Negro Leagues and Jackie Robinson
Further Information: Negro league baseball
As sports progressed, race relations progressed at a comparable rate. In Baseball for instance, African-Americans were barred from participation in the National Association of Baseball Players because of regional prejudice and unofficial color bans dating back to the 1890s. Due to this segregation, blacks worked together to create the Negro Leagues. These leagues comprised mostly all African-American teams. As a whole, the Negro Leagues overtime became one of the largest and most successful enterprises run by African-Americans. Their birth and resilient growth stood as a testament to the determination and drive of African-Americans to battle the imposing racial segregation and social disadvantage. After years of playing in an association for blacks, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier by participating in the Dodger's organization. His excellence at this level opened the gates for other African American's to be accepted into a less segregated Major League Baseball, and in 1949 the Negro Leagues disbanded. Soon after Robinson's inclusion into organized baseball, Roy Campanella, Joe Black and Don Newcombe, and Larry Doby all joined Robinson as significant black players that helped foil the racial divide. By to 1952, 150 black players were in organized baseball.
Read more about this topic: Racism In Sport
Famous quotes containing the words negro, leagues, jackie and/or robinson:
“Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light”
—Langston Hughes (1902–1967)
“Struck in the wet mire
Four thousand leagues from the ninth buried city
I thought of Troy, what we had built her for.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“I have nothing against the Queen of England. Even in my heart I never resented her for not being Jackie Kennedy. She is, to my mind, a very gallant lady, victimized by whoever it is who designs the tops of her uniforms.”
—Leonard Cohen (b. 1934)
“But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.”
—Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935)