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9 Sports Facts
Sixty-three years before Jackie Robinson made his debut on the Brooklyn Dodgers, Moses Fleetwood “Fleet” Walker became the first African-American to play in a major league baseball game, when he played for an American Association team, the Toledo Bluestockings, on May 1, 1884. The game was played in Louisville, Kentucky. Walker, a catcher, played in 42 games for the Bluestockings. Source: Fleet Walker by Jon R. Husman...
read moreThe Lost Champion
“Twenty-fifth.—The effects of the last fall operated in some degree upon the feelings of Cribb, from its severity; yet the Champion endeavoured to remove this impression by making play, and striving (as in the former round) to put in a hit on Molineaux’s left eye, but the Moor, aware of the intent, warded it off, and in return knocked Cribb down.” — from Boxiana; or, Sketches of Ancient and Modern Pugilism, from the Days of the Renowned Broughton and Slack, to the Championship of Cribb, Vol. 1 (1813) by Pierce Egan Cribb was the...
read moreHigh Jumper
Alice Coachman from Albany, Georgia, clears the bar 5 feet, 6-1/8 inches breaking the previous record at the 1948 Olympics held in London in front of 65,000 spectators. The last member of the team to compete, Coachman said in a 2003 interview for the National Visionary Leadership Project, that her coach criticized her for not working out the day before her jump, fearful that she would not medal, like most of the 11-member team. “I let her do all her fussing, while I was talking to the man above, telling him ‘If it’s your will, let it be...
read moreBreaking the Ice
Few of the fans filling the Montreal Forum on the night of January 18, 1958, knew they were witnessing history. There was enough for the crowd to be excited about. This was Hockey Night in Canada, a nationally broadcast weekly confrontation; that night’s competition pitted the Montreal Canadiens, the most dominant team in the history of the sport, against their archrivals the Boston Bruins. Few noticed a dark-complexioned left winter playing his first game in a Bruins uniform. But the 23-year-old Willie O’Ree, recently brought up from the...
read moreRebellions
In the wake of the black history “remarks” about the abolitionist Frederick Douglass that we were treated to at the start of this Black History Month, we were reminded that not all black people have accepted their lot and meekly submitted to enslavement and whatever brutal treatment came with it. Frederick Douglass himself broke bad and beat the tar out of a “slave breaker” named Mr. Covey, who never tried to whip him again. Douglass was 16. When he was 25 he faced down a mob of white supremacist terrorists—because that’s what they...
read moreI Am Free
Oney Judge was born around 1773 on Mount Vernon, the Virginia plantation of the most celebrated hero of the American Revolution: George Washington. She was the daughter of Betty, a black seamstress (enslaved), and Andrew Judge, a white tailor (an indentured servant). We have no images of the girl, but she was described as having a light complexion. Oney spent her early years in the slave quarters on the plantation until age ten, when she was moved into the main house to served as a playmate to one of the granddaughters of Washington’s wife...
read moreA Dress Rehearsal in the Motor City
In June 1963, King stood before 25,000 people at Cobo Hallin Detroit, his voice ringing out in the convention center, saying the words that would become written into American history for all time.“I have a dream this afternoon.” His appearance at Cobo Hall came at the end of a day that began with The Walk to Freedom, a civil rights march in Detroit that would draw some 125,000 people and be the largest of its kind until it was eclipsed, two months later, by the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. What’s observable right away is...
read moreA Bold Stroke for Freedom
A story buried in the Philadelphia abolitionist William Still’s Underground Railroad a comprehensive record kept of the escapes from slavery of African Americans tells the stunning story of a married couple Barnaby and Mary Elizabeth Grigby, Frank Wanzer, and Emily Foster. All 20-something, and described in Still’s narrative as being intelligent and attractive, they had no intention of living their lives out in slavery. So they took horses and a carriage and on Christmas Eve 1855 drove themselves, along with two other fugitive men on...
read moreLorraine Hansberry
Remembering Lorraine Hansberry January 12, 2025 will mark the 50th anniversary of the death of one of America’s great playwrights, Lorraine Hansberry. She is best known as the author of A Raisin In the Sun, which opened on Broadway on March 11, 1959, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. On the surface, the play tells the story of a family living on the South Side of Chicago that is faced with the difficult decision of how to spend $10,000 in life insurance. Underpinning the dilemma is a battle royale between materialism, idealism, and a...
read moreOregon Black Pioneers
Preserving Oregon’s African-American History Since 1993 the Oregon Black Pioneers, an all volunteer non-profit organization based in Salem, Oregon, has been committed to preserving African-American history and culture in the state. OBP’s goal is to educate Oregonians and others about African-Americans contributions to Oregon’s history; to tell the stories of these pioneers through presentations, exhibits, and books; and to partner with school districts and historical organizations statewide. Several years ago the organization developed...
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