Baseball's Golden Age with Walter Harrison (Zoom Only)

Starting in 1947, Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby broke Major League Baseball’s unwritten color barrier. Once former Negro League players and other Black and Latino players were admitted, it opened the door for Major League Baseball’s most dynamic chapter to be written – a golden age that lasted until the early ‘70s, when Roberto Clemente and Curt Flood changed the game’s trajectory completely. This course treats players of color who rank among the game’s greats: Roy Campanella, Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, Elston Howard, Bob Gibson--and some of your nominees.  We examine their history within contemporaneous Black American history:  the integration of the armed forces (1948); Brown vs. Board of Education (1954); The Civil Rights Act of 1965; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life, death, and the aftermath. Baseball’s presence and impact was pervasive. How did it embody the societal tensions of the times? What are key legacies these players, their owners and managers handed down to today’s game? Note: the 2022 World Series had no Black, but plenty of Latino, players.

Wednesdays: Feb. 1, 8, 15 | 7 p.m. – 8:15 p.m. | Zoom only | $60

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