1865.8
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First Integrated (Adult) Club Takes the Field?
Salience | Noteworthy |
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Tags | African AmericansAfrican Americans |
Location | Florence, MAFlorence, MA |
City/State/Country: | Florence, MA, US |
Modern Address | |
Game | Base BallBase Ball |
Immediacy of Report | Contemporary |
Age of Players | AdultAdult |
Holiday | |
Notables | |
Text | Luther B. Askin of Florence, MA (a hamlet of fewer than 1500 souls lying about 2 miles W of Northampton and about 90 miles W of Boston) is thought to be the first adult of African lineage to play on an integrated team in a standard match game. The first baseman is listed in box-scores of the first 13 matches played by the Florence Eagles Club in 1865. |
Sources | Brian Turner, "America' Earliest Integrated Team?" National Pastime,Number 22 (2002), pages 81-90. Brian Turner, email to Protoball, 2/1/2014, has supplementary data in early integrated play, and Brian offers that the 1865 game evidently remains the earliest known case of integrated adult play in a standard game. |
Warning | |
Comment | Florence is recalled as one of the centers of Anti-Slavery activism in those times. Brian notes in 2014 that juvenile clubs were apparently less unlikely to engage in integrated play, even prior to the Civil War. The son of Frederick Douglass, for instance, is known to have played on a white junior club in Rochester NY in 1859. Edit with form to add a comment |
Query | Have any earlier instances of integrated adult clubs arisen in recent years? Edit with form to add a query |
Source Image | [[Image:|left|thumb]] |
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