Black history and achievements are celebrated throughout February as part of Black History Month. This includes honoring Jackie Robinson, who famously broke the Major League Baseball color barrier on April 15, 1947.

Last year journalist and poet Michael Jarrriot tweeted that “Jackie Robinson was NOT the first black Major League Baseball player.”

Was Jackie Robinson the first black Major League Baseball player?

No, Jackie Robinson was not the first black Major League Baseball player. However, he was the first black player in modern majors after breaking the “color line” in 1947.

According to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), three blacks played in the major leagues between 1879 and 1884. They played at a time when Major League Baseball was made up of six different leagues, including the still-current National League.

Three black players who played majors in the 1800s were: William Edward White, who played one game in 1879; Moses Fleetwood Walker who played 42 games in 1884 and Weldy Walker who played five games in 1884.

Prior to the addition of the seven Negro leagues in 2020, Major League Baseball officially recognized six leagues as “major leagues”. These leagues were: the American Association (1882–1891), the Allied Association (1884), the League of Players (1890), the Federal League (1914–15), and also the still active National League (since 1876 d.) and the American League (since 1901). ).

Even though the modern MLB—an alliance of the NL and AL led by a National Commission or commissioner—didn’t form until 1903, three black players from the 1800s are officially considered Major League Baseball players.

According to the SABR, White played on June 21, 1879 for the Providence Grace of the National League; he replaced an injured player while still in college. He was biracial; his parents were a white man and a black woman who was a white man’s slave.

Because of this, White became the first known black man to play in Major League Baseball. But he was not the first “open” black to play; White “passed” for a white man. In the 1880 census and in future censuses, he identified himself as white, and there is no evidence that anyone challenged him on this. SABR says there are “no known contemporary records” other than census reports that “contain a mention of his race”.

According to SABR, the first “open” black man, and therefore the first to experience racist backlash, to play in major tournaments was Moses Fleetwood Walker. “The Fleet”, as he was called, joined the Toledo Blue Stockings in 1883 while the team was still in the minor leagues. He played for the team and the local media and his team praised his performance en route to their minor league title.

But even as a minor, Fleet became a target of the segregationists.

In August 1883, Adrian “Cap” Anson, future Hall of Famer, leading voice of the baseball division movement and player-manager of the Chicago White Stockings, announced that his team would not play an exhibition game against the Toledos if he Fleet remained. part of, says Lemelson-MIT, the Young Inventor Development Program run by MIT’s School of Engineering. SABR says the Toledo manager called Anson a bluff by forcing the latter’s team to play to secure his interest in ticket sales.

The following year, the Blue Stockings joined the American Association, allowing Fleet to make his major league debut in 1884. Fleet and his team became the targets of increasingly hostile and violent attempts to keep him out of the games.

He played his last game on September 4, 1884, and was eventually released on September 22, 1884 due to an injury. Although he continued to play minor league baseball until 1889, Fleet never played in a single major league game. No other black player played in major tournaments until Jackie Robinson in 1947.

During their 1884 campaign, the Toledo Blue Stockings also played four games with Fleet’s brother, Weldie Walker. Weldy made his major league debut on July 15, 1884, to replace injured team players, SABR reports. He never played alongside Fleet, who was injured at the time, in his five-game career, and Weldy was released some time after his last major league game on August 6, 1884.

In July 1887, the International League, a minor league that later became baseball’s top minor league, banned future contracts for black players, according to the Library of Congress. This established the “color line” of baseball that separated professional baseball until Jackie Robinson made his debut.