A deep history of the 'slow and unsteady' integration of North Carolina's professional baseball leagues

By Leoneda Inge,

Published July 1, 2024 at 10:00 AM EDT

(from left) Bubba Morton, Ted Richardson and Wendell Antoine, the first Black players for the Durham Bulls in 1957. — Bubba Morton (left), Ted Richardson and Wendell Antoine, the first Black players for the Durham Bulls in 1957.

Durham-based author and historian Chris Holaday wrote the first book-length history of integration of North Carolina's minor league teams.

He joins co-host Leoneda Inge to talk about some of the people he met and the stories he learned about in researching his book Cracks in the Outfield Wall: The History of Baseball Integration in the Carolinas.

Guest

Chris Holaday, historian and author of Cracks in the Outfield Wall: The History of Baseball Integration in the Carolinas

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Leoneda Inge

Leoneda Inge is the co-host of WUNC's "Due South." Leoneda has been a radio journalist for more than 30 years, spending most of her career at WUNC as the Race and Southern Culture reporter. Leoneda’s work includes stories of race, slavery, memory and monuments. She has won "Gracie" awards, an Alfred I. duPont Award and several awards from the Radio, Television, Digital News Association (RTDNA). In 2017, Leoneda was named "Journalist of Distinction" by the National Association of Black Journalists.

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Rachel McCarthy

Rachel McCarthy is a producer for "Due South." She previously worked at WUNC as a producer for "The Story with Dick Gordon." More recently, Rachel was podcast managing editor at Capitol Broadcasting Company where she developed narrative series and edited a daily podcast. She also worked at "The Double Shift" podcast as supervising producer. Rachel learned about audio storytelling at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. Prior to working in audio journalism, she was a research assistant at the Aspen Institute in Washington, DC.

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