Play Harder: The Triumph of Black Baseball in America
Details
From our speaker, “My presentation centers on the book, which I wrote in conjunction with the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, on the history of Black Baseball in America. The book accompanies the Hall of Fame’s new exhibit on Black baseball which opened in May 2024. I worked as a consultant on the exhibit and will discuss the development of the exhibit as well as the process of writing the book.”
Gerald Early is the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters in the Departments of English and African and African American Studies at Washington University. He won the National Book Critics' Circle Award for Criticism in 1994 for his book, The Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature, and Modern American Culture. He has been featured in several Ken Burns's documentaries including Baseball, Jazz, Jackie Robinson, and Muhammad Ali. His latest book is Play Harder: The Triumph of Black Baseball in America, done in partnership with the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and their new exhibit on Black Baseball which opened in May 2024.
This Platform will feature music from The Wire Pilots, an eccelctic trio based in St. Louis, Missouri, led by Dan Rubright. Dan is a jazz guitarist, composer, and author. He regularly works with the finest musicians in St. Louis and beyond to create his own brand of vibrant, contemporary, music. He is an an adjunct music teacher at Washington University and is the author of The Musician's Dilemma: A Guide to Integrating Your Passion for Music with Real Life (on Amazon).