>> MARK HORGER: So as we just
saw in the last mini lecture 
the systematic segregation of
African Americans in public
life 
wasn't a product of the
immediate post Civil War
period. It was 
something that didn't take full
effect until later in the
1890s. 
And so when we find African
Americans in baseball and in 
some other sports in the post
Civil War period in some places 
we find African American
participation and African
American 
integration into the world of
sport. 
Not always in large numbers,
but never the less, in ways
that 
after the 1890s had become
largely impossible. For
example, 
there were many northern
African Americans in cities
after the 
Civil War who began forming
baseball teams much as white 
American's had began doing in
1840s and 1850s. And we find 
that African American baseball
teams frequently made up of 
people who were forming teams
for many of the same reasons 
that whites had before the
Civil War. Not just to
participate in 
sport that they enjoyed
playing, 
but for the proposes of public
joining. 
This is Octavius Catto who was
one of the leaders of the 
primary black baseball team in
Philadelphia in the 1860s and 
1870s, called Philadelphia
Pythians. And Pythian
membership 
was made up of the same kinds
of individuals that had been, 
tended to join baseball teams
in the 1850s and 1860s. It
tended 
to be people who economically
were middle class, skilled, 
skilled workers, teachers,
urban professionals, people of
this 
nature. Except that in the
context of the free black
middle class 
in northern cities, these
African Americans were among
the black elite. 
And so you find African
Americans joining baseball
teams for 
the same kind of statement
about public joining, public 
citizenship, and public
identity that we discussed a
little bit 
when we talked about baseball
in New York before the Civil 
War. And remember that
questions about integration and 
segregation in public life
continued to be issues 
of debate in the 1860s and
1870s 
and these debates didn't just
take place in the south. 
And so Octavius Catto in
addition to being one of the
leaders 
for the Philadelphia Pythians
baseball club, was involved in 
Republican Party politics in
Philadelphia in the 1860s and 
1870s. And he had been among
the African American leaders in 
Philadelphia that began
protesting the kinds of
discrimination 
you might find in northern
cities as well as in the former 
confederacy. For example, Catto
protested the segregation of 
street cars in Philadelphia. In
fact, in 1871, Catto was 
murdered on Election Day by a
white democrat for having 
voted. Which was the kind of
election violence that you
might 
encounter not just in the
former confederacy in the 1860s
and 1870s,
but else where in the country. 
The Pythians as a baseball
team, were occasionally were
able 
to play, not just other black
baseball teams in Philadelphia
and 
New York and some other cities,
but did occasionally play 
white baseball teams in the
Philadelphia area. 
And as we talked about in the
previous lecture, there was a 
kind of interim period in
racial relations in the 1860s
and 70s. 
Where there was a large amount
of discrimination in a variety 
of ways, and a great violence
with respect to race in public
life 
in a variety of ways. But you
never the less occasionally
find 
examples of integration in the
1860s, 70s, and 80s. That would 
later become legally impossible
in a variety of ways. 
To give you another example,
from the world of baseball, 
Moses Fleetwood Walker in 1884
became the first African 
American to play baseball in
what could be considered at the 
time, a major league. And he
was one of a small number of 
black players that played on
predominately white teams in 
organized baseball in the
1880s. 
Beginning in the 1880s, you
began to see a differentiation 
between what were considered to
be the two major, the 
National League and the
American Association. And so
called 
minor leagues in smaller cities
that began springing up else 
where in the country. Moss
Fleetwood Walker had played 
college baseball at Oberlin
College. Here he is with his
brother 
Weldy Walker at Oberlin
College. He played baseball at
Oberlin 
College; he played baseball for
a year at the University of 
Michigan. And you do find
occasional black baseball and 
football players at a handful
of northern colleges throughout 
the late 19th century, Oberlin,
Michigan, Harvard, and a few
others. 
And in 1883, he played on the
predominately white Toledo 
Blue Stockings, in what was at
the time a minor league. But in 
1884, there was a trade war in
major league baseball. There 
was an upstart league called
the Union Association that
tried to 
establish itself as a league on
par with the National League
and 
the American Association. One
of the things this lead to was
a 
trade war in major league
baseball. Where the American 
Association and National League
responded by expanding their 
leagues just to add more teams.
And so in 1884 there were 
dozens of teams playing in one
of the three leagues that 
baseball historians have
subsequently decided should be 
considered major leagues. And
Moses Fleetwood Walker played
on the 
Toledo Blue Stockings in the
American Association in 1884 on
this basis. 
It would be going too far to
call baseball integrated in the 
1880s because there were very
very small number of black 
players that played on
predominately white teams in
this 
period. And Walker has appeared
to have been the only one to 
have played a significant
number of games in the major
league. 
His brother Weldy also appeared
in a game or two for Toledo in
1884. 
But as we talked about in the
last lecture, white Americans 
began drawing the color line.
And that was an active choice. 
And the white baseball player
generally talked, as having
been 
prominent in the 1880s, in his
negative views with respect to 
African Americans playing
against whites in baseball, was
Cap Anson.
Who was the star of the Chicago
White Stockings and 
among the top hitters of the
day. Anson had once tried to 
refused to play against the
Toledo Blue Stockings in an 
exhibition game in 1883 because
they wanted to play Walker. 
When he was informed that the
Blue Stockings would be happy 
to accept Chicago's forfeit and
take all the money he decided 
against it. But later in the
1880s Anson when encountering
the 
opportunity to play against a
black player in an exhibition
or in 
some other kind of a context,
it wasn't uncommon even for 
major league baseball teams to
try to make extra money by 
playing exhibitions against
other teams. Against college
teams, 
against minor league teams and
so on. And Anson was far from 
the only white baseball player
in the 1880s, who began 
refusing to play against black
players in any context. And it 
wasn't until 1890 that African
Americans completely disappear 
from all levels of organized
baseball, both major and minor. 
Among the other black players
that played occasionally on 
predominately white teams in
the 1880s were Bud Fowler who 
was a second basemen and George
Washington Stovey who 
was a pitcher and they also
played on predominately white
teams 
occasionally in minor leagues
in the 1880s. 
But by 1890, in organized
baseball the color line had
been 
successfully drawn by white
supremacists. And after that
when 
you look for African Americans
in professional or semi-
professional baseball you find
them only on all black teams. 
Some of these teams were able
to have a professional or at 
least a semi-professional
existence by barnstorming and
by 
touring. And by playing other
black teams, but it was 
occasionally possible even
after 1890 for an all black
team 
occasionally to play an all
white team in a barnstorming 
situation. Not very often, but
that was something that would 
occasionally occur. But of a
team made up of a mix of black
and 
white player in organized
baseball does not happen from
1890 
until Jackie Robison in the
1940s. Among the most
successful 
professional black teams in the
1890s 
were the New York Cuban Giants
and Gorham's, 
a team in Chicago called the
Chicago Unions. 
This picture is a picture of
the Page Fence Giants. The Page 
Fence Giants we called that
because they were sponsored by
a 
company in Michigan that made
fencing, and the Page Fence 
Giants were sponsored as an
advertisement for the Page
Fence 
Corporation. And this kind of
professional 
or semi-professional
entrepreneurship continued to
exist 
in African American baseball
after 1890. 
But it's not a coincidence that
its in 1890, but not really
until 
1890 that the color line was
completely and successfully
drawn 
by white supremacist in
organized baseball. In the
1860s and 
70s, whites tried to draw that
line and sometimes they were 
successful and sometimes they
weren't. In boxing the heavy 
weight champion in the 1880s,
John L Sullivan also drew the 
color line in and refused to
fight African Americans
fighters. 
And when whites were doing that
in the 1870s and 1880s, they 
are drawing it at the time.
They are making a choice not
just 
acquiescing in something that
has always been. 
But by 1890, organized
professional baseball was
segregated 
by race in a way that was that
did not begin to unravel until
the 1940s. 
