African-American Baseball Experience Exhibit at Knight Library

An exhibit that reflects the complicated and painful history of race in the U.S. as illustrated through the experiences of African-American baseball players during the past 150 years is coming to the University of Oregon. "Pride and Passion: The African-American Baseball Experience," a national traveling exhibition organized by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and the American Libraries Association, will be on display at the UO's Knight Library beginning Friday, Oct. 7. The UO Libraries is one of only two libraries in the Pacific Northwest to host the exhibit, which runs through Nov. 18.

"We are delighted to have been selected as a site for this exhibition," said Mark Watson, associate university librarian for collections and access, who co-teaches a freshman seminar at UO about baseball research. "Players in the Negro leagues were some of the most talented and inspiring sports figures of their day. This exhibition shows that, in spite of segregation, black players helped advance the game of baseball in many ways."

An opening reception at 3 p.m. on Oct. 7 featured a talk by Stanford University's Arnold Rampersad entitled "The Pride and Passion of Jackie Robinson." Rampersad has written biographies of Jackie Robinson, Langston Hughes and Ralph Ellison, in addition to editing several books on race and American culture. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society and received the National Humanities Medal in 2010.

The Pride and Passion exhibit and supporting exhibits mounted by staff at the UO Libraries include display cases on Jackie Robinson, the Negro Leagues, Negro League players, and the experiences of several African-American athletes at UO between 1926 and 1977. All events are free and open to the public.

The Pride and Passion exhibit is composed of colorful freestanding panels featuring photographs of teams, players, original documents and artifacts in the collections of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and in other institutions and collections across the U.S. The exhibit is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH): “Great ideas brought to life.”