Six decades before Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier, another man, Moses Fleetwood “Fleet” Walker, explored this territory. Fleet Walker was a man of many talents and attributes. He was educated, athletic, an entrepreneur, an inventor, and a socialite to name a few. In an era when society limited blacks in their potential, Fleet Walker defied all odds. Yet, for all his fame, status, and accomplishments, he ultimately came to the conclusion that blacks would never achieve their place in American society.
In the aftermath of the largely unsuccessful era of Reconstruction, America found itself in a constant state of flux. As industry boomed and the population urbanized, sports became an increasingly more important aspect of American culture. Baseball and boxing became the most popular spectator sports, with baseball drawing an average crowd of over 60,000 people per season through the 1880s.[1] Additionally, these sports allowed not only black spectators, but black athletes as well. While the integration of baseball would be short lived, for a time it provided a few high-caliber black athletes an opportunity to compete with white athletes. Leading the charge was Fleet Walker.
Born in Mount Pleasant, Ohio, in 1856 to Caroline and Moses W. Walker, Fleet was the fifth of six children of his mulatto parents. Moses W. Walker was an ambitious man, and his occupational endeavors often involved moving. Thus, the Walker family eventually found themselves 23 miles northwest of Mount Pleasant, in the town of Steubenville where Moses worked as a cooper, then one of the first black physicians in Ohio, and a Methodist pastor.[2]
Fleet’s story really begins in 1877 when the family moved 150 miles northwest, to Oberlin, Ohio. While the move occurred due to Moses W’s aspirations as a minister, it was a fortunate one for the Walker children as it offered them a chance for a college education. Fleet was 21 years old when the family moved to Oberlin, and he enrolled in Oberlin’s preparatory program.[3] A progressive institution, far ahead of its time for racial integration, Oberlin College began accepting black students in 1835. The school admitted black students primarily because of financial necessity, but also as a “chance opportunity,” and for a sense of religious obligation.[4] While not every member of the school’s Board supported integration, and many black Americans felt that a separate school should be established, still, the school facilitated complete integration.[5]
The school maintained relative harmony in its integration; however, over time, as so often occurs, emerging changes in ideologies within the school caused tension between conservative and liberal school leadership and created some dissension amongst the faculty and student body. Beginning in 1875, Oberlin College began to feel an increase in the societal pressures of segregation. There would be a change in atmosphere in the college that may certainly have had an effect on the impressionable Fleet.[6] From this time through the end of the 19th century, only a subset of the Oberlin body remained to progress the idea that black and white students could learn and live together.[7] Nonetheless, Fleet had great success at Oberlin College.
Initially, Fleet excelled in academics, studying a plethora of subjects the school had to offer. He studied “Greek, Latin, German, French, world history, English, rhetoric, astronomy, botany, geology, [and] zoology” to name a few.[8] Oberlin provided him an enormous opportunity for not only education, but athletics as well; however, the more invested he became in baseball (and girls) the more his studies slipped to the wayside. While at Oberlin, he would meet both of his future wives.
Fleet was selected as the starting catcher and the leadoff hitter for the school’s baseball team. In grand fashion, Fleet stole the show during the inaugural game at Oberlin’s new baseball field. Fleet’s glove and bat, along with teammate pitcher Harlan Burkett, led the junior class to victory over the senior team. Fleet even hit a grand slam in the contest which is either a testament to his power or speed. Either way, he thoroughly solidified his place and presence in Oberlin baseball.[9]
Initially, when Fleet first began playing at Oberlin College, their baseball teams were “limited to interclass play,” but eventually fielded its first varsity intercollegiate team in 1881.[10] The final game of the 1881 season found Oberlin playing against the University of Michigan. Fleet and teammate Arthur Packer played so well in the 9-2 victory over Michigan that the University offered both athletes an opportunity to transfer to Michigan the following year. Thus, without finishing his degree at Oberlin, Fleet took the opportunity. Along with him came his first wife, Bella, and his brother Weldy followed the next year.
Mount Pleasant and Steubenville’s large Quaker populations and staunch abolitionist stance, and Oberlin’s progressive policies largely sheltered Fleet from the bitter realities for blacks in America. These concepts were not necessarily foreign to him, but his early experiences protected him from life beyond the comfortable confines of eastern Ohio; places where men like his father could succeed in many disciplines. However, this was about to change as he left his safety net, and ventured south of the Mason-Dixon to play semi-pro ball before the school year.
The summer before he officially transferred, Fleet was hired to play as a fill-in for an injured catcher for the semi-professional baseball team, White’s Sewing Machine Company of Cleveland. While in Louisville, Kentucky, Fleet was held out of the lineup due to protest from the opposing team, and White’s had to field a replacement. However, the replacement was injured in the first inning and refused to come out for the second inning. With no other options, the team had Fleet come out to warm up. This brought more protest from the opposing team, some players even left the field. This was seemingly too much for Fleet who exited the field, and was replaced by the third baseman before officially entering the field of play.[11]
Fleet’s first year at the University of Michigan (U of M) found him in an optimal situation. He not only had an opportunity to study law, but Michigan was weak at the catcher position, and his talents and contributions were well received. He was the team’s leading hitter and served commendably behind the plate. He was referred to as the “wonder,” and helped the team to a winning 10-3 season. He was one of seven black, lettered athletes at U of M, however, the state and school’s liberalism did not overrule society’s racial segregation and stratification.[12]
The state of Michigan was known for its progressive policies and early integration, but this could not overcome personal feelings and attitudes within the population itself. Not all sports at the university were integrated, and blacks faced segregation and ridicule in Ann Arbor. Thus, while the state began legislating integration in the early 19th century, attitudes would perpetuate racial tensions until the mid-20th century, coming to an apex in 1967 with the Detroit riots.
After the 1882 season, Fleet temporarily moved east to play in his first stint of professional baseball in New Castle, Pennsylvania. His reputation as a spectacular catcher preceded him, and the papers gave him a glowing introduction. They spoke not only of his playing, but also called him “a gentleman in every sense of the word both on the ballfield and off.”[13] Others touted him as the “best hitting amateur catcher in the nation.”[14] Perhaps most importantly, the New Castle papers, unlike any place Fleet ever travelled to, never referred to his race; rather, they focused on his abilities.[15]
While there is little information on what happened during his time in New Castle, what is known is that he returned to Michigan, but not to the university. Much to the dismay of his Michigan teammates, Fleet left the school, still with no degree, and was signed to his first professional contract with the Toledo Blue Stockings, Toledo’s first professional team, in 1883.[16] The signing of a black player was met with disdain from some in the league who went straight to work to end Fleet’s, and any other aspiring colored player’s, hopes of playing professionally. However, this attempt was overruled after a bitter battle amongst league officials.
Fleet performed as expected, if not better, as he caught in 60 of the team’s 84 games, often with bloodied and battered hands incurred from his job as the catcher. He hit a respectable .251 batting average, and was consistently praised in the papers for his talents.[17] With his help, the Toledo’s won the Northwestern League championship that year.
It would be during this season that Fleet would come face to face with one of the most influential players, yet one of the most flagrant racists of the baseball world, Adrian “Cap” Anson. Anson outright refused to play with Walker on the team, but the Toledo manager informed him that if they did not play, they would forfeit their share of the ticket sales. The embittered Anson agreed and though Fleet was scheduled to rest, Toledo’s manager added insult to Anson’s injured ego by playing Walker anyway.[18] Fleet played in the outfield to give his hands a rest, but Anson’s Chicago’s won the exhibition 7-6.[19]
The Toledo’s were called up to join the American Association for the 1884 season which made them a Major League team. Though they only kept a few members from the previous year, Fleet was among them. However, the team did not have much success in the elevated level of play. Additionally, racial pressure against the club was a constant. Ultimately, this lack of success, mixed with outside animosity against Fleet and his brother Weldy (who had joined the team in mid-1884), the team began to lose money.[20] Toledo cut the Walker brothers, but that was still not enough as the team continued to decline until its eventual disbandment in 1885.
Walker continued playing baseball wherever he could find a spot. He was no longer earning his standard $2,000 a season, but was still doing well. He landed in Syracuse, NY, where he helped the Syracuse Stars secure the International League pennant in 1888, and finished his career the following season at the age of 32 “with a lifetime batting average of .224 in 331 games.”[21] Fleet was released from the team after a trip to Toledo where his team’s ticket sales became attached to debts that he incurred there before he left.[22]
Following his career in baseball, Fleet became a railway clerk for the postal service when his life took an interesting turn. While walking the streets of Syracuse looking for his old manager, Fleet was hit in the back of the head with a rock. A group of men surrounded him, Fleet stabbed one of the men, Patrick Murray (a convicted felon), who later died of the injury. Fleet found himself at the mercy of an all-white, male jury charged with second-degree murder. He was found not guilty of murder, and even the “newspapers took his side.”[23]
In 1895, after the passing of his first wife, Bella, Fleet moved back to Ohio where he married another Oberlin classmate, Ednah Taylor. There, Fleet became a man of many endeavors. He conducted lecture tours and entertained churches across Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. He bought an opera house and opened a weekly black newspaper called the Equator with his brother Weldy.[24] At the opera house, he “presented movies, plays, operas, and lectures and also rented the place for independent presentations of vaudevillians and minstrel actors.”[25]
Eventually, he turned the opera house into a theater as the nickelodeon machines became more prominent. Not only did he play the movies, but he worked to improve the technology, and processed three patents for improvements to the machine. He also claimed another patent for an artillery shell to add to his already impressive list of accomplishments.
In 1908, Fleet composed his treatise, Our Home Colony, in which he posed that America was not prepared to offer full equality to blacks. He posed that black Americans were never going to be more than political pawns, and that was all that they had been since emancipation.[26] While he loved America, and the idea of it, he could not see America as a place where blacks could grow and thrive. Rather, he felt that the only solution was re-emigration to their countries of origin, to begin their own Liberia.[27] After the publication of his treatise, Fleet even opened an office in Steubenville to begin working towards these resettlement endeavors, and continued his speaking tours in the Midwest focusing on racial separation and the resettlement of blacks.
(Full PDF of Our Home Colony is available at: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.35112204035135&view=1up&seq=3 )
Fleet Walker was a man of many talents: educated, smart, driven, and respectable. He succeeded in the white man’s world, and accomplished many things that most whites would never achieve, let alone his black counterparts. However, in his experiences in Ohio and all of the success and praise he achieved and received, he fervently believed that blacks had no future in America. Thus, he rationalized that if someone of his status, education, and accomplishments could not find a place in this society, it was doubtful that any colored person could. His ultimate conclusion was that the only solution for failed integration was mass migration back to Africa.
Bibliography
Baumann, Roland M. Constructing Black Education at Oberlin College: A Documentary History, Ohio University Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=1756222.
Husman, John R. “Fleet Walker.” Society for American Baseball Research. Accessed June 24, 2019. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/9fc5f867.
Lankiewicz, Donald. “Fleet Walker in the Twilight Zone. Queen City Heritage, Vol. 50 No. 2. (Summer, 1992). P. 2-11. http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/mich/genrel/auto_pdf/walker-twilight-zone-020310.pdf
Litwicki, Ellen M. “The Influence of Commerce, Technology, and Race on Popular Culture in the Gilded Age, in The Gilded Age: Perceptions on the Origins of Modern America, 2nd ed., Charles W. Calhoun. Lanham, MD: The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2007. 188-209, accessed June 24, 2019, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/1351075.
McNutt, Randy, and McNutt, Cheryl Bauer. Unforgettable Ohioans: Thirteen Mavericks Who Made History on Their Own Terms. Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 2015. Accessed June 24, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central.
Steward, Tyran Kai. "At the University but Not of the University: The Benching of Willis Ward and the Rise of Northern Racial Liberalism." American Studies 55, no. 3 (2016): 35-70,118. https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy2.apus.edu/docview/1924609775?accountid=8289.
Walker, Moses Fleetwood. Our Home Colony: a Treatise on the Past, Present and Future of the Negro Race in America. Steubenville, OH. Herald Printing Co., 1908. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.35112204035135&view=1up&seq=15.
Notes
[1] Ellen M. Litwicki, “The Influence of Commerce, Technology, and Race on Popular Culture in the Gilded Age, in The Gilded Age: Perceptions on the Origins of Modern America, 2nd ed., Charles W. Calhoun, (Lanham, MD: The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2007), 200, accessed June 24, 2019, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/1351075.
[2] John R. Husman, Fleet Walker, Society for American Baseball Research, accessed June 24, 2019, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/9fc5f867.
[3] Husman.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid., 27.
[6] Bauman, 74.
[7] Ibid., 72.
[8] Randy McNutt and Cheryl Bauer McNutt, Unforgettable Ohioans: Thirteen Mavericks Who Made History on Their Own Terms, (Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 2015), 96, accessed June 24, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central.
[9] Hausman.
[10] Hausman.
[12] Tyran Kai Steward, "At the University but Not of the University: The Benching of Willis Ward and the Rise of Northern Racial Liberalism," American Studies 55, no. 3 (2016): 36, https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy2.apus.edu/docview/1924609775?accountid=8289.
[13] Husman.
[14] McNutt, 97.
[15] Husman.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Donald Lankiewicz, “Fleet Walker in the Twilight Zone, Queen City Heritage vol.50 no. 2 (Summer, 1992), 5, http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/mich/genrel/auto_pdf/walker-twilight-zone-020310.pdf.
[18] Husman.
[19] Lankiewicz, 5.
[20] Ibid., 8.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Husman.
[23] McNutt., 102.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Moses Fleetwood Walker, Our Home Colony: a Treatise on the Past, Present and Future of the Negro Race in America. (Steubenville, OH: Herald Printing Co., 1908), 5-13, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.35112204035135&view=1up&seq=15.
[27] Lankiewicz, 9.
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