• About

The Strawfoot

~ a New Yorker's American History blog

The Strawfoot

Monthly Archives: August 2020

Remembering the March on Washington

28 Friday Aug 2020

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nat Hentoff

≈ Comments Off on Remembering the March on Washington

National Mall, Washington D.C., August 28, 1963

I am currently about 150 pages into Taylor Branch’s Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963, the first volume in his trilogy about the United States in the 1950s and 60s seen through the lens of the Civil Rights Movement. I am currently in the chapter on the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Branch’s series has been on my radar for decades, without ever quite making it to the top of my reading list until now. There is something extraordinary when a historian researches and writes a story with such authority and grace. It is all the more rewarding, even humbling, when the subject matter is worthy of the writer’s skills.

Today is the 57th anniversary of the March on Washington. Over the years I’ve read and watched many first hand accounts of people who were there, including Bob Dylan, Nat Hentoff, Bill Russell, and Jackie Robinson just to name a few. Broadly speaking, I have always found the first half of the 1960s more socially, politically, and culturally intriguing than the second half. The later events may have been more dramatic and played out more graphically on television, but the seeds for them had been planted in the years immediately beforehand. These are events in our history that seem so far removed and yet so near at the same time.

(image/photographer Marion S. Trikosko for U.S. News & World Report, via Library of Congress)

Remembering the Negro Leagues, part two

16 Sunday Aug 2020

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Baseball

≈ Comments Off on Remembering the Negro Leagues, part two

Today is the second and concluding section of our look at the history and legacy of the Negro Leagues, which began play one hundred years ago in 1920. In August 1945, just weeks after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the Second World War, former Negro Leaguer and veteran Jackie Robinson signed a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers that ultimately signaled the beginning of the end of Negro League baseball.

If you have not already, read part one here.

Baseball declined in talent during the Second World War when many players traded their baseball uniform for a military one and substandard replacements took their place. Returning players, black and white, resumed play in the summer of 1945 and baseball quickly regained its popularity. Major League Baseball remained strictly segregated however, despite the deep pool of African-American talent. White and black players were nonetheless familiar with each other because they played frequently in exhibition games. These might be games between two teams from different leagues or contests between collections of black and white all-stars. There is consensus among baseball historians that the best Negro players would have been stars in Major League Baseball. Calls to integrate baseball in the years just prior to the Second World War stalled once America joined the conflict. Demands for integration became more intense after the war as African-Americans demanded equal access not just within baseball but across society.

Larry Doby 1951 Bowman Gum card

African-American Jackie Robinson had been a standout in baseball, football, basketball and track at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) before serving in the Army as a second lieutenant during the Second World War. He played briefly for the Kansas City Monarchs after his return before signing a contract with Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers on August 28, 1945. Robinson played for the minor league Montreal Royals in 1946 and led the team to the International League title. He made his Major League debut at Ebbets Field the following season on April 15, 1947 against the Boston Braves. Larry Doby became the first African-American to integrate the American League, when he appeared for the Cleveland Indians on July 5, 1947. Robinson, Doby, and the two other African-American players who broke baseball’s color barrier that season endured cheap shots from opposing players, taunts from fans, and even death threats over the course of the season. Baseball teams continued integrating and African-Americans, many of them former Negro League players, quickly became standouts. An African-American won the National League Most Valuable Players award eight out of ten times in the 1950s.

By the 1960s both the American and National Leagues were fully integrated and African-Americans were making major contributions to the game. Retired Boston Red Sox outfielder Theodore “Ted “ Williams used his July 1966 National Baseball Hall of Fame induction speech to express his hope that someday ballplayers like Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson might be added to the Hall “as a symbol of the great Negro players that are not here only because they were not given the chance.” Major League Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn formed a Negro League Committee to determine what players to induct. One month later Satchel Paige became the first Negro League player inducted into the Hall. The committee continued its work until 1977 and inducted several additional players. In 2006 the Hall of Fame created a committee of historians to examine the cases of other Negro players, owners, and executives who might also merit inclusion.

Curt Flood

African-Americans contributed off the field as well. Star player Curt Flood sued Major League Baseball for refusing a trade from the St. Louis Cardinals to the Philadelphia Phillies in 1969. The case eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court in 1972, and while Mr. Flood lost the decision his trial helped end the “reserve clause” system that kept players contractually tied to one team at the owners’ discretion. The Flood Decision helped bring about arbitration and free agency. African-American participation in professional baseball waned in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries as other sports grew in popularity. While blacks comprised over 25% of major league players in 1975, the percentage is today less than 15%. Conversely, players from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia comprise a larger percentage of players than previously. Major League Baseball has spurred interest in the game through such programs as the Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) program, which began in 1989.

Paseo YMCA, Kansas City Monarchs mural

The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (NLBM), located in Kansas City, Missouri, was founded in 1990 and opened to the public in a modest space one year later. Today the NLBM shares a state-of-the-art facility with the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City’s historic district. The Paseo YMCA, two blocks from the Negro Leagues and Jazz Museums, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. It was at The Paseo, in the heart of Kansas City’s bustling African-American community, that Rube Foster and others founded the Negro National League in 1920. The Paseo is now the home of the Buck O’Neil Education and Research Center (BOERC). Mr. O’Neil (1911-2006) was a star player for the Kansas City Monarchs and later a coach and manager in the Negro and Major Leagues. He was integral to the founding and growth of the NLBM.

(images from top: Love of the Game Auctions, Bowman Gum, St. Louis Cardinals/MLB, Mwkruse via Wikimedia Commons)

 

 

 

Remembering the Negro Leagues, part one

15 Saturday Aug 2020

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Baseball

≈ Comments Off on Remembering the Negro Leagues, part one

Tomorrow, Sunday August 16, Major League Baseball is observing the 100th anniversary of the Negro Leagues. Part of that observation will include the wearing of throwback uniforms, which I love. In July 2018 I wrote an encyclopedia article on Negro baseball for a project that eventually got cancelled. For two years I have been waiting to find a spot for it somewhere, and that tine has come. Today is part one, which brings the story up to 1945; tomorrow will cover the succeeding seventy-five years. I hope you enjoy reading the piece as much as I enjoyed researching and writing it.

Bud Fowler (top middle) with Keokuk, Iowa professional baseball team, 1885

Baseball originated in America in the decades immediately prior to the Civil War. No one person invented the game. Instead players created different rules independently of each other in different locales. Baseball also evolved from such European games as cricket and rounders. African-Americans too enjoyed playing baseball and were active in the game’s growth. Freepersons and slaves fielded teams during the years of the game’s development. Union and Confederate alike played the game in their respective camps during the Civil War, further spreading and standardizing the game. Black and white squads barnstormed after the war, playing games as they could. In 1869 the first white professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was founded. The Cuban Giants, formed in 1885, were the first African-American professional team. As the game grew more institutionalized during the Gilded Age black and white players played in a number of predominantly segregated baseball leagues. Some of these now long gone affiliations of clubs are considered major leagues up to the present time.

In 1876 the National League came into being. The American League was founded in 1901. Determining the role of African-Americans in the early years of organized baseball can be difficult given the scarce data and varying criteria. John W. “Bud” Fowler is believed to be the first African-American to break professional baseball’s color barrier, playing for a number of minor league clubs from 1878 to at least 1895. Scholars usually credit Moses Fleetwood Walker, who played the 1884 season for a Toledo team in the American Association, with being the first African-American to play for a major league team.

Rube Foster (right) then of the Chicago American Giants playing against a white Joliet, Illinois team in 1916

Though there were six dozen African-Americans playing minor league or independent ball in the late nineteenth century, major league baseball, like the nation itself, was entirely segregated by this time due to the so-called “gentlemen’s agreement” among owners to exclude blacks. African-American teams and leagues nonetheless remained popular and were common in the early 1900s. African-American baseball began a new era when Andrew “Rube” Foster founded the National Negro League on February 13, 1920. Properly understood, Foster’s creation was the origin of what is today called the Negro Leagues. The Negro National League was initially quite successful with teams primarily in the Midwest fielding such stars as Leroy Robert “Satchel” Paige, third baseman William Julius “Judy” Johnson, slick fielding shortstop John Henry “Pop” Lloyd, and center fielders James Thomas “Cool Papa” Bell and Oscar McKinley Charleston. However, organized black baseball faced increasing hardship as African-American communities struggled financially in the late 1920s. The NNL further floundered with Foster’s declining health and eventual death in 1930. The Great Depression hit the Negro National League hard and the organization disbanded in 1931.

A newly reconstituted Negro National League began in 1933 and a competing Negro American League started play in 1937. The new Negro National League now played in the Northeast; the Negro American League was concentrated in the Midwest and South. The champions of these leagues played a Negro World Series from 1942-48. Previous African-American leagues in the 1920s had played what organizers called the Colored Championship of the World. The 1930s and 1940s are considered the golden age for Negro League baseball. Stars of this era included not only many holdovers from the previous era but new standouts such as slugger Walter “Buck” Leonard, Monford “Monty” Irvin, Roy Campanella, and Jack Roosevelt “Jackie” Robinson. The annual East-West All-Star game was an especially popular feature in Negro League baseball. Prominent Negro teams spanning various eras and leagues included the Birmingham Black Barons, Chicago American Giants, Hilldale (PA) Daisies, Homestead (PA) Grays, Indianapolis ABCs, Kansas City Monarchs, Newark Eagles, and Pittsburgh Crawfords.

Meanwhile baseball was growing beyond the borders of the United States as American influence expanded. Cubans had played baseball to a limited degree in the nineteenth century. Esteban Enrique  Bellán of Havana became the first Latino to play major league baseball in the United States when he played the 1871-1873 seasons for the Troy (NY) Haymakers and New York Mutuals of the National Association. Cubans in turn introduced the game in the Spanish-speaking country of the Dominican Republic. The game quickly gained popularity in other Latin American countries, across parts of the Caribbean, and in Mexico as well. Baseball in Cuba was waning by the time of the Spanish-American War. The American presence after the conflict rejuvenated interest in the game, leading to a baseball renaissance on the island that continues up to the present time.

Babe Ruth in Vancouver aboard the Empress of Japan on October 20, 1934 as part of all-star contingent heading to Asia

Baseball also spread across the Pacific. The Japanese began playing the game as early as the 1870s. American teams, usually comprised of all-stars, began visiting in the years shortly after the Russo-Japanese War. The most famous of these goodwill tours was a 22-game visit to the Far East featuring such American players as Jimmie Foxx, Vernon Louis “Lefty” Gomez, Lou Gehrig, and George Herman “Babe” Ruth playing against Japanese and other Asian all-stars in 1934. Many of these countries in the Caribbean, Latin America and the Far East developed their own leagues and built ballparks of professional standards. There were always at least a few Hispanic baseball players in the various major leagues from Bellán’s service in Troy in 1871 up through the full integration of colored players into Major League Baseball after the Second World War.

Click here for part two.

(image: top, National Baseball Hall of Fame, National Baseball Library; middle, RMY Auctions; bottom, Stuart Thomson photographer)

 

Hiroshima, August 6, 1945

06 Thursday Aug 2020

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, WW2

≈ 3 Comments

Hiroshima, 1945

I don’t know if I have anything particularly insightful, new, or especially revelatory to say about it, but I would be remiss if I did not mention that today is the 75th anniversary of the dropping of Little Boy on Hiroshima.

Truman had been in office less than four months at this time. Roosevelt had kept the Manhattan Project a secret from his vice-president, who learned of the race to build the atomic bomb only after Roosevelt’s death in April. Imagine hearing about such a thing for the first time, and knowing you would be the one who would have to make such a decision. The history, creation, and use of the atomic bomb is a story that resonates on the individual and universal level. Very rarely do tipping points in history come so sharply and clearly as they did seventy-five years ago today. There was no turning back or putting the genie back in the bottle for humankind after August 6, 1945. The world had unambiguously entered a new age.

(image/Truman Library Institute)

“Brown Broadway”

02 Sunday Aug 2020

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Jazz

≈ 3 Comments

Newsboys on LA’s Central Avenue, 1939

One Sunday afternoon in March 1989 my brother and I attended Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s final game in Houston against the Rockets. That was now more than three decades ago and my memories are naturally fuzzy, but as I recall I don’t think we knew when we bought the tickets that it would be the great center’s final game in Space City. Before the game they had the typical ceremony where the aging soon-to-be-hall of famer receives accolades and usually some cheesy gifts. Abdul-Jabbar said a few uncomfortable words and then the game was on. Houston was an important city in Kareem’s career: in the 1980s his Lakers lost twice to the Rockets in the Western Conference playoffs and in January 1968 then-still Lew Alcindor’s #2 ranked UCLA Bruins lost to the #1 ranked Houston Cougars 71-69 in the so-called Game of the Century before a nationally televised audience before tens of thousands in the Astrodome. (In March the Bruins would defeat Dean Smith’s North Carolina Tar Heels in the NCAA Finals.)

Abdul-Jabbar has always played a role in my and my brother’s popular culture narrative. Though sports mean less to me than they once did, you could not be a Boston sports fan in the 1980s and not think of Los Angeles Lakers. In retrospect I understand that our infatuation was partly based on our being uprooted from the Northeast and transported to the grim, humid Sunbelt in the 1970s; torn from our roots, we clung as we could to was there, which for us included the Red Sox, Bruins, Patriots, and–especially–the Celtics. These were the days before the internet or, for us, even cable television, and we often called the local newspaper in the late evening to ask the final score of this or that game before the next morning’s paper.

Abdul-Jabbar always seemed a shy and reserved man, less comfortable in the spotlight than Earvin Johnson. Magic’s affability and gift of gab probably took a great deal of strain off of the great center, which could only have been a relief. In the mid-90s I was working at a large chain bookstore in Houston when we were planning for some book signing event. That led to a discussion in the break room of previous public figures who had passed through in recent years, usually before my arrival on the job. One of them was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who my co-workers told me left though the backdoor halfway through the signing. If that even happened, who know why? Arrogance? Shyness? Social anxiety? Condescension? People are complicated.

A thoughtful and insightful individual, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has kept busy writing books and articles for much of the past thirty years. He recently wrote this fascinating story about Black Los Angeles for the LA Times. It especially covers the LA jazz scene, something that the retired basketball player turned writer knows more than a little about. Lew Alcindor grew up in Harlem and his father both a NYC transit cop and Julliard-trained musician who knew and played with most of the greats of the mid-twentieth century. Do check it out.

(image/photographer, Fred William Carter; Security Pacific National Bank Collection, Los Angeles Public Library)

 

 

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 243 other subscribers

Categories

Archives

  • January 2023 (4)
  • December 2022 (4)
  • November 2022 (8)
  • October 2022 (2)
  • September 2022 (4)
  • June 2022 (1)
  • May 2022 (1)
  • April 2022 (13)
  • January 2022 (1)
  • December 2021 (2)
  • November 2021 (1)
  • October 2021 (3)
  • September 2021 (3)
  • August 2021 (5)
  • July 2021 (1)
  • June 2021 (1)
  • May 2021 (4)
  • April 2021 (3)
  • March 2021 (4)
  • February 2021 (7)
  • January 2021 (4)
  • December 2020 (4)
  • November 2020 (3)
  • October 2020 (4)
  • September 2020 (7)
  • August 2020 (5)
  • July 2020 (7)
  • June 2020 (11)
  • May 2020 (7)
  • April 2020 (9)
  • March 2020 (9)
  • February 2020 (7)
  • January 2020 (6)
  • December 2019 (7)
  • November 2019 (9)
  • October 2019 (4)
  • September 2019 (6)
  • August 2019 (10)
  • July 2019 (8)
  • June 2019 (6)
  • May 2019 (9)
  • April 2019 (8)
  • March 2019 (6)
  • February 2019 (8)
  • January 2019 (5)
  • December 2018 (10)
  • November 2018 (6)
  • October 2018 (9)
  • September 2018 (11)
  • August 2018 (11)
  • July 2018 (17)
  • June 2018 (10)
  • May 2018 (8)
  • April 2018 (9)
  • March 2018 (8)
  • February 2018 (5)
  • January 2018 (7)
  • December 2017 (11)
  • November 2017 (8)
  • October 2017 (9)
  • September 2017 (11)
  • August 2017 (12)
  • July 2017 (14)
  • June 2017 (18)
  • May 2017 (11)
  • April 2017 (10)
  • March 2017 (9)
  • February 2017 (11)
  • January 2017 (14)
  • December 2016 (7)
  • November 2016 (8)
  • October 2016 (8)
  • September 2016 (9)
  • August 2016 (6)
  • July 2016 (12)
  • June 2016 (8)
  • May 2016 (9)
  • April 2016 (6)
  • March 2016 (12)
  • February 2016 (10)
  • January 2016 (9)
  • December 2015 (9)
  • November 2015 (11)
  • October 2015 (8)
  • September 2015 (9)
  • August 2015 (13)
  • July 2015 (14)
  • June 2015 (11)
  • May 2015 (11)
  • April 2015 (18)
  • March 2015 (10)
  • February 2015 (8)
  • January 2015 (8)
  • December 2014 (12)
  • November 2014 (13)
  • October 2014 (16)
  • September 2014 (11)
  • August 2014 (16)
  • July 2014 (12)
  • June 2014 (13)
  • May 2014 (10)
  • April 2014 (10)
  • March 2014 (11)
  • February 2014 (12)
  • January 2014 (10)
  • December 2013 (11)
  • November 2013 (14)
  • October 2013 (14)
  • September 2013 (14)
  • August 2013 (13)
  • July 2013 (17)
  • June 2013 (9)
  • May 2013 (13)
  • April 2013 (13)
  • March 2013 (16)
  • February 2013 (15)
  • January 2013 (15)
  • December 2012 (18)
  • November 2012 (18)
  • October 2012 (21)
  • September 2012 (14)
  • August 2012 (16)
  • July 2012 (21)
  • June 2012 (22)
  • May 2012 (24)
  • April 2012 (20)
  • March 2012 (23)
  • February 2012 (22)
  • January 2012 (15)
  • December 2011 (23)
  • November 2011 (22)
  • October 2011 (23)
  • September 2011 (18)
  • August 2011 (19)
  • July 2011 (20)
  • June 2011 (29)
  • May 2011 (25)
  • April 2011 (18)
  • March 2011 (21)
  • February 2011 (11)

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 243 other subscribers

Categories

Archives

  • January 2023 (4)
  • December 2022 (4)
  • November 2022 (8)
  • October 2022 (2)
  • September 2022 (4)
  • June 2022 (1)
  • May 2022 (1)
  • April 2022 (13)
  • January 2022 (1)
  • December 2021 (2)
  • November 2021 (1)
  • October 2021 (3)
  • September 2021 (3)
  • August 2021 (5)
  • July 2021 (1)
  • June 2021 (1)
  • May 2021 (4)
  • April 2021 (3)
  • March 2021 (4)
  • February 2021 (7)
  • January 2021 (4)
  • December 2020 (4)
  • November 2020 (3)
  • October 2020 (4)
  • September 2020 (7)
  • August 2020 (5)
  • July 2020 (7)
  • June 2020 (11)
  • May 2020 (7)
  • April 2020 (9)
  • March 2020 (9)
  • February 2020 (7)
  • January 2020 (6)
  • December 2019 (7)
  • November 2019 (9)
  • October 2019 (4)
  • September 2019 (6)
  • August 2019 (10)
  • July 2019 (8)
  • June 2019 (6)
  • May 2019 (9)
  • April 2019 (8)
  • March 2019 (6)
  • February 2019 (8)
  • January 2019 (5)
  • December 2018 (10)
  • November 2018 (6)
  • October 2018 (9)
  • September 2018 (11)
  • August 2018 (11)
  • July 2018 (17)
  • June 2018 (10)
  • May 2018 (8)
  • April 2018 (9)
  • March 2018 (8)
  • February 2018 (5)
  • January 2018 (7)
  • December 2017 (11)
  • November 2017 (8)
  • October 2017 (9)
  • September 2017 (11)
  • August 2017 (12)
  • July 2017 (14)
  • June 2017 (18)
  • May 2017 (11)
  • April 2017 (10)
  • March 2017 (9)
  • February 2017 (11)
  • January 2017 (14)
  • December 2016 (7)
  • November 2016 (8)
  • October 2016 (8)
  • September 2016 (9)
  • August 2016 (6)
  • July 2016 (12)
  • June 2016 (8)
  • May 2016 (9)
  • April 2016 (6)
  • March 2016 (12)
  • February 2016 (10)
  • January 2016 (9)
  • December 2015 (9)
  • November 2015 (11)
  • October 2015 (8)
  • September 2015 (9)
  • August 2015 (13)
  • July 2015 (14)
  • June 2015 (11)
  • May 2015 (11)
  • April 2015 (18)
  • March 2015 (10)
  • February 2015 (8)
  • January 2015 (8)
  • December 2014 (12)
  • November 2014 (13)
  • October 2014 (16)
  • September 2014 (11)
  • August 2014 (16)
  • July 2014 (12)
  • June 2014 (13)
  • May 2014 (10)
  • April 2014 (10)
  • March 2014 (11)
  • February 2014 (12)
  • January 2014 (10)
  • December 2013 (11)
  • November 2013 (14)
  • October 2013 (14)
  • September 2013 (14)
  • August 2013 (13)
  • July 2013 (17)
  • June 2013 (9)
  • May 2013 (13)
  • April 2013 (13)
  • March 2013 (16)
  • February 2013 (15)
  • January 2013 (15)
  • December 2012 (18)
  • November 2012 (18)
  • October 2012 (21)
  • September 2012 (14)
  • August 2012 (16)
  • July 2012 (21)
  • June 2012 (22)
  • May 2012 (24)
  • April 2012 (20)
  • March 2012 (23)
  • February 2012 (22)
  • January 2012 (15)
  • December 2011 (23)
  • November 2011 (22)
  • October 2011 (23)
  • September 2011 (18)
  • August 2011 (19)
  • July 2011 (20)
  • June 2011 (29)
  • May 2011 (25)
  • April 2011 (18)
  • March 2011 (21)
  • February 2011 (11)

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • The Strawfoot
    • Join 214 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • The Strawfoot
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...