As reported in a Wall Street Journal article on January 30, 2004, William Edward White was the first recorded African-American major-league baseball player, having substituted for first baseman Joe Start in one game on June 21, 1879, while playing for the Providence Grays. (White was at that time an 18-year-old college player for his team at Brown University in Providence, RI, the "Brown University Nine.") William Edward White was born in The Rock, Upson County, Georgia to a prosperous Caucasian father, Captain Andrew Jackson "A.J." White (1815-1888), who was himself president of the Central of Georgia railroad, and Capt. White's mulatto slave mistress, known to history only as "Aunt Hannah White," who was born in Washington, D.C., circa 1840. Her story and her son's story has been documented by T.J. White, an independent genealogist and historian, by Peter Morris of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), and by Stefan Fatsis, the reporter with the Wall Street Journal who originally broke the story in 2004. Other researchers who helped with this story include Civil War historian Bruce Allardyce, and White family genealogist Mark Arslan.
As reported in a Wall Street Journal article on January 30, 2004, William Edward White was the first recorded African-American major-league baseball player, having substituted for first baseman Joe Start in one game on June 21, 1879, while playing for the Providence Grays. (White was at that time an 18-year-old college player for his team at Brown University in Providence, RI, the "Brown University Nine.") William Edward White was born in The Rock, Upson County, Georgia to a prosperous Caucasian father, Captain Andrew Jackson "A.J." White (1815-1888), who was himself president of the Central of Georgia railroad, and Capt. White's mulatto slave mistress, known to history only as "Aunt Hannah White," who was born in Washington, D.C., circa 1840. Her story and her son's story has been documented by T.J. White, an independent genealogist and historian, by Peter Morris of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), and by Stefan Fatsis, the reporter with the Wall Street Journal who originally broke the story in 2004. Other researchers who helped with this story include Civil War historian Bruce Allardyce, and White family genealogist Mark Arslan.
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