EVENT: TCC Hosts Negro Baseball League Exhibit
DATE: Now through March 12
"The National Pastime in Black and White: The Negro Baseball Leagues, 1867-1955," an collection of 60 photographs and artifacts which tells the fascinating story of the Negro Baseball Leagues during 20th Century segregation in the United States, is on display now through March 12, at the Student Center Gallery, Southeast Campus, Tulsa Community College (TCC), 10300 East 81st Street,
(U.S. Hwy. 169 & 81st Street), Tulsa.
The free exhibit is open to the public Mondays to Thursdays, 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., Fridays,
8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturdays, 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. For more information about the exhibit, call the TCC Southeast Campus Student Activities Office, 595-7771.
When he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, Jackie Robinson, who began his career as a Kansas City Monarch in the Negro Leagues, broke the color line in baseball--the unwritten rule made in the 1890s barring African Americans from playing in major league baseball. Yet until recently, even avid baseball fans knew little or nothing about the Negro leagues--a rich culture of black baseball that preceded the Robinson era by more than a half-century.
The photographs and artifacts acquaint visitors with great athletes such as Jamie "Cool Papa" Bell, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, Buck O'Neil, and Satchel Paige--athletes who were good enough, but not white enough, to play in the major leagues of America's national pastime. These athletes didn't wait for the door to "organized" baseball to open; they formed their own teams and leagues and played the game with as much enthusiasm as their white counterparts.
The Negro Leagues provided a venue for African American ballplayers and heroes for black fans prior to the desegregation of major league baseball, which preceded all the major civil rights landmarks of the 1950s and 1960s. This and other social aspects of the Negro leagues are examined--such as the roles of teams and players in their communities, the importance of weekly black newspapers, and barnstorming.
David Conrads, an independent curator from Shawnee Mission, Kansas, compiled "The National Pastime in Black and White."
The exhibition is organized and toured by ExhibitsUSA, a national division of Mid-America Arts Alliance--a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1972.
ExhibitsUSA creates access to an array of arts and humanities exhibitions, nurtures the development and understanding of diverse art forms and cultures, and encourages the expanding depth and breadth of cultural life in local communities.
"The National Pastime in Black and White" is among a series of interesting and compelling photo and art exhibits shown at TCC during the last few years, including displays about the Grand Ole Opry, 1940 Jazz Age in Paris, Native American sculpture, Southern Appalachian women, Vietnam, and the 1921 Tulsa Race War Survivors.
Contact: Demetrius Bereolos, 1.918.595.7955