Norwood Walls, Pitcher

Baseball was an important summer pastime among the African-American communities in Prince George’s County. Most of the communities had their own teams, which played each other. The baseball season was capped with a day of games and picnicking in Laurel, Maryland, to celebrate Emancipation Day, when Abraham Lincoln granted freedom to about 3,100 enslaved people in the District of Columbia, nine months before issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. Norwood Walls was one of the young pitchers who participated in these events during the 1940s and 1950s. He is shown here circa 1947. (Courtesy of Diane Weems Ligon.)

Date

1947