The greatest team in the history of the Negro Leagues, the Homestead Grays, played in the same ballpark, Griffith Stadium, as one of the worst teams in the major leagues, the Washington Senators, during the 1940s. This situation made Washington, D.C. the front of line of the fight to integrate major league baseball.
The roles of Washington, D.C. and the Homestead Grays in the integration of baseball have never been told. The book focuses on the lives of Baltimore Afro-American sportswriter Sam Lacy, who led the fight to integrate major league baseball in Washington, D.C.; the Grays' Hall of Fame first baseman Buck Leonard, who thrilled Grays fans in Washington but was too old to play in the major leagues; and Senators owner Clark Griffith, who stubbornly refused to integrate his team for seven years after Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.
Photo Credits: Art Carter Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University.