(1)Born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, on September 8, 1907. (2)”The Leonard family had a baby boy, Walter, to add to their bunch. Walter’s parents John and Emma Leonard had six children together. Three girls Fanny, Willa, and Lena: and three boys Herman, Charlie, and Walter.” Walter’s family was a very religious family, who usually always went to church. Even after walter’s retirement he went to church every Sunday. (3) The origin of Walter’s nickname “Buck” came from his younger brother Charlie.(4) Walter’s parents originally nicknamed him Buddy, but Charlie had trouble pronouncing Buddy and called him Bucky instead.
In Buck’s young adult life he couldn't continue his education past the 8th grade, because there was no local High School for Negroes. Along with his father dying from virulent influenza, his mother couldn't pay to send Buck out to any Negro Schools. Therefore at a young age Buck had to take up job opportunities. For the next two years of Buck’s young adult life he had to shine
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shoes. Shortly after knowing he wasn’t able to attend schools due to the color of his skin, and his parents inability to afford special school, Buck went to work at the shop at the Atlantic Coastline Railroad at the age of 16. (5)“Buck then met the love of his life, Sandra Wroten, in North Carolina on New Year's Eve, 1937”. Sandra’s late husband, the owner of a funeral home, had past shortly before. Buck nonetheless told Sandra he wasn't going to run a funeral home, in which Sandera sold her establishment and became a teacher. In all aspects the married life for Buck was a walk in the park. (6) Many people considered Buck to be the best pure hitters to ever play.
(7) In Monte Irvin’s words he said “Buck Leonard is the equal to any first basemen who ever lived, if he had gotten a chance to play in the Major Leagues, the might have called Lou Gehrig the white Buck Leonard”. If you don't understand this quote, you must know that Buck was called the black Lou Gehrig by many people. Unfortunately he never did play in the Major leagues, but had a very successful career in the Negro league and Mexican League. Buck’s influence on the world will not be unrecognized. Through all of his great seasons with the Greys, (8) he will be known and he was really a key factor in their dynasty through the 1930’s to the 1940’s. Buck spent his entire 17-year career with the Homestead Grays, which is the longest service for a player with one team in the Negro League history.(9) The Negro star pitcher Dave Barnhill said ” You couldn't put a fastball in a shotgun and get it by
him”. In Buck’s later life his beloved wife Shara unfortunately died. Although 20 years later he married Lugenia Fox in which he spent his final years with. On the other hand of his tragedy, he was able to finally get his High School Diploma in his old age of 52. Later after, Buck was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in August 7, 1972. Where in his acceptance speech he said (10) “We in the Negro Leagues felt like we were contributing something too, when we were playing. We played with a round ball and a round bat and wore uniforms and thought we were making a contribution to baseball. We loved the game and loved to play it, but we thought we should and could have made it to the Major Leagues. All of us would have desired to play in the Major Leagues because we felt and knew it was the greatest game”. Later in Buck’s life he suffered a stroke which affected the right side of his body. Buck recuperated to some degree, but the stroke curtailed some of his activities such as going to church every Sunday. Still being able to continue as the ambassador of the Negro League, until tragedy struck again, (11) when Buck died at the age of 90. (12) He died in his hometown Rocky, North Carolina, November 27, 1997. He is survived by his second wife Lugenia, sister Lena, Stepson Thomas, and his stepdaughters Flora, Rose,and Barbara. (13) In Buck’s memory “The Team of Buck’s League” was established to honor their hometown hero. The goals of the league were to provide recreation for the arts, to provide education programs, to provide venues for athletics, and to support the community and nation building activities. The last quote I would like to share as the one that I think means the most is said by Walter Fenner.(14) “Buck Leonard lived a life of accompaniments and left a memory of life well spent; a good man, a solid citizen, devoutly religious, and one hell of a baseball player”. Walter “Buck” leonard's final resting place is in the Garden of Gethsemane Cemetery of Rocky Mount, where we will always remember the greatest firstbase men who ever lived. 1)"Buck Leonard - BR Bullpen | Baseball-Reference.com." Baseball-Reference.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2016. 2)"Buck Leonard - BR Bullpen | Baseball-Reference.com." Baseball-Reference.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2016. 3)"Buck Leonard." Society for American Baseball Research. SABR, n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2016. 4)"Buck Leonard." Baseball Hall of Fame. National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2016. 5)"Buck Leonard." Society for American Baseball Research. SABR, n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2016. 6)"Buck Leonard." Baseball Hall of Fame. National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2016. 7)"Buck Leonard." Society for American Baseball Research. SABR, n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2016. 8)"Buck Leonard." Baseball Hall of Fame. National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2016. 9)Goldstein, Richard. "Buck Leonard, 90, Slugger Of the Negro Leagues, Dies."The New York Times. The New York Times, 28 Nov. 1997. Web. 03 Apr. 2016. 10)"Buck Leonard." Society for American Baseball Research. SABR, n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2016. 11)Goldstein, Richard. "Buck Leonard, 90, Slugger Of the Negro Leagues, Dies."The New York Times. The New York Times, 28 Nov. 1997. Web. 03 Apr. 2016. 12)"Buck Leonard - BR Bullpen | Baseball-Reference.com." Baseball-Reference.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2016. 13)"Buck Leonard." Society for American Baseball Research. SABR, n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2016. 14)Riley,, James A. "Negro Leagues Baseball EMuseum: Lesson Plans by Title."Negro Leagues Baseball EMuseum: Lesson Plans by Title. Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc, n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2016.
Anything a person might want to know about Negro League Baseball can be found in the mind of Tweed Webb. Negro League Baseball is this man's specialty thanks to his father, a semi-pro player and manager. If not for his father, Normal Tweed Webb might never have played shortstop with the St. Louis Black Sox while attending high school and continuing on even while he went to business college where he took a two-year business course taking up bookkeeping and typing. Tweed played ball until 1934. When he was attending a St. Louis school, dressed head to toe in tweed, one of his classmates decided there and then to give him the moniker Tweed.
Within his journey he was able to learn a tremendous amount of information about himself as well as the society he lived in. Although in order for this to happen he had to exile from his former hometown. After graduating high school the narrator went off to college and had the honor of driving one of the schools founders. While driving Mr. Norton, one of the school founders, the narrator went on a tangent about different things that has happened on campus. He soon mentioned Trueblood and his actions with his daughter to Mr. Norton, Afterwards the narrator led Mr. Norton to the bar/asylum. This is when the real troubles begin. Mr. Bledsoe, the college’s president, found out about the narrators doings and expelled him. When he expelled the narrator, Mr. Bledsoe sent him to New York with seven letters to get a job. By the narrator being exiled he now has a chance to experience life on his own and use the knowledge from his experience to enrich his life and others. The narrator’s trial and tribulations will speak for the feelings and thoughts of many African Americans in the 1940s
The transition of being a black man in a time just after slavery was a hard one. A black man had to prove himself at the same time had to come to terms with the fact that he would never amount to much in a white dominated country. Some young black men did actually make it but it was a long and bitter road. Most young men fell into the same trappings as the narrator’s brother. Times were hard and most young boys growing up in Harlem were swept off their feet by the onslaught of change. For American blacks in the middle of the twentieth century, racism is another of the dark forces of destruction and meaninglessness which must be endured. Beauty, joy, triumph, security, suffering, and sorrow are all creations of community, especially of family and family-like groups. They are temporary havens from the world''s trouble, and they are also the meanings of human life.
In the book, “Manchild in the Promised Land,” Claude Brown makes an incredible transformation from a drug-dealing ringleader in one of the most impoverished places in America during the 1940’s and 1950’s to become a successful, educated young man entering law school. This transformation made him one of the very few in his family and in Harlem to get out of the street life. It is difficult to pin point the change in Claude Brown’s life that separated him from the others. No single event changed Brown’s life and made him choose a new path. It was a combination of influences such as environment, intelligence, family or lack of, and the influence of people and their actions. It is difficult to contrast him with other characters from the book because we only have the mental dialoged of Brown.
Jackie Robinson’s ability to successfully integrate his sport set the stage for many others to advocate for an end to segregation in their respective environments. His period of trials and triumphs were significant to changing American perception of the Civil Rights revolution. By becoming the first African-American baseball player to play in the major leagues, he brought down an old misconception that black athletes were inferior to white athletes. Successively, his example would inspire those advocating for their civil rights, he lived out a message of nonviolence similar to the one Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lived out. Despite the constant prejudice he faced in his sport, he was able to keep himself composed and never retaliate.
All groups noted above didn’t have a place in this era of baseball; they were on the other side of the race barrier. With the growing of the sport arose a lack of a cheap talent pool. Segregation hindered the ability to introduce cheap talent from other races. The management of teams was looking for a solution in order to widen the talent pool for their respective leagues. People began to notice talent in the “American colonies” like Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippines; it seemed as if everywhere there was an American presence there were talented ball players. Even before America was involved in these nations, America had begun to envision the game as intercultural exchange that would build relations. The decision to include Latinos into the leagues allowed an expansion of the talent pool while still barring African Americans from participating in organized baseball. A racial structure established during Jim Crow upholds the notion of a color line as an exclusionary measure to prevent the influence of blacks into the game that represents American
...nt of maturity. In addition, both authors think that matured readers in general are harder to persuade compared to younger readers (those at the of 16 to 18). This is why both Franklin and Douglass intentionally set their "rebellion stage" at the age of 17. This is to encourage the "less stable" teenage readers to dare do something different and to not compromise with normality. This less-stableness would enable these teenage readers to be more receptive to radical ideas. With this thought in mind and armed with Americans vulnerability in believing the rags-to-riches myth, Franklin and Douglass are able generated effective and persuasive narrations.With such effective writing prose, the authors created well-fabricate compositions which modeled upon the "rags-to-riches" chronology.These are the myths, Americans live by them and the country survives with them. Thus, it is the American Dream.
Although there was a strong sense of inequality amongst the entire American society during this time, African American have prove to be aides in the process of making the game of baseball better for ht future, along with the mentality of the average American. "The African American teams were constant reminder that segregation and inequality existed." (Segregation in Baseball: Internet) What would baseball be without the greats such as Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, or Ken Griffey Jr.?
...u're going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you're wasting your life." "I don't think that I or any other Negro, as an American citizen, should have to ask for anything that is rightfully his. We are demanding that we just be given the things that are rightfully ours and we're not looking for anything else." In 1972 Jackie Robinson died but his legacy would always live forever. The effects of Robinson can be seen in any place that you come across like the covers of Sports Illustrated, ESPN, and even the Wall Street Journal. Since Jackie Robinson integrated baseball in 1947 black society in America has truly broken infinite number of barriers. More important than the improvements in the black race, are the improvements in the entire nation that from his accomplishments was now one step closer to equality. (Quotes)
Babe Ruth is still a very well-known person in history today, even almost one-hundred years later. He did not only change the way people viewed negro baseball leagues, but he also gained a large reputation for his ability to play baseball, obviously due to his amazing abilities. Ruth’s ability to play was almost impossibly good, in fact, he was even titled “athlete of the century” for his ability. With that ability and power that he had once he won, he would become a
The quote above defines the book Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass an American Slave. Douglass’s Narrative is a journey of showing the audience the road from slavery to freedom. He is born into slavery, and just like most slaves of his time he was unaware of his exact date of birth. During his life he has spent time at many different plantations. Douglass is separated form his mother soon after he is born. His father on the other hand is most likely the clerk of the plantation, a white man. Douglass’s life on this plantation is not as hard as that of most of the other slaves. Being a child, he serves in the household instead of in the fields. In the beginning of
...about the effects slavery had on blacks even after it was over, and how living in its shadow made it hard to be a man. The situation between Dave and Mr. Hawkins illustrates how he could not be a man because Hawkins was basically making him a slave for the next two years. Dave jumping on the train going someplace else illustrates his hopes of leaving his poor, miserable life in hopes of a new better life where he can be a man. On the surface the story seems to be a simple story about childhood disobedience, but it is much more than that.
John W. Fowler was the first black professional baseball player. He was born a free man in 1854. Fowler played for a team in New Castle Pennsylvania. He was the first of more than thirty black players in the white leagues before 1900. He was recognized by the white media as one of the best second basemen of his day, but he never got the chance to play in the Major Leagues. The first black major league player was named Moses Fleetwood Walker. Walker was in Ohio in 1857. He played two years of baseball for Oberlin College, and two years playing with Michigan at Ann Arbor. In 1983, he joined the Toledo club of the North Western league. Toledo entered the American Association a year later and Walker become the first black Major Leaguer. Walker was actually well received in most of his games. He was even applauded in some places. However, in two southern cities, Richmond and Louisville he was harasse...
lonely. In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Crooks, a black stable buck, endures alienation due to racial
On the train he is aware of the respect that other blacks hold for him, because he is a man of God, though, in the city, his. social standing demonstrates little significance.... ... middle of paper ... ...