- Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI)
- Richmond Chamber of Commerce
- Point Richmond Business Association
- National Association of Professional Women (NAPW)
- Independent Book Publishers Association (IPBA)
- California Writers Club-Berkeley & Marin
- Richmond CA Kiwanis
- Richmond CA Rotary
- Bay Area Girls Club
Black History
Moses Fleetwood Walker; Baseball’s True First
Moses Fleetwood Walker (1856–1924) took the field against the Louisville Eclipse on May 1, 1884, making him the first African American to play in a professional baseball game. According to baseball historians, it was the worst game of Walker’s career, as he went hitless in four at-bats and committed four errors. Still, the native of Mount Pleasant, Ohio, and star athlete at Oberlin College went on to have a brief (September 1884) yet successful career with the Blue Stockings.

By Tamara Shiloh
Some 63 years before Jackie Robinson is credited as the first African American in Major League Baseball (April 15, 1947), Moses Fleetwood Walker (1856–1924) became the true first to break the sport’s color barrier.
The American Association (today, the American League) was formed at the opening of the 1884 baseball season. Their goal was to be in competition with the National League. The Toledo Blue Stockings were added as one of the league’s participating franchises. The starting catcher would be Walker.
Walker took the field against the Louisville Eclipse on May 1, 1884, making him the first African American to play in a professional baseball game. According to baseball historians, it was the worst game of Walker’s career, as he went hitless in four at-bats and committed four errors.
Still, the native of Mount Pleasant, Ohio, and star athlete at Oberlin College went on to have a brief (September 1884) yet successful career with the Blue Stockings.
Walker was the last African American to participate on the major league level before Robinson.
Prior to the Blue Stockings, Walker played for semi-professional and minor league baseball clubs. But how Walker first came to the game is unknown. According to David W. Zang, Walker’s biographer, baseball was popular among children in Steubenville where he was raised. While in Oberlin’s preparatory program, Walker became the prep team’s catcher and leadoff hitter.
Oberlin men played baseball as early as 1865, including a “jet-black” first baseman whose presence suggested Walker was not the college’s first Black baseball player.
After baseball, Walker’s personal life seemed overrun with friction.
In 1891, he was involved in an altercation outside a saloon with a group of four white men exchanging racial insults. One of them hit Walker in the head with a stone. Walker then fatally stabbed his attacker with a pocketknife.
He surrendered to the police and was charged with second-degree murder but was later found not guilty. After, Walker returned to Steubenville where he had worked for the postal service.
Walker’s wife, Arbella, died in 1895. Three years later he was found guilty of mail robbery and sentenced to one year in prison, which he served in the Miami County and Jefferson County jails in Troy, Ohio.
After his release, he jointly owned the Union Hotel in Steubenville with his brother Weldy and managed the Opera House, a movie theater in nearby Cadiz, Ohio. Walker soon gained respect as a businessman in the community. Walker later patented inventions that improved film reels when nickelodeons became popularized. He was a staunch advocate of Black nationalism and jointly edited a newspaper, The Equator, with Weldy. He authored “Our Home Colony” to explore ideas about emigrating back to Africa.
Walker died of lobar pneumonia in 1924. He was 67.
Learn more about the two Black athletes who helped integrate Major League Baseball and the challenges they faced in “Jackie Robinson and Moses Fleetwood Walker: The Lives and Careers of the Players Who Integrated Major League Baseball” by the Charles Rivers Editors.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of March 29 – April 4, 2023
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 29 – April 4, 2023

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Black History
UC Berkeley Professor Wins World-Renowned Prize for Research on Women and U.S. Slavery
Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, UC Berkeley’s chancellor’s professor of history, recently won the prestigious Dan David Prize for her research that focuses on women and slavery. This global recognition for outstanding work in the study of the human past is given annually to up to nine recipients and recognizes emerging scholars whose work “illuminates the past in bold and creative ways.”

By Ivan Natividad
Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, UC Berkeley’s chancellor’s professor of history, recently won the prestigious Dan David Prize for her research that focuses on women and slavery.
This global recognition for outstanding work in the study of the human past is given annually to up to nine recipients and recognizes emerging scholars whose work “illuminates the past in bold and creative ways.”
“Our winners represent a new generation of historians,” said Ariel David, a Dan David Prize board member. “They are changing our understanding of the past by asking new questions, targeting under-researched topics and using innovative methods … they have already challenged how we think about history.”
Recognized for her 2019 book, “They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South,” Jones-Rogers has researched the issues of gender and economics in American slavery for more than 15 years and also won the 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers’ book, “They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South” was published in 2019.
Each winner of the Dan David Prize receives $300,000 to support the scholar’s future endeavors. For Jones-Rogers, that funding will allow her to delve deeper into her new project, “Women of the Trade,” a book focused on European, West African and North American archives that depicts the British transatlantic slave trade through the eyes of women.
“This prize also means a great deal to me, personally,” Jones-Rogers said in an interview with Rutgers University, her alma mater. “I’m the descendant of enslaved people, the granddaughter of North Carolina sharecroppers, and the daughter of a single New Jersey mother. I’ve been very poor for most of my life. So, I never dreamed of being honored in this way. This prize is something my ancestors could never dream of. It feels wonderful.”
Alameda County
Niagara Movement Democratic Club Celebrates 50th Anniversary
The Niagara Movement Democratic Club (NMDC) celebrated their 50th Anniversary at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle on Saturday, March 18. The event raised funds for the newly created non-bipartisan Niagara Movement Foundation co-founded by lobbyist-author Virtual T. Murrell the Honorable Elihu Harris, former Oakland mayor, and founding members Sandra Simpson Fontaine, the Honorable Leo Bazile, Anita Williams, Geoffrey Pete and Robert L. Harris.

By Carla Thomas
The Niagara Movement Democratic Club (NMDC) celebrated their 50th Anniversary at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle on Saturday, March 18. The event raised funds for the newly created non-bipartisan Niagara Movement Foundation co-founded by lobbyist-author Virtual T. Murrell the Honorable Elihu Harris, former Oakland mayor, and founding members Sandra Simpson Fontaine, the Honorable Leo Bazile, Anita Williams, Geoffrey Pete and Robert L. Harris.
Bishop Grady L. Harris provided the invocation and the Honorable Donald R. White served as master of ceremonies. The Honorable Dezie Woods-Jones provided a posthumous tribute to Anita Williams, a founding member of the NMDC, whose memorial was held earlier in that day. Founding member of the NMDC Attorney Sandra Simpson-Fontaine also spoke of Anita Williams’ dedication and commitment. “She worked tirelessly to move our agenda forward,” said Simpson-Fontaine.
The event also celebrated the Honorable Willie L. Brown’s 89th birthday. Brown was unable to attend due to covid, but his daughter Susan Brown accepted an award for him. Brown’s daughter also led the audience in singing the Stevie Wonder version of “Happy Birthday.”
Celebrity guests included the legendary Black Panther Party leader, Bobby Seale and actor Richard Gant.

Mayor Sheng Thao congratulated Geoffrey Pete for his years of service as President of the Niagara Movement Democratic Club and as longtime business owner that deserves Oakland’s support. Photo by jonathanfitnessjones.
Virtual Murrell, founder and founding president of the NMDC, provided the organization’s rich history of advocacy, comradery and being a training ground for over a dozen elected officials. Murrell explained how he, in 1973, along with his friends Leo Bazile, AC Taylor and Johnnie S. Harrison formed the organization in honor of W.E.B. DuBois and William Monroe Trotter’s “Niagara Movement” that began in 1905 to end racial discrimination, segregation and establish voting rights, and equal economic and educational opportunities for African Americans.
“You’re standing on the shoulders of those that came before you,” said Murrell, founder and founding president of the Niagara Movement Democratic Club. Murrell went on to explain that Black people were one-third of Oakland’s population, yet not one elected official of Oakland or Alameda County was Black. Murrell’s club made it their mission to encourage, support, and produce Black candidates to run for office. Their movement transformed the landscape of the city and county’s politics, resulting in the elected official representation of Black people in the region’s politics for the next 50 years. Out of the NMDC came political legends like Congresswoman Barbara Lee and the Honorable Elihu Harris, former mayor of Oakland. Harris joked that he trumped the Honorable Willie Brown by becoming a mayor first.
Historically, the NMDC was created at a time when political power and influence were wielded by conservative Republican William F. Knowland, publisher of the Oakland Tribune, and the former Senate Majority Leader. With the NMDC declaring political warfare on the status quo, the organization produced Oakland City Councilmembers; Wilson Riles Jr., Leo Bazile, and Dezie Woods-Jones, Elihu Harris, Mayor of Oakland and State Legislature, Alameda County Board of Supervisors; Mary King and Keith Carson, Alameda County Treasurer Don White, Oakland School Board representatives Sylvester Hodges, Alfreda Abbott, and Carol Tolbert, California Assemblymember Sandre Swanson, Judge Magistrate Geoffrey Carter, BART Board member, Margaret Pryor, and Peralta Community College Trustee William “Bill” Riley.
In addition to the founder and co-founders, founding members of the NMDC included Shirley Douglass, Edmund Atkins, Art Scott, Irene Scott-Murrell, Anita Wiliams, Al Roger’s, Wilson Riles Jr., Edna Tidwell, Esther Tidwell, Walter Edwards, Sandra Simpson Fontaine, Beverly Brown Spelman, Joyce Wilkerson, Barbara Lee, Michael Penn, William “Bill” Riley, Geoffrey Carter, and Elihu Harris.
Alameda County Board of Supervisors Chairman Nate Miley commended the NMDC with a resolution from the Board of Supervisors, and Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao presented a “Niagara Day” Resolution.
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