Photo via the Grohmann Museum - msoe.edu
James W. Beckum
James W. Beckum marks the infield.
James W. Beckum had already left his baseball career behind when he moved to Milwaukee to work at Ladish, but he still played ball. Formerly of the semi-pro, all-Black St. Louis Colts and St. Louis Giants, Beckum joined a Milwaukee County Recreation team that jealously guarded their allotted time in a county park. When inner city kids tried to play baseball on their field, the adult team, armed with a permit, chased them off.
But when Beckum was approached about the recreational needs of Black kids by Rev. E.B. Philips (Greater Galilee Baptist Church), his change of heart resulted the formation of the Beckum-Stapleton Little League. One of the first and the longest running urban Little League in the U.S., Beckum-Stapleton celebrated its 60th anniversary last year and is being saluted through an exhibition at the Grohmann Museum, “Going to Work for the Community: A Visual History of the Beckum-Stapleton Little League.”
The exhibit includes then and now photographs of players and teams as well as t-shirts, hats, jerseys and other memorabilia along with text panels that explain the league’s growth. Kenneth Jon-Edward Bartelt, co-curator of the exhibit along with Michael Carriere and Rodney Bourrage Sr., reminds us that Little League teams had been a suburban phenomenon, run by parents and sponsored locally. “Bringing Little League to a city was still novel,” he says.
According to Bartelt, formerly enslaved Blacks interviewed in the 1930s recalled playing ball-and-bat games in the last years of slavery. Touring Black baseball teams existed as early as the 1890s and traveled to Latin America. The sports’ popularity among African Americans culminated with the formation of the Negro Leagues in the 1920s. After Jackie Robinson broke the MLB color barrier, all-Black teams began to dissolve and encouragement for Black children to play the sport waned. Beckum’s efforts spurred a renewal of interest in Milwaukee.
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Since 1964 when Beckum organized the league with Black recreation teammate Charles Stapleton, some 25,000 Milwaukee youths have participated in Beckum-Stapleton. Girls were admitted in the ‘70s after lawsuits over gender discrimination opened the Little League nationwide. In recent years, Beckum-Stapleton has organized activities for kids ages four through 18. Asia Beckum, granddaughter of the cofounder, is now the league’s director.
“It’s had a multiplying effect by inspiring participants to become involved in other community work,” Bartelt says. Graduates from Beckum-Stapleton have gone on to help organize groups such as Running Rebels and the Milwaukee Youth Sports Alliance.
“This exhibit spans a period of Milwaukee history when the city was seen as in decline,” Carriere adds. “It displays joy—that life continued in the city in a counter narrative to a period associated with crisis and decline.”
“Going to Work for the Community: A Visual History of the Beckum-Stapleton Little League” opens 5 p.m. Friday, April 11 with a gallery talk at 6 p.m. The exhibt runs through May 25.
