1930 |
Andrew "Rube" Foster dies of a heart attack after devoting his life to the Negro Leagues. |
1930 |
J.L. Wilkinson’s Kansas City Monarchs use their portable light system to regularly play night baseball games. |
1931 |
The Star-Spangled Banner becomes the National Anthem. |
1931 |
Josh Gibson hits over 70 home runs and leads the Homestead Grays to an astonishing 138-6 record. |
1932 |
The Communist Party announces James W. Ford, an African American, as its candidate for Vice President. |
1932 |
Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected to his first of four terms as President. |
1932 |
Gus Greenlee creates the Pittsburgh Crawfords, which are housed in their own ballpark, with their own permanent lights. The Crawfords were one of the finest collections of ballplayers ever, including Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, "Cool Papa" Bell, Judy Johnson, Oscar Charleston and "Double Duty" Radcliffe. |
1932 |
The New York Rens win a World Championship, defeating the Boston Celtics. |
1933 |
Major League Baseball hosts its first All Star Game. |
1933 |
1st East-West All Star Game takes place in Chicago, with Mule Suttles hitting the first home run and Bill Foster pitching for the win. The following year, Satchel Paige beats Foster in a 1-0 shutout. |
1934 |
The Dust Bowl devastates the plains of Middle America. |
1934 |
Elijah Muhammad secedes founder W.F. Muhammad as Supreme Minister of the Nation of Islam. |
1934 |
Josh Gibson hits his notorious home run out of Yankee Stadium. |
1934 |
Satchel Paige defeats the House of David in the Denver Post’s "Little World Series," despite the hired gun of Christy Mathewson. The House of David would continue to play and travel with black teams sporadically until 1955. |
1934 |
Ella Fitzgerald makes her first singing performance at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. |
1935 |
The Federal Works Progress Administration is in full force, creating jobs for thousands. The Lower East Side of New York City becomes home to America’s first public housing projects. |
1935 |
The first night game takes place in Major League Baseball. |
1936 |
Joe DiMaggio joins the New York Yankees. |
1936 |
Germany hosts the Olympics in Berlin, where black athletes John Woodruff, Ralph Metcalfe, Archie Williams and Jesse Owens refute Hitler’s statements of black inferiority by taking Gold Medals. |
1936 |
Baseball names first 5 Hall of Famers: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson and Honus Wagner. |
1937 |
The Boy Scouts of America are pressured to allow African American scouts at the National Jamboree. |
1937 |
An Anti-Lynching Bill passes the House, but it fails the Senate in a filibuster. |
1937 |
Walt Disney creates his first cartoon movie with color and sound, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. |
1937 |
Satchel Paige and 8 other Negro Leaguers win the season championship in the Dominican Republic as Los Dragones. |
1937 |
Josh Gibson joins Buck Leonard on the Homestead Grays, winning the 1st of 9 straight Negro National League Pennants. |
1937 |
"Empress of the Blues" Bessie Smith dies in a car accident. |
1938 |
The International Baseball Federation is founded and the 1st World Cup of Baseball is played in London. |
1938 |
Henry Armstrong holds title belts in the featherweight, welterweight and lightweight divisions. |
1938 |
Joe Louis avenges his 1936 loss to Max Schmeling by knocking him out in the 1st round. The 1936 loss will remain the only defeat in the "Brown Bomber’s" illustrious career. |
1938 |
Photographer Gordon Parks buys his first camera. He would go on to become a prominent journalist, author, activist, and film director. |
1939 |
World War II begins when Germany invades Poland. |
1939 |
Langston Hughes’s Way Down South makes its debut as an interracial movie, starring Clarence Muse. |
1939 |
National Baseball Hall of Fame opens in Cooperstown, NY. |
1939 |
Charlie Parker and his saxophone move from Kansas City to pursue his life as a musician in New York. |
1939 |
Maria Anderson is denied entrance to Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution and performs instead for an integrated crowd of 75,000 in front of the Lincoln Memorial. |
1939 |
The Iron Horse, Lou Gehrig, takes himself out of the lineup, after playing 2,130 consecutive games. His number 4 is the first in history to be retired. |