[act-ma] 1/06 Ted Reinstein — Before Brooklyn: The Unsung Heroes Who Helped Break Baseball’s Color Barrier

[Charlie Welch]

Emmy Award winning local journalist *Ted Reinstein*, who has been a 
reporter with "Chronicle" on Boston's WCVB-TV since 1995, will discuss 
his new book /*Before Brooklyn: The Unsung Heroes Who Helped Break 
Baseball’s Color Barrier */(Lyons Press, November 2021), which tells the 
story of the little-known heroes, such as Moses Fleetwood Walker, 
communist newspaper reporters, and Pullman car porters, who fought 
segregation in baseball, including within the Boston Red Sox.

/This program will take place in the Rabb Lecture Hall on the Lower 
Level of the Boylston Street Building at the Central Library in Copley 
Square. Registration is required. To attend in-person, please visit the 
link in the registration box on this calendar entry once registration is 
open. To attend over Zoom webinar, please visit this link to register 
<https://boston-public-library.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bR_sqz0rRVm7HnFFX28L4Q>.///*
*

*About the book*:

In April of 1945, exactly two years before Jackie Robinson broke the 
color barrier in major league baseball, liberal Boston City Councilman 
Izzy Muchnick persuaded the Red Sox to try out three Black players 
in return for a favorable vote to allow the team to play on Sundays. The 
Red Sox got the councilman’s much-needed vote, but the tryout was a 
sham; the three players would get no closer to the major leagues. It was 
a lost battle in a war that was ultimately won by Robinson in 1947. This 
book tells the story of the little-known heroes who fought segregation 
in baseball, from communist newspaper reporters to the Pullman car 
porters who saw to it that Black newspapers espousing integration in 
professional sports reached the homes of Black people throughout the 
country.

It also reminds us that the first Black player in professional baseball 
was not Jackie Robinson but Moses Fleetwood Walker in 1884, and that for 
a time integrated teams were not that unusual. And then, as segregation 
throughout the country hardened, the exclusion of Black people in 
baseball quietly became the norm, and the battle for integration began anew.


Thursday, January 6, 2022
6:00 PM – 7:45 PM
Central Library in Copley Square


https://bpl.bibliocommons.com/events/617328e048880941002b0765