Source: Fleet Walker by Jon R. Husman http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/9fc5f867;
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1147947-moses-fleetwood-walker-the-forgotten-man-who-actually-integrated-baseball
Refusing to be traded under what he considered unfair and archaic reserve clause and antitrust rules, Cardinals Centerfielder Curt Flood sued Major League Baseball in 1969 to become a free agent. Although he lost in the 1972 Supreme Court case (Flood v. Kuhn), his case paved the way for the player’s union to bargain for binding arbitration on grievances and free agency.
Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/407/258/case.html;
Curt Flood by Terry Sloope https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/23a120cb
Baseball player Mamie “Peanut” Johnson was the first female pitcher—and one of three women—to play in the all-male Negro Leagues. Johnson joined the Indianapolis Clowns in 1953; she was 17 years old. In the three years she was with the Clowns, she was 33-8, and her career batting average was .273. The other women players were infielder Toni Stone, who was the first woman to play for a men’s team, and Connie Morgan who played second base. Baseball great Hank Aaron got his start on the Indianapolis Clowns.
Source: https://www.mlb.com/news/negro-leagues-player-mamie-johnson-dies-at-82/c-263851858. http://www.visionaryproject.org/johnsonmamie/
Willie O’Ree may not have been the first black hockey player in the NHL had Canadian Herb Carnegie not turned down a place on the New York Rangers minor league team in 1948. The Rangers offered Carnegie—called the best black hockey player to never play in the NHL—a chance to qualify for their official NHL roster, but he did not make the team. Recommended to the minor leagues, he urned down the offer and went back to playing on Canadian league teams. He was inducted into 13 sports halls of fame (although not the NHL’s), nine of them for his various roles in hockey.
Source: http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/herb-carnegie-the-best-black-hockey-player-to-never-play-in-the-nhl
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/herb-carnegie/
In the early decades of the Twentieth Century Charlie Wiggins was at the vanguard of black racing culture in the segregated Midwest. An expert race car driver and highly sought-after mechanic, Wiggins was blocked by the American Automobile Association from entering his own car in the prestigious Indianapolis 500. In 1924, Wiggins and other African-American drivers, backed by a group of five black and two white businessmen, formed the Colored Speedway Association. Wiggins victories and talent on the track won him the nickname “The Negro Speed King.” The highlight of all CSA events was the annual 100-mile race-the Gold and Glory Sweepstakes, which took place on a one-mile dirt track at the Indiana State Fairgrounds.
Source: http://www.blackpast.org/aah/wiggins-charlie-1897-1979
In 1930, Bessie Stringfield became the first African-American woman to ride her motorcycle across the United States solo. Starting out in high school with a 1928 Indian Scout, she made the first of eight cross-country solo trips during a time when most women did not dare to venture far from home alone, let alone on a motorcyle. Stringfield supported herself with stunt-riding in at carnivals, and worked for the army as a civilian motorcycle courier during World War II. She demonstrated that she could manage tough maneuvers on one of 27 Harleys, she would come to own.
Sources: http://www.motorcyclemuseum.org/halloffame/detail.aspx?RacerID=277; http://www.blackpast.org/aah/bessie-stringfield-1911-1993
The Protest in New Orleans
In January 1965, the members of the American Football League (AFL) were forced to cancel the annual All-Star game set to be played in New Orleans, after black and white members of the All-Stars team decided to boycott the game. The boycott was in response to the racism African-American players and their families were subjected to in the Crescent City. The game was moved to Houston.
“The boycott was clearly a milestone event that went beyond the world of sports and was more a reflection of American society at the time,” wrote Jon Kendle for the Pro Football Hall of Fame website. “It helped shine a spotlight on Congress’s ability to enforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and proved that if America was to desegregate, the culture needed to change its mindset and adopt a more progressive view of the human race as quickly as possible.”
Sources: http://www.nola.com/living/index.ssf/2017/09/1965_afl_all-star_boycott_new.html; http://www.profootballhof.com/news/players-boycott-afl-all-star-game/
In 1904, Edwin Bancroft Henderson, “Father of Black Sports” introduced African Americans to the game of basketball. He first learned to play black basketball at Harvard University during a training class for gym teachers, bringing the sport to schools back to segregated schools in Washington D.C. Henderson was later appointed honorary president of the North American Society for Sport History and co-edited the Spalding Official Handbook, first published in 1911.
Source: http://www.blackpast.org/aah/henderson-edwin-bancroft-1883-1977; http://dh.howard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1090&context=finaid_manu
On October 19, 1983, Cheryl White became the first woman jockey to win 5 thoroughbred races in one day at Fresno Fair racetrack. White won a remarkable 750 races over a 21-year-career, racing a variety of horses on various tracks.
https://www.appaloosa.com/association/hof/pdfs/2011_CherylWhite.pdf
