| The first documented game between Black teams was played in 1859 – four years before President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation ending slavery and six years before the conclusion of the Civil War. In the ensuing decades, players such as Fowler, Sol White, Frank Grant, Moses Fleetwood Walker and Rube Foster would take a bat to bigotry. Moses Fleetwood Walker played for the Toledo Blue Stockings of the American Association in 1884. He was the one of the last openly Black players in the segregated major leagues until Jackie Robinson debuted with the Montreal Royals in 1946. (READ MORE) |
