The National Game

It shall be unlawful for a Negro and a white person to play together, or in company with each other, in any games of cards, dice, dominoes, checkers, baseball, softball, football, basketball or similar games.

Early this year the Birmingham (Ala.) city commission decided to change this city ordinance, one of the most rigid in the U.S., ruled that interracial baseball and football would be all right, provided the games were played by professionals.

This spring half a dozen big-league teams stopped off at Birmingham (pop. 326,000) on their way north. Five fielded Negro stars. The Giants had Birmingham's own Willie Mays in center field when they played an exhibition game with the Cleveland Indians. Negroes and whites alike flocked to Rickwood Field (where they sat in segregated bleachers). But die-hard white supremacists circulated petitions demanding a return to strict segregation on the playing field. Mixed baseball, they argued, would lead to "mongrelization." When the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed segregation in public schools (TIME, May 24), Birmingham residents wanted to be contrary. Last week Birmingham's citizens voted overwhelmingly to restore segregation to sports.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.