The Color Barrier

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In the book Of Mice and Men the stable hand by the name of Crooks is the only black man on the farm and because of this he faces some hardships. For example, in the book Crooks is forced to sleep in the barn by himself while the other workers of the farm sleep in their bunkhouse. The only reason Crooks is not allowed to sleep in the same room as them is solely because he is black. This situation is very similar to another conflict going on at the time. At this point of history major league baseball was becoming very popular and because of segregation there was a white league and a black league. This black league was referred to as the Negro Leagues.
“On February 13, 1920 African American leaders met in Kansas city, Missouri to establish the Negro National Leagues,” This was one of the first successful colored baseball leagues with Calvert foster as the president. The National Association of colored baseball included five teams; the Chicago Giants, the Detroit Stars, the Indianapolis ABC’s, the Kansas City Monarchs, and the St. Louis Giants. This started the foundation for the Negro leagues in the 1920’s.
Just like Crooks had hardships on the farm the men in the Negro Leagues had many hardships too. For example the colored players were just as good if not better than the other major league white teams but because they were black the highest league the could play in was the Negro Leagues. The Negro League teams often didn’t have enough money to have there own stadiums so the had to rent them from the local white teams. Also the African American teams traveled by bus unlike the white teams who traveled by train because it was faster and more efficient. Segregation also made finding places to stay a struggle. Often teams...

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... this time period there was a group of people called the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) these people hated the African Americans and the people of the Negro Leagues had a lot of trouble with them. The KKK made a lot of the hate letters and death wishes that Jackie Robinson received. During this time there were many segregated things like bathrooms and water fountains in public places. Another thing that was segregated was the sports stadium. For example in baseball games there was a “white” and “colored” section in the stands. The “white section had the better seats and they were more comfortable while the “colored” side had the bad seats that were just wooden benches.
Without The Negro Leagues and Jackie Robinson there would a lot more segregation today and baseball would not be as good without all of the best players in America, weather they are colored or not.

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