Negro Leagues baseball celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2020 to connect the founding of the Negro National League (NNL) in 1920 in Kansas City. Rube Foster and other Black baseball team owners gathered to organize and carry out a vision of professional baseball that was often considered but never put into order.
That meeting took place on February 13, and eight franchises joined together: the Chicago American Giants, the Chicago Giants, the Cuban Stars Dayton Marcos, the Detroit Stars, the Indianapolis ABCs, the Kansas City Monarchs, and the St. Louis Giants.
The new enterprise experienced ups and downs, affected by lost revenues due to the Great Depression, inconsistency in franchise owners’ financial stability, and competition for players from a new league formed in 1923, the Eastern Colored League. The NNL collapsed in 1931.
One month after the NNL formed in 1920, Nashville’s Tom Wilson, owner of the Nashville Standard Giants, gathered southern Black baseball team owners in Atlanta to form the Negro Southern League (NSL). The new enterprise teams included the Montgomery Grey Sox, Atlanta Black Crackers, New Orleans Caulfield Ads, Knoxville Giants, Birmingham Black Barons, Nashville White Sox, Pensacola Giants, and Jacksonville Stars.
The NSL became the more financially stable league through 1936, although when the NNL reorganized in 1932, it was considered a minor league. The Nashville Elite Giants joined the new NNL, and when a new league, the Negro American League formed in 1937, the Birmingham Black Barons and Memphis Red Sox joined up, which led to the demise of the NSL. But not before a new Nashville team entered the NSL, the Black Vols.
When Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, the complete demise of Negro Leagues baseball was on the horizon. A new Negro Southern League had formed in 1945. It included the Nashville Black Vols under a new owner, Dr. R. B. Jackson, the Cubs beginning in 1946, and Stars (probably a combination of the Cubs and Stars), but by 1951, it, too, was consigned to oblivion.
The impact of Negro Leagues baseball in cities throught the United States was set in motion by the brave confidence of team owners, players, and fans. Nashville’s proud Black baseball history continues through this day with memories of Turkey Stearnes, Bruce Petway, Henry Kimbro, Butch McCord, Jim Zapp, Sidney Bunch, Jr., among others, leading the way.
Tom Wilson shares equally with Rube Foster in creating a lasting legacy for Negro Leagues baseball and its impact on baseball history in the United States!
Early Negro Southern League standings:
| Year | Pennant Winner |
| 1920 | Montgomery Grey Sox |
| 1921 | Nashville Elite Giants |
| 1922 | Nashville Elite Giants |
| 1923 | Birmingham Black Barons |
| 1924 | No Schedule Played |
| 1925 | No Schedule Played |
| 1926 | Birmingham Black Barons |
| 1927 | Chattanooga Black Lookouts |
| 1928 | No Schedule Played |
| 1929 | Nashville Elite Giants |
| 1930 | No Schedule Played |
| 1931 | Nashville Elite Giants |
| 1932 | Cole’s American Giants |
| 1933 | Memphis Red Sox |
| 1933 | New Orleans Crescent Stars |
| 1934 | Incomplete |
| 1935 | Claybrook Tigers |
| 1936 | Birmingham Black Barons |
Sources
Center for Negro League Baseball Research.
Heaphy, Leslie A. (2015). The Negro Leagues, 1869–1960. McFarland.
Holway, John (2001). The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues: The Other Half of Baseball History. Fern Park, Florida: Hastings House Publishers.
Mills, P. (2003). “Negro League Baseball Dot Com – Historical Timeline Of Negro League Baseball”.
Negro Southern League Museum Research Center. Center for Negro League Baseball Research.
Plott, William J. (2015). The Negro Southern League, A Baseball History, 1920-1951, McFarland.
© 2025 by Skip Nipper. All Rights Reserved.
