King Solomon White (1868-1955) / “Sol” White In His Own Words

Side A: King Solomon “Sol” White was born in Bellaire on June 12, 1868. A Baseball legend, he was an all-around player, manager, and organizer in the Pre-Negro Leagues (1887-1912) and the Negro Leagues (1920-1926). White first played with integrated baseball clubs the Bellaire Globes (1884-1886) and Wheeling Green Stockings (1887). After 1887-1888 color barriers were imposed on baseball, White played on segregated minor league teams. They included: the Pittsburgh Keystones, Cuban Giants, York Colored Monarchs, Cuban X-Giants, Page Fence Giants, and Chicago Columbia Giants. As a coach, he helped organize and lead the powerhouse Philadelphia Giants to their 1904-1907 championships. White died on August 26, 1955, and was buried in an unmarked grave in Staten Island’s Frederick Douglas Memorial Cemetery. In 2006, “Sol” White was posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Side B: As a regular contributor to such Black newspapers as the Cleveland Advocate, Solomon White advocated for the integration of baseball. In 1907, he published Sol White’s Official Base Ball Guide, a history of Black baseball that provided an invaluable anthology of early players, teams, and playing conditions. “In no other profession,” he wrote, “has the color line been drawn more rigidly than in baseball . . . There are grounds for hoping that some day the bar will drop and some good man will be chosen from out of the colored profession that will be a credit to all and pave the way for others to follow.” Although it did not happen during his professional career, White did live to see Jackie Robinson’s April 1947 debut that ended racial segregation in Major League Baseball.