People, Locations, Episodes

Sam Jethroe, Baseball Player born

*On this date in 1917, Sam Jethroe was born.  He was a Black center fielder in the Negro Baseball League and Major League Baseball.  From East St. Louis, Illinois, Samuel Jethroe was an all-around athlete. His father taught him to play baseball, and at Lincoln High School, he played football, basketball, and boxed. After high school, he began playing semipro ball […]

Alfred ‘Tup’ Holmes, Golfer born.

*“Tup” Holmes was born on this date in 1917. He was a Black amateur golfer.    Alfred F. “Tup” Holmes was born in East Point, Ga., graduated from Booker T. Washington High in Atlanta in 1933, and earned a degree from Tuskegee Institute in 1939. Holmes excelled as a young amateur golfer. In college, he […]

LeRoy T. Walker, Educator, and Athletic Coach born

*LeRoy T. Walker was born on this date in 1918. He was a Black educator, coach, administrator, and the first Black president of the United States Olympic Committee. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, the grandson of slaves and the youngest of 13 children in a close-knit family. His mother, Mary, always told him not to worry about the […]

Kenny Washington, Football Player born

*Kenny. Washington was born on this date in 1918.  He was a Black professional American football player.   Kenneth S. Washington was born in Los Angeles and grew up in the city’s Lincoln Heights neighborhood. He was the son of Edgar “Blue” Washington, who played Negro League baseball.  He was raised by his grandmother Susie and his uncle Rocky, the first Black uniformed lieutenant in the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). He […]

Jackie Robinson, Baseball Player born

*Jackie Robinson was born on this date in 1919. He was an African American athlete, business executive, and civil rights leader.

Born to a family of sharecroppers in Cairo, Georgia, Jack Roosevelt Robinson attended Pasadena Junior College and UCLA. In 1941 Robinson left college to join the United States Army and he received an honorable discharge in 1944 with the rank of first lieutenant. The following year, Robinson began his professional baseball career with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues.

Eddie Robinson, Football Coach, and Mentor born

*Eddie Robinson was born on this date 1919. He was an African American Black college football coach.

Edward Gay Robinson is from Jackson, La., he attended Leland College (Baker, La.), where he played quarterback and led the team to a combined 18-1 record over the 1939 and 1940 seasons. During his final two years at Leland he also served as an assistant coach. He earned his bachelor’s degree in 1941 and received a master’s degree from the University of Iowa in 1954.

Herb Carnegie, Ice Hockey Player, born

*Herbert Carnegie was born on this date in 1919.  He was a Black Canadian ice hockey player.   Herbert Henry Carnegie was the fifth of seven children born in Toronto to Jamaican immigrants George and Adina Carnegie. George was a janitor with Toronto Hydro, a career that Herb recalls his father liking “about as much as a poke in the eye […]

Jimmy Bivins, Boxer, born.

*Jimmy Bivins was born on this date in 1919. He was an African American heavyweight boxer whose professional career ran from 1940 to 1955.

Marvin Williams, Baseball Player born

*Marvin Williams was born on this date in 1920. He was a Black baseball. Player.  Williams grew up in Houston, Texas, and began playing semi-pro ball in sawmill towns of Texas, such as Baytown and Conroe. In 1943, a group of players played on a barnstorming team that toured various small towns to stage exhibition […]

The Negro National League is Formed

*The first successful organized Negro League in baseball was established on this date in 1920. This occurred at a YMCA in Kansas City, Missouri.

The Kansas City Monarchs Baseball Team is Founded

*This date in 1920 celebrates the founding of the Kansas City Monarchs baseball organization. The Monarchs played out of Kansas City, Missouri, and were the longest-running franchise in Negro League history.     Winners of more than a dozen league championships, the Monarch name became the Negro League’s answer to the New York Yankees. They won their first Colored […]

Dan Bankhead, Baseball Player born

*Dan Bankhead was born on this date in 1920. He was a Black baseball player in Negro League Baseball and the Brooklyn Dodgers.   A native of Birmingham, Alabama, Daniel Robert Bankhead attended public schools there. During World War II, he served in the United States Marine Corps Reserves from April 1942 to June 1946 […]

‘Pappy’ Stokes, Golf Caddie born

*”Pappy” Stokes was born on this date in 1920. He was a Black professional golf caddie at the Augusta National Golf Club. Willie Lee “Pappy” Stokes was born on the former grounds of the Fruitlands Nurseries in Augusta, Georgia. This was an Indigofera plant farm where his father had worked. He and his family still […]

The Memphis Red Sox Baseball Team is Formed

*The Memphis Red Sox is celebrated on this date in 1920.  They were a Negro League Baseball team that was active for 40 years.   In 1921 Memphis had two main Negro baseball clubs, the Memphis Union Giants and the A. P. Martin’s Barber Boys Baseball Club. Real estate salesman and bookkeeper Sherman G. King […]

Marion Motley, Pro Football Player born

On this date in 1920, Marion Motley was born. He was an African American football player, who helped desegregate professional football in the 1940s.

It was a career that earned him induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1968. From Leesburg, Georgia, he was a fullback and linebacker for both South Carolina State University and the University of Nevada before playing for the Great Lakes Naval Training Station during World War II. His coach there was Paul Brown, who later was named the first coach of the Cleveland Browns in the All-American Football Conference (AAFC).