A family walks down the pathway toward the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier at Patriots Point, surrounded by American flags and calm waters.
A family walks down the pathway toward the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier at Patriots Point, surrounded by American flags and calm waters.
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Patriots Point to Examine Struggle for African-American Team that Changed the Landscape of Youth Baseball in the Lowcountry

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On Thursday, February 11, Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum will host a free symposium to remember the impact of Charleston’s Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars team (the only non-white Little League team in South Carolina in 1955) and their journey to the Little League World Series amidst the struggle for civil rights in South Carolina and throughout the South.  The event will begin at 10:00 a.m.

The symposium titled, Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars in Uniform, will feature a panel of former players from the team—several of whom later served in the military.  The panelists will include: Leroy Major, Vermont Brown, Augustus Holt and John Rivers.

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Charleston's 1955 Cannon Street All-Star team at the Little League World Series.[/caption]

These former players will recount their memories of living in Charleston at a tumultuous time and their feelings when 61 other Little League teams in South Carolina refused to play them because of the color of their skin.   As a direct result of this protest, the white teams formed the Dixie Youth Baseball League and abandoned Little League entirely.

After the other teams refused to play them in 1955, the Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars were named the state champions by default, but were ruled ineligible to play in the Little League World Series because they had not physically competed in an actual game to achieve this title.  However, the team was invited to Williamsport, PA to practice with other state champions and watch the World Series tournament.

“This symposium is on a topic that hits home for many people here in the Charleston area,” said Patriots Point Executive Director Mac Burdette.  “What’s even more remarkable than the baseball side of the story, is the fact that many of the Cannon Street kids went on to serve a country that didn’t support their civil rights back at home.”

Students from Simmons Pinckney Middle School on the campus of Burke High School will attend the symposium, onboard the USS Yorktown.  Several members of the 1955 Cannon Street team were students at Burke in 1960 when they participated in a “sit-in” at the lunch counter of the Kress Department store – the first direct action protest in the city of Charleston.  The symposium is part of Patriots Point’s “Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things” education series.