ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - A Washington University professor is working to change the presentation of the black baseball experience at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
On Wednesday night, Washington University will host 'An Evening with Gerald Early' at the Emerson Auditorium beginning at 5:30 p.m.
Early is a professor in the school's the African and African American Studies Department and along with that, he was a consultant with the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, helping improve the museum's newly renovated and reconceived exhibit on Black Baseball—which will officially open on Memorial Day weekend.
"I will (the exhibit) is going to tell visitors a new approach to the story," said Early on Total Information A.M. Monday. "The approach would be to have black people involved in baseball being made prominent and front and center of the exhibit as well as focusing on the most recent things about baseball along with concerns with black people's connection to baseball today."
Along with the presentation, Early will discuss a book coming out Play Harder: The Triumph of Black Baseball in America in November 2024 that will have a wide range of topics including Black players' involvement with professional baseball in the United States from the end of the Civil War to the present with accounts of the Negro Leagues, the Black press' promotion of the game, and why Black American participation in baseball today is less robust than in the past.
"It was actually the Halls idea. They wanted me to write this book in connection with the exhibit going up," said Early. "They want this book to accompany this exhibit and I was very flattered do this book."
Early says he thinks the book will show how important black players were to the sport of baseball.
"My hope is we will be able to tell stories and recapture the Negro Leagues and tell people about Rube Foster, Satchel Paige, Willie Wells and these black men who played baseball and were very dedicated to it. To retell the story of Robinson breaking the color barrier and the rise of black players in the 50s and 60s."
The lecture is set to begin at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday and it is free. There will be a post-event reception celebrating the Power of Arts & Sciences.
