(lively music) (lively music continues) (lively music continues) (lively music continues) (lively music continues) ♪ Life is a ball game ♪ ♪ Being played each day ♪ ♪ Life is a ball game ♪ ♪ Everybody can play ♪ ♪ Yes you know, Jesus standing at the home plate ♪ ♪ He's a-waiting for you there ♪ ♪ You know, the life is a ball game ♪ ♪ But you've got to play it fair ♪ (lively music) (lively music continues) - [Harry] "Dear Sir, I was talking with Fred R. Sherman about a position on your team as I have not signed with any club yet.

He told me about the Suits and about the team going for practice at Palace Gardens.

I am unable to report for practice on April 1st.

On April 8th, you can find me at Rocky Point grounds on the diamond with Providence players.

I am well acquainted with all the players as I was with them at Melrose Park all last summer.

I am Colored, 21 years old.

Height, five foot five inches, weight 151 and a quarter pounds.

These are the clubs I played with, 1903-4 season Warwick, Rhode Island Baseball Club.

1904 season the Crack Colored Cuban Giants of Brooklyn, New York, captain Pop Watkins, 94 Rockwell Place, Brooklyn, New York.

1905 season Providence Colored Giants.

In April 2nd, 1906, telegram or Tribune, you will find the picture of the Providence Giants.

I am booked to play first base for the Boston Colored Giants, but I guess I will stay home this season.

If there's any doubt of anything in this letter, you can inquire.

I play any position but catcher.

I would like you to write me a definitive answer and all about it.

Yours truly, Harry Fearson.

Rear 16-D-Street, Providence, Road Island.

(lively music) - Such was the life of the journeyman.

Professional Black baseball player.

Harry Fearson played for the Providence Colored Giants during their 1906 season and a few more.

(gentle music) - African Americans began to play baseball, as far as we know, during slavery, the connection between African Americans goes back at least that far.

There are some historians who say that African Americans were there, were present at the creation.

(gentle music) (lively music) - Baseball was played by Black athletes in Rhode Island during the 19th century.

The Providence Colored Grays were considered to be the first professional Black baseball team in Providence and called Messer Park its home field in the 1880s.

Semi-professional and amateur Black baseball games were played to entertain visitors at Watch Hills Ocean House Athletic Field, the Narragansett Pier grounds and the Dexter Avenue Training Ground in Providence were also sites for regularly scheduled Black baseball games.

(gentle music) This film is about early 20th century Black baseball in Rhode Island and the two very different men forever linked to it.

For the athlete Daniel "Dan" Whitehead, baseball was a way of life.

- For me, he invokes the Walter Younger character from the play "A Raisin in the Sun", the perpetual dreamer who has big dreams.

(lively music) - For Arthur James "Daddy" Black, baseball was business.

One of many roads towards money and earned respectability.

(lively music) - I think that Arthur "Daddy" Black never came into anything without a plan.

- One could say that Arthur Black could not have existed without Daniel Whitehead.

(lively music) - Both men were one generation from slavery when they decided to leave the Jim Crow South behind and move north during the Great Migration.

Both men in Providence sought admission to networks of money, power, and influence, usually denied Black Americans.

Both men paid the price for their successes and both men contributed to the nation's slow grind toward the integration of our American national pastime.

(lively music) (no audio) - Daniel Whitehead is a product of the Great Migration.

He's from Savannah, Georgia.

There are some folks who believe that he had been recruited to play baseball perhaps for one of the Boston teams, but for whatever reason that doesn't work out.

- Daniel Whitehead liked to be called "Dan", sometimes "Big Dan".

He was a good athlete and at six feet tall was an imposing presence on a baseball field as a first baseman and a right fielder.

He arrived in Providence in 1903, married to Caroline "Nanny" Burrell, and Father of their daughter Annie.

Over the decades, census takers and city directories refer to him as a laborer and a painter.

Apparently there was no census code for his professional passion, promoting baseball.

According to Armando Perry, noted Black baseball sports writer of the Times, Daniel Whitehead was the father of Black baseball in Rhode Island.

Perry wrote that Whitehead created groundbreaking baseball partnerships with Black and white promoters up and down the East Coast and Canada.

He sometimes found the time to manage teams as well.

(no audio) In 1905, Dan Whitehead's career as a promoter began in earnest when he established the Providence Black Stockings and incorporated the club in 1906 as the providence Colored Giants.

Those Giants became Rhode Island's nationally recognized championship caliber baseball team.

- There are various levels of play in Black baseball.

There are what we call Sandlot games.

Oftentimes friendly games in which churches compete against churches, civic and fraternal organizations.

Sometimes neighborhood associations.

At the next level is the semi-professional level.

Semi-professional level is where the players get paid, but they usually get paid out of the gate.

You could split the gate or you could demand what was called a guaranteed gate.

So at the end of the game, whatever was in the hat or whatever was collected was split between the teams or someone got a predetermined guaranteed gate.

Now professional baseball is a little different in that those players are paid regularly, usually each month, a salary.

That comprises the main distinctions that exist among the three levels of play and of course the quality of play as well.

Although I can tell you sometimes there's not much of a difference between semi-pro and pro during this time period.

- At a time when the color line was drawn hard, making Major League Baseball segregated, the only chance for a Black professional level ball player to make a living at the game was to sign contracts with teams like the Giants.

Whitehead promoted games pitting his team against the best the country had to offer.

The Boston Colored Giants, the Brooklyn Royal Giants, the Cuban All Stars, all came to Providence to play and sometimes to lose to the talented nines of the Providence Colored Giants.

- One of the first things that Whitehead does is he incorporates his team in the state of Rhode Island.

He goes to the Secretary of State's office, fills out the paperwork, and it's clear that this is not a team which is gonna be a sandlot team or an amateur team.

This is going to be a moneymaking operation.

Daniel Whitehead is a product of the Great Migration, so he understands the potential for moneymaking in baseball and as a result of that, moves quickly to commercialize the game.

I think once baseball becomes a commercialized form of entertainment in the Black community, everything changes.

- Felix Wendelschaefer was Austrian born and a local entertainment mogul.

He owned the highly regarded Providence Opera House and was also an executive with the All White Providence Grays.

He realized the entertainment value of Black baseball, so he put cash into developing Providence's Melrose Park, which became the home field for the Providence Grays and the Providence Colored Giants in their early days.

As was the case in other cities, men like Wendelschaefer offered employment opportunities for Black ball players as waiters or as actors and singers while waiting for the next ball game.

This Whitehead Wendelschaefer Black white partnership lasted nearly three decades.

They expected to make money.

(lively music) Players, fans, owners, and promoters benefited.

So did gambling then.

(lively music) By 1914, Whitehead's reputation was well established.

If traveling teams, Black or white wanted to play quality teams in New England, Dan Whitehead was the man to see.

A game he carded, baseball talk for scheduled, in Crescent Park in East Providence on April 14th, 1914, captures Whitehead's importance in the world of baseball at that time.

This game became the stuff of legend.

Money and pride were on the line for every player on the field that day.

(lively music) - Rube Foster at this point is traveling.

He's got a traveling team, the Chicago American Giants, and he's in the area.

The Saint Louis Cardinals are there for a weekend series with the Boston Braves.

They're carded to the play Friday, Saturday, but because of the Boston Blue Laws, they can't play on Sunday and then they'll finish that series on Monday, which means that you have a professional National League team, which is off on Sunday.

You have a traveling African American team, which is in the area on that same Sunday.

And then you have this most fascinating character, Daniel Whitehead, who is promoting African American games in Rhode Island, who brings both of those entities together.

He's got Foster there, he's got the Cardinals there, and he brings them together for a game in Crescent Park.

Whitehead knows that Rube Foster is the best Black pitcher in baseball period in 1914.

Very few people know that other than Whitehead.

Whitehead is able on borrowed capital to play significant bets on the African American team that Rube Foster is pitching for.

Ultimately, that team beats the Cardinals and at the end of the day, Whitehead pockets a little over $2,800, from what I understand.

He's already promised $150 to Rube Foster to pitch in that game, but because Rube Foster pitches so well, he'll give him an extra 50.

One of the takeaways or one of the lessons from that game, I think, is the power that Whitehead wielded in terms of promoting and organizing and arranging games.

Not just African American games, but games between African American teams and in this case Major League teams.

But the fact of how gambling was so closely intertwined with the game.

- Saying it's complicated, barely scrapes the surface of the life that Arthur Black led that brought him to baseball and the respect he craved.

When a determined Phoebe Black, Arthur's Mother, came to Providence from South Carolina in 1881 with her children, Mary, Anna, Charles, and Arthur, she struggled.

Phoebe's wages as the laundress could not support her family.

The Providence Shelter for Colored Children became a temporary home and school for Arthur and his siblings in 1883.

Yet four years later, the family was reunited and by 1896 Phoebe had enough saved from her work to buy number eight Balch Street, a small West End cottage in Providence.

As his mother Phoebe might have said, "When I bought this house, I felt like we belonged here.

Dressmaking, hairdressing, manicuring brought the money in.

We became a part of the community.

When Christiana Bannister had a fundraiser for her Home for Aged Colored Women, the newspaper said that the Providence Gatsby Hall was filled with the soprano voice of our daughter Anna, and that Arthur displayed his musical dialogue talent.

We stayed together as family, but Arthur wanted a different world than that of clerk and waiter."

(lively music) 19-year-old Arthur Black enlisted in the United States Navy in 1899.

For the next 20 years he acquired skills, rank, and respect.

(lively music) Arthur began as a mess attendant and a coal passer on the USS Brooklyn, the flagship of the American Asiatic squadron in the Pacific, helping to suppress the Chinese Boxer Rebellion in 1900.

His two jobs were fueling the 476 member crew and stoking the armored cruiser's two coal fired engines.

From 1905 to 1907, Arthur was stationed in Newport, Rhode Island.

His fearlessness was revealed in December, 1905.

Oiler Arthur Black and his engine roommates saved the armed yacht USS Wasp and its crew from watery graves near Nantucket during a nor'easter.

Black earned accommodation, that might have cracked open a few doors.

No more coal passing or oiling for Arthur Black.

He had paid those dues.

While stationed in Newport, he met Charlotte Howard, the mother of his son, Vernon.

He also met and married Luella Timberlake in 1907.

They were partners for the next 25 years.

(lively music) The Navy next sent Arthur to Norfolk, Virginia.

From there he sailed for Honduras and the Panama Canal as a Machinist's Mate onboard the USS Marietta.

A tattoo, Blind Justice, appeared on his left forearm.

(lively music) During his Panama deployment, he worked as a machinist, engineer, and navy diver on the Gatun Lake Dam Construction Project, a key component of the Panama Canal.

(no audio) Arthur Black returned and was assigned duty in Annapolis where he and Luella bought a home.

Their daughter Alma, was born there in 1912.

(gentle music) Machinist's Mate First Class Arthur Black had little time with his family.

He was ordered to the engine room of the First American dreadnought, the USS South Carolina.

He continued to build his good conduct record during that ship's voyages to Europe, Mexico, and the Caribbean.

(gentle music) From 1913 to 1918, Black was assigned to the United States Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He had duties on board the USS Cumberland, including it appears as a machinist for the American Flying Squadron stationed there.

(lively music) Fleet baseball tournaments were a regular part of the Navy life in ports around the world, including Cuba.

But baseball on Cuba was different.

- Arthur Black becomes interested in baseball because of his time in Cuba and as a result of that he's come to learn the language, but he's also come to sort of understand the customs and the traditions of Cuba.

During that time that Black is in Cuba, I would say that there are two very visible things.

Number one is gambling, which was referred to as Bolita or La Bolita, which easily transforms into the numbers and I would have to think there's a connection there.

Black is exposed to interracial baseball in Cuba.

The decision had been made even before Black got there, that baseball would be interracial and that would emphasize the nationalist aspects of the island.

Baseball came to represent the island in that way.

- The color line was not so tightly drawn in Cuba, so Luella and their daughter Alma, regularly visited from Providence.

Arthur resisted deployment elsewhere.

- [Arthur] "April 13th, 1915.

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

To Admiral Victor Blue.

Sir, I am greatly in need of your assistance.

I have been a Machinist's Mate First Class for nearly eight years.

I am requesting that you give me a letter of recommendation to my commanding officer for the rating of Chief Machinist's Mate.

It is not to the best interest of the service that I go to see as a chief Machinist's Mate or at my present rate as I am well contented and wish to remain at this station, understanding the native workmen under me, together with their language."

- On January 14th, 1916, he was promoted.

Chief Machinist's Mate Arthur Black remained in Cuba.

He had figured out how to navigate the world of the US Navy.

(lively music) In 1918, Arthur Black wanted another promotion, Chief Special Mechanic.

- [Arthur] "I am proficient in pattern-making, molding, coppersmithing, boiler-making, and machinist's duties in general.

I have a thorough knowledge of all makes and classes of internal-combustion engines, of the different types of magnetos, and have a working knowledge of electricity, including the installation and upkeep of radio apparatus.

- The promotion was denied, so he decided to end his US naval career in 1919.

Arthur Black was ready for the future, he thought.

(lively music) In 1918, World War I ended.

In 1919, thousands of Black veterans returned home, including some who played baseball even as they fought in the trenches in France.

- Arthur "Daddy" Black had an illustrious military career and after obtaining a fairly high rank as a Machinist, he came home and found that veterans like him were not being necessarily welcomed.

That more in fact that Black people who were left behind during World War I were facing a tremendous amount of brutality.

WEB Du Bois in 1919 wrote a piece called "Returning Soldiers" and it was, it addressed the various issues that Black men returning from World War I were faced with that after they had gone and fought for their country, but they came back to face the same kind of oppression that they were facing abroad.

So he came back from fighting and had to continue fighting once he got here, and I think that's what Du Bois is talking about.

- We returned fighting.

Make way for democracy.

We saved it in France and by the great Jehovah, we will save it in the United States of America or know the reason why.

(gentle music) (no audio) - In 1920, the Prohibition era, 18th amendment took effect.

It was now illegal to produce, transport, and sell liquor in the United States, yet the post-war economy boom put cash in pockets across the nation.

The dough, that's an old term for cash, from illicit liquor exchanged hands as easily as the booze that poured into the glasses of thirsty Rhode Islanders, who lived in a state that never ratified the Prohibition amendment.

(lively music) Irish, Italian, and Black gangs lured on by the prospect of easy money battled for their alcohol turf.

The era of gin, guns, and gangs was underway, so was the golden age of white and Black baseball.

Cash fueled the sport and the gambling that went with it.

(lively music) The Giants and other teams came under the influence of Johnny Blackstone, a waiter, showman, and good baseball man.

But by 1921, Blackstone was gone and Whitehead returned to promote his beloved Providence Colored Giants.

(lively music) He had stepped away from playing and managing baseball teams to concentrate on promotion for about a decade.

It was also a period when Dan Whitehead often was just one step ahead of creditors, dealing with legal scrapes and with a tempestuous marriage.

He also owned a painting business and provided chauffeur services in his Chalmers car, maybe for those attending shows at Wendelschafer's opulent Opera House.

(lively music) By 1923, the Black family was renting the upper two floors in Dr.

Gilbert's apartment.

Gilbert was a Howard University educated Black physician who maintained an office there.

He sometimes treated Dan Whitehead's Providence Colored Giants when they were injured on or off the field.

- 160 Cranston Street on the west side of Providence became what I would call almost the healing temple.

If you are a body ached, you went to Dr.

Gilbert, but if you had a different kind of ache or you needed a little bit of money at the time or you needed the support of, or the financial support of Arthur "Daddy" Black, then he was just one flight up.

(lively music) - Arthur Black was a dues paying walking delegate for the Providence Hoisting Engineers Union.

He inspected the work of the cruise and represented the union and dealings with employers.

His Navy experience was useful as his union worked to hoist the Mount Hope Bay Bridge, connecting Bristol and Portsmouth, and to construct the sky scraping art deco industrial bank, otherwise known as the Superman building in Providence.

(lively music) By 1924, the skilled, organized, disciplined Chief Machinist's Mate Arthur Black in his quest for more, was on the path to become the entrepreneurial wealthy, risk taking, loved and respected lottery king, Daddy Black.

(lively music) In the 1920s, the numbers game was an important piece in Black life in cities across the country.

Arthur Black, well versed in the Bolita culture of Cuban life, introduced the numbers to Providence.

By 1924, Hoyle Square had become Daddy Black's turf, just a short walk from his Cranston street home.

He rapidly became Rhode Island's version of the famed Harlem Numbers rivals, Stephanie "Madam" St Clair and Casper Holstein, who were Black community financiers and self-styled philanthropists.

Like them, here in Providence, Arthur Black had plenty of cash.

- The Black church especially has always been the place where people could come together and engage politically.

So Arthur "Daddy" Black, I think was a character who exhibited that same type of respectability politics.

If we present ourselves in a certain way, we will be more accepted.

And this was something that he had experience with, having moved up the ranks of the military, which is highly structured and gave him, you know, not only discipline but also an insight into sort of the white mentality, at that time.

I think that he was better at engaging with the white community than possibly other folks existed during his time period and were in similar businesses.

- He was everywhere in his hometown.

This fit Arthur Black's view of himself as a community builder.

(lively music) Between 1924 and 1927, Daniel Whitehead and Arthur Black made Rhode Island baseball history.

(lively music) - It's 1921 and the Cleveland Colored Giants come to Providence, Rhode Island to play the local Providence team.

Cleveland Colored Giants are caught in an absolute mess because the league that they belong to, which is the Continental League, established by Andy Lawson out of Boston, that league goes belly up.

So you have an African American team from Cleveland in Providence with nowhere to go.

Who picks up that team?

It's James Gibbons.

I would have to say you would have to have some sort of financial resources, you know, to make that team whole again and that to get it back on the road again.

And that's what Gibbons does.

(lively music) - On April 24th, 1924, James Gibbons, a white trucking company owner who was a large presence in the Providence white baseball community and likely part of the liquor distribution system, along with Arthur Black, signed the incorporation papers of the Cleveland Colored Giants in Providence.

Dan Whitehead would not be left behind.

(lively music) - Let's talk about integration in a completely different way and let's talk about the Providence Colored Giants in 1926.

Providence, Rhode Island had always had, let's say a healthy amateur league, all right?

And one of the better leagues within that amateur league was the Melrose League.

In 1926, Tim O'Neill engineers to have an all African-American team come into his amateur league in 1926.

That's unheard of.

And as a result of that, what we see is that some white players come on to this previously all African American team.

So what you have here is a situation which honestly I haven't seen replicated, which is a team which functioned as an African American team in 1925, is invited to play in the amateur, Providence Amateur League in '26 as an African American team.

But by the end of the season there's some white players on that team.

It's funny because the Warren Gazette, a newspaper will report on one of those games and the Warren Gazette will say "It's the Providence Colored Giants, but there are a number of players on that team who are very pale."

And that was the way of saying you had in essence integration in reverse.

So you have a white team, which includes one African American or two African-American players.

In 1926 you had an African-American team which incorporated white players.

- High quality moneymaking teams were able to desegregate the stands and the playing field.

A glimmer of our national past time's future.

(no audio) Numbers matter in baseball.

Statistics are timeless and sacred.

Another set of numbers matter as well.

Money for owners, fans, players.

Gambling and baseball go hand in hand.

(lively music) - What we know about the 1920s and thirties nationwide is that this was kind of the golden age for gambling for Black folks.

You know, this was a way for Black folks to make a lot of money, not just people like Daddy Black who was running number games, but the whole community.

- Black's reputation was established in the sports world because he had cash to make things happen, he created the Providence Panthers, a Black semi-professional basketball team, financed a local women's basketball team, and making baseball history again, Arthur Black bought the Providence Monarchs, an all white West End Providence baseball team.

He also kept his Cuban connection alive.

- There's an interesting relationship that exists between Arthur "Daddy" Black, Cuban teams from Cuba, and what we'll just generally call the Cuban connection.

Daddy Black was very, very successful in promoting games with Cuban teams at Kinsley Park.

So I'm thinking of one in particular.

Daddy Black is very successful in promoting a game with the Cuban House of David out of Santiago, Cuba.

And the star pitcher for that team would be Luis Tiant.

And he was also very successful in carding other games with Cuban teams.

Now, whether that has something to do with his relationship with Cuba, while he was in the Navy or not, that Cuban connection was strong in Rhode Island.

- Arthur "Daddy" Black was looked up to as a sense of hope because he represented what Black people were capable of doing.

And ultimately I really feel like, you know, with the engagement with baseball, he was trying to move towards this legitimate space.

- [Valerie] For Big Dan Whitehead, the last years of the roaring twenties were difficult.

It was not just the complexion of his Providence Colored Giants that changed.

Players were demanding more money and Whitehead balked.

Promoter Whitehead liked paying from the gate, but that time was fast fading from view.

This led Daniel Whitehead to once again step away from the game and complain to Armando Perry that - [Daniel] "Today the average player struts his stuff in terms of the almighty dollar, regardless of the team's success.

The real enthusiasm and fight and spirit is lacking in the present generation.

- Daddy Black saw another opportunity before him and he took it.

The rivalry between the ambitious dreamer, baseball man Whitehead, and the empire building businessman Arthur "Daddy" Black erupted over control of the August 1st Emancipation Day celebrations in Rhode Island.

Emancipation Day celebrations at Rocky Point and Dan Whitehead had been inseparable, but by 1932, that was no longer true.

- In Rhode Island, Emancipation Day is not celebrated on January 1st as it is throughout much of the nation.

January 1st being the date that the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in 1863.

In Rhode Island, Emancipation Day is August 1st because it celebrates West Indian emancipation.

So August 1st was always a day of celebration, which always included a baseball game, usually a baseball game that pitted either the best teams in Providence against each other, or in some cases the best team from Providence against Boston, or in some cases the best team in Providence against Newport.

But it was those Providence Boston games which really registered who was the New England champions.

Rocky Point had always been the traditional place in which the African American Emancipation celebration had been held.

By 1932, Arthur Black is moving that to Crescent Park setting up a rival set of games.

That's an indication that both men had gone their separate ways.

(lively music) - Baseball is played on a diamond shaped field, sometimes on sandlots, sometimes in iconic stadiums.

(lively music) It is the long forgotten Kinsley Avenue Baseball and Recreation field in Providence.

That is the holy ground for Black baseball in Rhode Island.

It had become the home diamond for the Providence Colored Giants.

(lively music) From 1922 to 1932, fans came to see the Giants play ball at Kinsley Avenue.

It was the home field for the Providence Grays, also the home to the Providence Gold Bugs, the city's national champion soccer team.

(lively music) On October 24th, 1929, the United States stock market crashed.

Soon panic set in, banks collapsed, consumers stopped spending, unemployment rose, wages dropped, soup bowls appeared in the hands of Americans and the Dust Bowls tan skies covered the parched soil of the nation's farmland.

Cash-based Black baseball took a hit, nationally and locally.

Scarce cash became king.

By 1930, Arthur James "Daddy" Black had it.

Lots of it.

The gangs took notice.

- The interplay among the Italians, the Irish, and African Americans is a fascinating one.

The other thing that I think you have to keep in mind is the Irish are in control here.

So whenever I think you talk about Rhode Island, the Irish are always an important part of that story.

So the Irish are controlling Prohibition through their leading figure, Danny Walsh.

But by 1924, I would say as early as 1924, the Italians are looking to move in on Danny Walsh's territory.

And I think, here's the story.

Carl Reddick, who has ties in New Jersey and in New York arrives in Rhode Island, somewhere around 1924.

Reddick is tied with organized crime elements, Italian organized crime elements out of Chicago, Johnny Torrio, and then ultimately Al Capone.

So I think we see the Italians moving in on Prohibition as early as the mid twenties.

Now Reddick comes in to help Walsh, but it's clear to me that he's taking over Walsh's territory.

So by 1933, Walsh is murdered and the Italians have completely taken over.

I think one way to explain it is, is that when the money is flowing, the Italians and the Irish are, kind of contend to let the African American community go its own way.

They'll skim the profits, but who controls the numbers?

Those are African Americans.

When the money gets tight, and by that I mean either the beginning of the Depression or the end of Prohibition, that's when you begin to see, in this case, the Italians who have already eased the Irish out, moving in, but moving in a way in which they are now controlling those operations, not allowing African Americans to control those operations.

And then just skimming the money.

- [Valerie] Rube Foster died in 1930.

His Negro National League folded.

Black professional players migrated, some to Providence.

- You have some fantastic professional Black baseball players here in Providence.

Oliver "Ghost" Marcell, who is probably the best Black third baseman ever shortlisted for the baseball Hall of Fame just a couple of years ago, is playing here.

- [Valerie] Arthur Black took control of the Providence Colored Giants.

His plan was to make the Giants a professional baseball team.

- So he accepts an invitation from the Boston Twilight League.

(lively music) That team never, I think, achieves the expectations that Black had for it.

- He then entered the team into the New York Baseball tournament, designed to crown a national champion, in the absence of the Negro National League's World series.

The Giants lost their game to the Harlem Stars.

A team financed in part by Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, the leading Black entertainer in the United States.

Daddy Black was not happy.

(gentle music) - By the end of the 1931 season, Black, I don't wanna say sours on this experiment, but he just doesn't think he's getting what it is that he needs out of these professional players.

And he walks away.

And as a result of that, Dan Whitehead takes over the team in '32.

(lively music) (lively music continues) When Daniel Whitehead takes over the team, these players are expecting the same treatment that they had under Arthur "Daddy" Black, which was a monthly payroll.

In 1932 before their first game, word gets out among the players that it's not gonna be the same situation as it was under Black.

They're not gonna get paid every month.

And as a result of that, they refused to play.

They mutiny.

Initially Stark starts it, but Clifford Carter, who was actually the player coach, when he walks off the field, the game is over.

So what happens is that the fans demand their money back and as a result of that, they storm the spot where they're collecting the money and a riot ensues.

That's sometimes referred to as the Riot Game.

That's what really breaks Daniel Whitehead's heart.

And after that he leaves the game.

So Armando Perry, who is the sports writer, does an interview with Whitehead.

And Whitehead really bears his soul in that interview and says, you know, this isn't my game anymore.

I'm walking away from this game.

And that's how he ends up separating himself from baseball.

(gunshot cracks) There's a story about Daddy Black in which he almost prophetically predicts his own murder.

And here's how that happens.

You know, Black had been carefully protected in his operation, but just a few months before he's murdered, his operation is raided.

And when the Providence Journal reports on that raid, they report that he is bringing in anywhere between four and $6,000 a day.

Black had always said after that, that once that story hit the newspapers that he knew it was the beginning of the end.

He knew that the Italian mob was moving in, really up and down the East Coast on African American numbers runners during this time period - There were over 20,000 people who came to pay their respects to Arthur "Daddy" Black of different races, genders, ages.

And I think that speaks to just how profoundly he impacted his community.

I don't know that it's possible for all of those 20,000 people to have known him personally, but they knew him.

He was a celebrity.

I think Arthur "Daddy" Black was a beloved member of the community here in Providence because he represented respect and dignity during a time when we weren't getting very much respect and dignity.

He was disciplined and most of all, he was focused on uplifting the Black community.

He had a Black identity.

(gentle music) - Daniel Whitehead was 57 years old and living alone in a boarding house at seven Burgess Street, Providence.

He died at Rhode Island Hospital on December 27th, 1933.

- In the Black community especially, there's always been a place for the dreamer because even if they can't themselves enact something, they put the dream out there.

- [Speaker] Daniel Whitehead, long a leading promoter of baseball games for Colored people and well-known to both Colored and white baseball fans throughout New England has died.

His connection with the national pastime can be extended over a period of 40 years or more.

Dan, as he liked to be known among his white and Colored friends, was especially well known in Providence as head of the Providence Colored Giants, which played games against white and Colored professional and semi-professional teams at Kinsley Park, Rocky Point, and dozens of other parks in New England.

During his promoting and managership days, Whitehead went through some very stormy weather.

But in all cases, Big Dan came out erect and smiling.

He was known as a square shooter.

Reverend BW Williams, pastor of the Only Street Baptist Church, of which the deceased was a member, officiated at the funeral services on Friday, December 29th at the Wakefield Funeral Home, Westminster Street.

Mr.

Whitehead leaves no known relatives, but a host of friends.

(gentle music) (lively music) (lively music continues) - [Announcer] It's the top of the ninth, Josh Gibson is at the plate.

The base is all loaded.

It's a three and two count.

And here's the pitch.

(lively music) ♪ Black baseball, it was a known fact jack ♪ ♪ With the weather so hot ♪ ♪ Who could play like Danny Day ♪ ♪ The greatest and the best ♪ ♪ Like the Satchel brother Paige ♪ ♪ Long Tom and Little Bomb, in the Hall of Fame ♪ ♪ Like Josh and bunt, be alert, duck ♪ ♪ Everybody was down for beer and peanuts ♪ ♪ Foxes in their Sunday's best, their brightest dress ♪ ♪ And on deck, Ced G ♪ ♪ Now baseball today troop, is mostly not racial ♪ ♪ But back in the days it was all segregated ♪ ♪ The whites had the majors ♪ ♪ And then the blacks had the negro leagues ♪ ♪ They both had great talent ♪ ♪ But then us blacks have no history ♪ ♪ Of all our great players, the teams in the ballpark ♪ ♪ But we're here to shed light ♪ ♪ Restore the glory they haven't got ♪ ♪ Black baseball ♪ ♪ They paved the way ♪ ♪ With players like Dandy, the Devil, and Day ♪ ♪ Black baseball ♪ ♪ They paved the way ♪ ♪ With players like Dandy, the Devil, and Day ♪ ♪ Black baseball ♪ ♪ They paved the way ♪ ♪ With players like Dandy, the Devil, and Day ♪ ♪ Black baseball ♪ ♪ Bring er home ♪ (no audio) (no audio)