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During the late 19th and early 20th century, baseball occupied an important social and cultural space in Rhode Island's African American community. Black athletic clubs, fraternal and civic organizations, and local neighborhoods sponsored semi-pro and amateur teams which regularly competed against each other and nearby white teams. These athletic contests strengthened racial identity, fortified community, and showcased a distinctive form of cultural and artistic expression. By 1883, black teams in Newport and Providence initiated the long and storied history of black ball in the Ocean State. Later, under the talented leadership of men like Daniel Whitehead, the father of Rhode Island black baseball, the game grew in popularity and produced several of the finest, although unrecognized, athletes in the state's sport history.
Robert Cvornyek is a Professor of History at Rhode Island College where he specializes in Sport History. He is the curator of a traveling exhibit titled "Black Grays and Colored Giants: Black Baseball in Rhode Island" and is co-director of the program "It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got that Swing: Black Baseball and Jazz." His most recent publications include an edited edition of Effa Manley's, Negro Baseball...Before Integration (St. Johann Press, 2006) and Baseball in Newark (Arcadia, 2003). He contributed a chapter entitled "Redefining the Narrative: Effa Manley, Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Baseball" in Baseball in the Classroom (McFarland, 2006) and authored several articles on this topic. He is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research, North American Society for Sport History and the Pop Lloyd Committee.