USC AISMS Launches Research Project " The African-American Experience in Major League Baseball"

Research Program of USC Annenberg Institute of Sports, Media and Society

The African-American Experience in Major League Baseball

The USC AISMS is creating a comprehensive library of oral histories of African-American Major League Baseball players who played in the league in the 25 years after baseball’s color line was broken.

You can read the specifics below.  You can also find ways you can help make this library a reality.

Research Project:  The USC AISMS will create and house a digital library of oral histories from African-American Major League Baseball players, beginning with the decades of the 1940s-1970s.

Research Rationale:  From 1947-1972, Major League Baseball remained the largest (in terms of audience) and most important sports stage in the United States.  During that time, the league and American society went through drastic change.  In 1947, Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby broke baseball’s color line.  This started what Dr. Harry Edwards has called “the slow ordeal of desegregation.”  It took 12 years for each team to have at least one African-American player on its roster.  In that time, players saw the death of the Negro Leagues and a migration of Negro League players to the Major Leagues.  African-American players often had to stay at separate hotels and eat at separate restaurants from their teammates.  Many were threatened.   And many were actively engaged in the civil rights struggles of the era.  These players have a unique perspective on the burgeoning civil rights movement of the 1950s, the civil rights legislation of the 1960s and the birth of Black Power as a movement and ideology in the 1970s.  Yet, as they age, there is no collection of oral histories from this important group of athletes.  This research project would give scholars and the public a library of digitally recorded oral histories of African-American players who took the stage in Negro League and Major League Baseball during this 25-year span.

The project would take place in four phases:

1.      Identifying participants, setting up interviews, building the digital library of oral histories.

2.      Building the infrastructure for digital preservation and research.

3.      Permanently housing and preserving the oral histories.

4.      Extending the library to other eras of baseball history.

Current Status:  Daniel Durbin, Director of the AISMS, is currently shooting oral histories with former Major League Baseball players.  He is also building a body of contacts with former players and scheduling interview sessions.  Dr. Durbin is also working with members of the Major League Baseball Alumni Association Board to identify and reach out to players.

Ways You Can Support This Project:  This is a significant undertaking that involves many elements you can support financially.  There are costs for the housing, indexing and preserving of a digital library of oral histories.  There is the ongoing cost of storage and a librarian/preservationist who can continue to build and maintain the library.  There is also an ongoing cost in Research Assistants who help to set up and execute interviews and maintain the collection.

To support this project, or any project at the USC AISMS, please contact our office at .