Event: June 7 Book Launch

Join the CK Black Historical Society and Black Mecca Museum in celebrating the publication of 1934: The Chatham Coloured All-Stars’ Barrier-Breaking Year. The author Heidi LM Jacobs will be featured in a panel conversation with descendants of All-Stars players’ Blake Harding and Donald Tabron, and moderator Dr. Deirdre McCorkindale. Refreshments will be provided.

About the book:This is the first book about the Black team who made a splash in a white dominated sport more than a decade before Jackie Robinson played Major League Baseball, and, in 2022, were recognized with the Order of Sport by Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame. The All-Stars regularly beat their white opponents and challenged discriminatory ideas and practices in Canada, including segregationist policies in hotels and restaurants. They became the first Black team to win an Ontario Baseball Association championship. Author Heidi Jacobs and her colleagues at the University of Windsor did years of research to uncover this important part of the Canadian history of progress towards racial equity and North American baseball history.

"Reading through the book, 1934: The Chatham Coloured All-Stars’ Barrier-Breaking Year it feels almost mythical, like an urban legend made manifest in your hands, bringing to life a story that would make you think you were watching a baseball movie. But this actually happened." –Windsor Life