Earl Mann, Nat Peeples, and the Failed Attempt of Integration in the Southern Association

Abstract

At 10:30 P.M. on Apri l9, 1954, Nat Peeples, an outfielder for the Atlanta Crackers, made history as he broke the color line in the venerable, tradition-rich, class-AA Southern Association. 1 In the Crackers' opening game of the season against the Mobile Bears in Mobile, Alabama, Peeples batted in the fifth inning as a pinch hitter for pitcher Noel Oquendo. He took the first two offerings for balls and then tapped the third pitch weakly back to the pitcher for an easy out. In the second game of the season, played the next night, Peeples started in left field and batted in the important third spot in the lineup. In four plate appearances Peeples walked once and made routine groundouts in his other three at-bats. He did not play in the third and final game of the series in Mobile. The Crackers then returned to Atlanta to open their home season. Peeples had not played in Atlanta's Ponce de Leon Park when, on April 17, the Crackers optioned him to the Jacksonville Braves of the class-A South Atlantic League. After appearing in only 2 games and without ever hitting the ball out of the infield, Peeples never again played in the Southern Association. He was the first and only Negro to play in the league. (The wordNegro was the most commonly used term to refer to African Americans in 1954. It was encountered almost exclusively in the written sources on which this study is based. Thus it is used in this essay to maintain the integrity of those sources and to re-create the atmosphere of the time.) 2