The Atlanta Crackers

We took a Sunday morning detour through Atlanta to find an obscure but intriguing nod to forgotten history.

The official City of Atlanta Parks sign can be found at 1401 Bridges Ave outside the Hartnett Community Garden, on the side facing away from the street. Access to the field can be found one driveway down between 1405 and 1409 Bridges Ave. You have to want to find it.

The Atlanta Black Crackers were a professional Negro league baseball team which played during the early to mid-20th century, when segregation was the law of the land.

In 1940 Negro league players were paid $2 a week in meal money and $60 a month in salary, benefits that often went unpaid. They were called the “N” word as often as they were called by name. Barnstorming the nation, the Crackers once traveled by bus from Greenwood, MS to Flint, MI for a one-night stand. Sometimes they played as many as three games in one day. They changed their clothes in open fields, and they shared bathwater with teammates.

It is a well-worn cliche that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it — a cliche, for sure, but an accurate one.

Respecting the past allows a certain perspective over the times in which we live. Maybe lacking in predictive certainty for the future, but even the ugly parts offer some insight into how we as a nation are progressing. Hiding it changes nothing.