Entry · catalog no. 4853
Negro Leagues
/ /ðə ˈniɡɹoʊ ˈliɡz/ /thuh NEE-groh LEEGZ
noun · Kansas City, Missouri; Black communities nationwide · 1920s
✓ Verified
1.
The Black-owned professional baseball leagues and teams that played from 1920 to the late 1940s, when Major League Baseball excluded Black players.
“Josh Gibson was a star of the Negro Leagues.”
2.
A name for the whole tradition of independent Black baseball, including barnstorming teams and earlier clubs.
“The Kansas City Monarchs carried the Negro Leagues' name far past the sport.”
Origin & Attribution
The Negro National League was founded in February 1920 in Kansas City by Andrew "Rube" Foster, a Black pitcher, manager and owner, as the first lasting league run by Black owners. "Negro" is the period's term and stays in the historical name. The Negro Leagues carried Black baseball through segregation until integration in the late 1940s; in December 2020 Major League Baseball announced it would recognize the Negro Leagues of 1920 to 1948 as major leagues, and later folded their statistics into official records.
1920
Rube Foster founds the Negro National League in Kansas City
2020
Major League Baseball announces it will recognize the Negro Leagues as major leagues
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Midwest
Kansas City, Missouri; Black communities nationwide · 1920s
Spoken by
Black baseball players, fans and historians; sports and Black history communities
$NEGROLThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Enduring100 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
55/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1920
in the culture
Mainstream crossover
2020
search interest spikes
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
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Chicago, IL
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Detroit, MI
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Citations & Sources
■
Baseball-Reference Bullpen, 'Negro National League' and 'Negro Leagues'
web
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Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Negro league' and 'Rube Foster'
web
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+ Cite a sourceMLB.com, Negro Leagues history, Rube Foster profile
web
See also