A Junaluska Homerun

David Clayborn, Sr. was the owner and operator of the Chocolate Bar, as well as the manager of the local Mountain Lions baseball team. These two operations ran together: see the picture of David Clayborn running a fundraiser out of the Chocolate Bar to raise money to buy new uniforms and equipment for the Mountain Lions. Baseball was, for a long time, a segregated sport, but the so-called “color barrier” was starting to crack by the 1940s, and by 1946 Jackie Robinson broke through the barrier to play in the Major Leagues. 

Reflecting the times, the Mountain Lions were an all-Black team, but they played games against white teams during their tenure. The team being all-Black was not necessarily direct segregation, but could instead reflect indirect segregation - the team was all-Black because segregation made their community all-Black and they were a very local team, not necessarily because Black and white players weren’t allowed together. The fact that they played against white teams, breaking with the norm of segregated recreation of the time, already shows desegregation working its way into American culture, even if it was a slow and stuttering process.