The Memphis Red Sox: A Negro Leagues History examines the city's symbolic meaning and value as a Negro leagues baseball city during Jim Crow. It locates the main intersections between black professional baseball and the South in the four decades that spanned the modern Negro leagues era. The Memphis Red Sox, a black-owned and operated organization, stood as a pillar of success. Baseball provides a way to examine the racial inequalities and issues that pervaded the city in those years. The team centered itself in their black-owned stadium, which served as a forum for political assertion and an arena for real political struggle for blacks in Memphis.
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This event is part of our TN Writers | TN Stories series. Readings and discussions take place in the Digital Learning Center at the Tennessee State Museum. All events include an opportunity to purchase books through the Museum store and get them signed by the author. If you show your Eventbrite ticket you will receive a 10% discount on your book purchase in the Museum Store.
Keith B. Wood, Ph.D., teaches at Christian Brothers High School in Memphis, TN. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Memphis. His research revolves around the intersection of race and sport in Memphis. The author of Memphis Hoops: Race, Basketball & the Bluff City, which examines the city through the lens of Memphis State University's first star black basketball player turned coach Larry Finch following the tragic assassination of MLK Jr in the city and The Memphis Red Sox: A Negro Leagues History.
Skip Nipper, moderator, is the author of Baseball in Nashville (2007, Arcadia Publishing) and a board member and past president of the Nashville Old Timers Baseball Association. Regarded for his expertise on the history of the city's famed Sulphur Dell ballpark, he publishes his research at baseballinnashville.com and broadcasts it on his Nashville Baseball History podcast channel. A member of the Society for American Baseball Research and a contributing writer to SABR's Biography Project, Nipper was honored with the Achievement Award by the Metro Nashville Historical Commission during the 48th Annual Preservation Awards at the Nashville Public Library on May 6, 2024.
