University of Central Florida Libraries
5/22/2013
http://library.ucf.edu/
Pride & Passion: The African American Baseball Experience on display March 5- April 15, chronicles the story of African-American baseball players in the United States from the Civil War through the present, and it relates their experiences to the struggle for civil rights and other historical events. To counter discrimination, teams made up entirely of black players were organized, and formed leagues known collectively as the Negro Leagues. When Jackie Robinson was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1945, baseball transitioned to the integrated status of modern day teams, and all-black teams began to disappear.
To tell the story of Central Florida’s rich but often forgotten baseball history, UCF will display collections from partners such as the Sanford Museum, the Wells’Built Museum of African–American History and Orlando resident Carol Mundy. The opening program features Leslie Heaphy, Ph. D. , from Kent State University, who will speak on Living the History of The Negro Leagues .
The UCF Libraries were selected as one of 50 nationwide sites for the Pride & Passion exhibit, which was organized by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and the American Library Association and funded through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The traveling exhibit is based on a permanent exhibit at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. A portion of the exhibit is funded through a grant from the UCF Office of Diversity Initiatives.
For more information and a full schedule of events, visit http://www.library.ucf.edu/baseball
