Negro Leagues Baseball Stamps Hit Home Run

The baseball league that helped spark integration of American professional sports is being honored on a 44-cent U.S. postage stamp issued at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, MO.

At the dedication ceremony, Board of Governors Vice Chairman Thurgood Marshall, Jr. gave a special salute to Birmingham, AL postal employee Cleophus Brown, who played in the Negro Leagues for the Birmingham Black Barons and the Louisville Clippers. Brown, 76, has been a motor vehicle driver for the Postal Service for the past 30 years.

Joining Marshall and Brown to unveil the stamps were Negro Leagues Baseball Museum President Gregory Baker, Stamp Artist Kadir Nelson, who designed the stamps, and former Negro leagues player Mamie “Peanut” Johnson.

The Negro Leagues Baseball stamps pay tribute to the all-black professional baseball leagues that operated from 1920 to about 1960. A second commemorative stamp features the league’s founder, Andrew “Rube” Foster, who is considered the “father” of Negro Leagues Baseball. In 1981, Foster was honored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame as the “foremost manager and executive” of Negro Leagues baseball.