Coloured Diamonds: Integrated Baseball in the Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-1918

Abstract

For the duration of the First World War, the Canadian Expeditionary Force was officially integratedin principle, but stubbornly segregated in practice. Black soldiers, having fought to fight, discoveredthat relationships forged in the trenches often shook ingrained prejudices. If there was no such thingas an atheist in a foxhole, then the same could be said of bigots and baseball diamonds. Integrated baseball inthe CEF was more common than extant histories suggest. Black and white soldiers played against each other,and shared benches alike, when such desegregated diamonds were still exceedingly rare on the home front.