1920s African American Culture in Sports

Presenter: Julia Betti

Presenter Status: Undergraduate student

Academic Year: 21-22

Semester: Fall

Faculty Mentor: Sandra Moore

Department: American Multicultural Studies

Funding Source/Sponsor: Class Project, SYRCE Symposium

Other Funding Source/Program: None

Screenshot URL: https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1FAOwy3LrFEk0reDEE0wvE_nnWhmS80G9

Abstract:
For my research project I chose to discuss African American culture in sports in the 1920s. Sports were a big form of entertainment especially after the Civil War. The only thing was that the African Americans were still facing terrible racism and they were still being segregated. The MLB was huge but due to Jim Crow laws and racism, African Americans were not able to participate. They ended up creating the National Negro League for baseball. There ended up being over 200 all black baseball teams. The league became so successful that there was controversy about even having African Americans try to get drafted into the MLB because they knew that overtime the league would fall and their best players would get drafted. It wasn't until 1945 that Jackie Robinson got drafted to the Brooklyn Dodgers that the color barrier was broken and would change baseball forever. There were people that stopped watching baseball because of this and stopped supporting the Dodgers. It was a start to history that put its foot towards having equality.