How would 1870s integration affect overall integration?

[DTF955]

Following up on an earlier discussion, I want to try to keep this to "history of the game" but suppose that somehow, the majors did integrate early; the more I look at, the more it look like it would have to come with the inception of the NA and N.L., nd a powerful force behidn it, like Anson in the 1880s.

So, given such an early integration of baseball, how quickly would the country integrate as a whole?

Personally, I think it would be hard, but no impossible, to have it by the 1920s. No Jack Johnson, yet more "likable" personalities would also be big in people's minds. Leaders of that era would have grown up with the game "always" integrated, a 50-year-old in 1920 would never remember a time when it wasn't.

[mac195]

America is not really integrated, even now. So I don't think integration of baseball would have had much of an impact on integration of the country as a whole. Most people have always prefered living around others who are like them, and will likely continue to do so.

[wamby]

I don't think it would have had much effect either. I think that given the climate of the times, that even if the game had been integrated in the 1870s that a new color ban would have sprung up again in the 1880s. Much of the sympathy that white America (in the north) had for the black man after the civil war dissipated during the depression of the 1870s when the black man became job competition. As I've stated in previous posts, the event that made integration possible was World War II.

[DTF955]

Well, I know it's not really integrated now, that's why I made the comment inthe poll answer or two about 1970-1990 levels.

I guess perhaps the better way to put it would be, "When would the harshest segregation measures be eliminated." Integration, in the context I'm thinking, is different from true integration; it's most like, elimination of Jim crow laws, etc..

World War Two really did have a huge effect; in trying to come up with a way to to construct a major leagues that includes at least the best of the black players to see how it would have evolved, and thought that at least some effort should be made to say, in passing, how this affected America, but it might have only made the '60s a little less turbulent when it came to that, it's true.

This work is a long way from even a rough outline, though,and I have one other baseball book 1/3 of the way done, both of which are often on the back burner. But at least I get my brain going into it, even if it never gets off the drawing board as a completed work.

[Ubiquitous]

Race history is far more complex then simple acts of blacks playing sports. After the Civil War and during reconstruction integration was much further along then most of the 20th century. Blacks were pushed out of positions and jobs and areas that they would have to retake over a half century later at the end of reconstruction and through the 1920's. In the south there was a huge backlash during the presidential compromise that ended reconstruction and it enveloped the whole country when Woodrow Wilson turned a blind eye and allowed hatred to comsume the whole country and giving hate real national political power. It would take many decades to just get back to the level the blacks were at in the immediate decades after the civil war.

As for baseball, it was integrated in the 19th century. Granted it was not universal but then again leagues were not universal. There was no MLB there was no real hierarchy. As rascism consumed the land the blacks were pushed out of baseball just like they were pushed out of the american society. So the question of what if integration happened in the 1800's does not really exist. The question would be more like what if integration was maintained in the 1800's? A question I find highly improbable in actually happening.

[mac195]

Woodrow Wilson turned a blind eye and allowed hatred to comsume the whole country

What are you referring to here? How did hatred consume America, and what did Wilson have to do with it?

As for baseball, it was integrated in the 19th century. Granted it was not universal but then again leagues were not universal.

That is a good point to keep in mind. Many integrated teams played organized baseball, some even in MLB in the early days.

[wamby]

What are you referring to here? How did hatred consume America, and what did Wilson have to do with it?


That is a good point to keep in mind. Many integrated teams played organized baseball, some even in MLB in the early days.

During World War I and in the immediate post-war period the Wilson administration clamped down pretty hard on civil rights. Also during this period a lot of blacks migrated north to work in factories and such and help allieviate the manpower shortage caused by the war. After the war there was an economic slowdown which led to blacks and whites competing for the same jobs. There were several major race riots which I think was partly caused by this job competition. Shortly after Wilson left office the KKK was ressurected.