Baseball teams desegregated in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The interest in integration in the 1940s was sparked by several factors, including the increasing economic and political influence of urban Blacks, the success of Black ballplayers in exhibition games with major leaguers, and especially the participation of African Americans in World War II2. 

The hypocrisy of fighting fascism abroad while tolerating segregation at home was difficult to ignore. During the war, protest signs outside Yankee Stadium read, “If we are able to stop bullets, why not balls?”2. 

The first African American player to break the color barrier in Major League Baseball was Jackie Robinson, who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 19473. The desegregation of baseball foreshadowed other landmark achievements of the Civil Rights movement3. The Boston Red Sox became the last MLB club to integrate in 1959, via Elijah “Pumpsie” Green5.

Special thanks to the USC Digital Imaging Lab for their support in digitizing this item.