analyze the photograph’s composition, subjects, setting, and description to formulate claims about why this photograph exists and the significance it holds for African Americans.
11-12R9: “Make connections to other texts, ideas, cultural perspectives, eras, and personal experiences. (RI&RL)”
- Students can view this image and compare it to other primary source images of African Americans playing sports and recreating during the Reconstruction era.
- This image would pair well with August Wilson’s Fences, especially in the scenes where characters Troy, Rose, and Cory are arguing about Cory’s potential football athletics scholarship. This photograph can help open discussions about segregation and higher education, as well as segregation and athletics. Furthermore, students can include this photograph as a way to enter discussion and analysis of Troy’s character, namely the personal anguish he experiences as a result of his own failed baseball career and racism’s impact on ruining his potential rise to baseball glory.
- This image can work well with documents like the Emancipation Proclamation and the Jim Crow laws. Students can work in pairs or small groups to identify why the need for the African American baseball leagues at the college and professional levels existed during the Reconstruction Era.
- The image could be challenged for its connection to the atrocious history of segregation in America. The image highlights the need for African Americans to create their own communal spaces to receive a college education and play sports without fear of facing violence and harassment.
Links to resources for approaching those topics:
- The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum site in Kansas City, Missouri, as well as their website, provide an extensive collection of African American baseball leagues that were created from the Reconstruction Era through the Jim Crow Era. Students can search the website or visit the museum for a more in-depth, rich historical context for the significance and influence of African American baseball players.
- n.d. Negro Leagues Baseball Museum: Welcome to NLBM. Accessed December 17, 2024. https://www.nlbm.com/.
- This Library of Congress "Baseball, 1900s-1930s" link can help frame and contextualize segregated baseball leagues in the United States from the 1900s–1930s. The article provides a general overview of the era, as well as photographs of segregated teams, stats sheets, and advertisements from the era.
- “1900s–1930s.” n.d. Library of Congress. Accessed December 17, 2024. https://www.loc.gov/collections/jackie-robinson-baseball/articles-and-essays/baseball-the-color-line-and-jackie-robinson/1900s-to-1930s/.
- Students can view this image of the Yale baseball team from 1901 as a comparison for college-age baseball players during the Reconstruction Era. They can observe the photograph’s setting, the subjects’ body language, and the subjects’ uniforms to make inferences about college athletics at an all-white institution during the Reconstruction Era.
- Also consider this picture of the Princeton Baseball Team. Princeton New Jersey, ca. 1901. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/99402345/. It can be used as a point of contrast to the source.
- The Major League Baseball (MLB) official website has an entire page dedicated to the Negro Baseball League and its history. https://www.mlb.com/video/topic/negro-leagues Source: “The Negro Leagues.” n.d. MLB.com. https://www.mlb.com/video/topic/negro-leagues.
- The Black College Nines website is a source dedicated to preserving the history of HBCU baseball. Source: “Black College Nines.” n.d. Black College Nines. Accessed December 17, 2024. https://blackcollegenines.com/29083-2/.
- This link to an interview with Bill Greason is an excellent firsthand account of his experience playing in the Negro Leagues after coming home from serving as one of the first Black marines in the US military during WWII. Source: Greason, Bill. n.d. Interview with Bill Greason where he discusses his role in the Negro Baseball League. mlb.com. https://www.mlb.com/video/the-story-behind-negro-leaguer-bill-greason?t=negro-leagues.