From Dachau to the dugout: Black America's diamond-lined response to racism

Abstract

Racism remains one of the greatest scourges upon humanity through the ages. History has recorded its cruelty and the devastating effects it has unleashed upon many groups of people across the globe. Within these pages there will be found several ways that racism and its effects have been alleviated, if not ultimately overcome. However, there is a more specific discovery regarding one such response and it comes from within the realm of sport. More specifically its origins are found within baseball, otherwise known as America's pastime. That the exclusion of black men from the professional baseball diamonds in the days of Jim Crow occurred should not be surprising to most. It was the method by which one Andrew 'Rube' Foster chose to organize the early Negro Leagues' response to such segregation that is the topic of this thesis.