Jackie Robinson began playing major league baseball in 1947 for the Brooklyn Dodgers, but he wasn't the first African-American to play in the Major Leagues.
Moses "Fleetwood" Walker, born in 1857, made his Major League debut on 01 May 1884, when his team, the Toledo Blue Stockings, joined the American Association. Walker had signed to the team as a catcher in 1881.
Walker started playing baseball as a teenager in Steubenville, OH, and was very good at the sport. He later became a stand-out at Oberlin College, where he became a student-athlete in 1878.
An unfortunate incident, where Walker killed a man in self-defense and was acquitted during his trial, turned Walker away from baseball and to more peaceful life pursuits.
Walker played in the American Association for one season and then went on to become a mail clerk, operate a hotel and publish a newspaper with his brother, Weldy. He eventually managed an opera house with his wife, and also published a book, Our home colony: A treatise on the past, present, and future of the Negro race in America.
Read more about Moses Fleetwood Walker in Fleet Walker's Divided Heart: The Life of Baseball's First Black Major Leaguer.
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