The Rise and Fall of Negro League Baseball

The Woodbridge Public Library will present The Rise and Fall of Negro League Baseball by Jonathan Mercantini on February 9, 2016 at 7:00 pm at the Woodbridge Main Library, 1 George Frederick Plaza, Woodbridge, NJ. This program is free and open to the public. The program is funded by the Horizons Speakers Bureau of the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, a state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This talk will examine the origins of segregation in baseball, the development and growth of the Negro Leagues and its demise following Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Major League Baseball. It will also highlight important New Jerseyans in this story including Effa Manley and Larry Doby.

Jonathan Mercantini is Associate Professor and Chair of Kean University’s Department of History where he has taught since 2007. He also serves as the Co-Director of the History Honors Program. He teaches a wide variety of courses: Colonial and Revolutionary America, The New Nation, Pirates in the Atlantic World, New Jersey History, and the Civil War and Reconstruction to name just a few. Prior to his appointment at Kean he taught at the University of Miami and Canisius College. He has also taught at Princeton University. He earned his Ph. D. in American History from Emory University.

For more information about this event, please contact April Kane at 732-634-4450 or akane@woodbridgelibrary.org. For more information about the Horizons Speakers Bureau please visit http://njch.org/programs/hsb/