Paraphrasing Abe

I attended this year’s 8th annual Jerry Malloy Negro League Research Conference in Chicago. There I had the honor of addressing a group of Negro League baseball enthusiasts and other interested persons at Chicago Burr Oak Cemetery. The event was a memorial dedication service honoring several Negro League baseball players whose graves had previously been unmarked. Dr. Jeremy Krock of Peoria, IL spearheaded a fundraising effort to provide gravesite markers for several of these great men. Prior to the unveiling of one of the markers, I offere the following comments which are printed here in response to a request:

Hmmmm … gathered at a cemetery to honor dead heroes … I beg your forgiveness of my paraphrase: Four score and five years ago our brothers brought forth in this nation a new league segregated by necessity but dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Nineteen players from that league are buried here in this field. We have come to dedicate a portion of this field, as a final resting place for eight of those whose graves have heretofore been unmarked but whose lives were marked with greatness. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate – we cannot consecrate – we can not hallow – this ground. The brave men, living and dead present here and around the nation, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. It is for us the living to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they fought … It is us … this band of sisters and brothers … the Negro League Research Community … whom I love like family... that must carry on the work in order to honor the great players of the Negro Leagues living & dead … in so doing, I am quite certain, that we will be making this world of ours a much better place and advance the cause of brotherhood and opportunity far beyond the baseball diamond. God bless these dead heroes. God bless the living. God bless us all!

Following the service we toured the cemetery visiting not only 17 Negro League players resting places but Heavyweight Champion Ezzard Charles, Harlem Globetrotter Inman Jackson, singer Dinah Washington, and musician Willie Dixon and most memorably the recently reinterred Emmett Till. Needless to say it was a very moving event.