Commemorating the Centennial of the Negro Leagues: Racial Justice, Professional Baseball, and American Society

In honor of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Negro Leagues, Dr. Quintard Taylor, Professor Emeritus and founder of BlackPast.org, led a conversation between retired Mariners first baseman and Mariners hall-of-famer Alvin Davis, Mariners announcer Dave Sims, the Vice President of the Negro League Baseball Museum Raymond Doswell, and sports history experts Leslie Heaphy and Louis Moore. This fascinating panel addressed the history of the Negro Leagues and the quest for racial justice in sports and discussed what still needs to be done to end systemic racism and inequity in baseball.

This event was sponsored by the UW Department of History, the History Diversity Committee, and BlackPast.org. It originally took place on December 2, 2020.

SPEAKERS:
ALVIN DAVIS, nicknamed "Mr. Mariner," is a former Major League Baseball first baseman and one of the most beloved Mariners players of all time.
DAVE SIMS has been the television play-by-play commentator for the Seattle Mariners since 2007. He was the 2018 and 2019 National Sports Media Association Washington state Sportscaster of the Year.
DR. RAYMOND DOSWELL is Vice President of Curatorial Services for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Inc. (NLBM) in Kansas City, MO. He travels extensively as a public speaker on topics of baseball and African American history.
DR. LESLIE HEAPHY is an Associate Professor of History at Kent State University at Stark and the Vice President of the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR).
DR. LOUIS MOORE is an Associate Professor of History at Grand Valley State University. He teaches and writes extensively on African American History, Civil Rights, and Sports History.
DR. QUINTARD TAYLOR is Professor Emeritus and Bullitt Endowed Chair of American History at the University of Washington. He is the founder of BlackPast.org, an online reference center dedicated to the understanding of African-American history and the history of people of African ancestry.

0:00 Introductions
14:52 Alvin Davis
16:41 Louis Moore
22:52 Leslie Heaphy
34:08 Dave Sims
41:46 Raymond Doswell
47:45 Q&A with all panelists