Before any more time passed since my previous post about the 100th anniversary of the lynching of African-American baseball team owner Fred Goree by two law-enforcement officers on Aug. 1, 1925, in St. Louis County, Missouri, I wanted to return to the subject, as promised.

One of the subjects surrounding the Goree tragedy on which I wanted to explore is the other people involved in the story. Revolving around the two main actors – Goree himself and the man who primarily committed the murder, St. Louis County deputy constable Clarence Bennett – was a small cast of side characters.

At the top of that cast list is Frenchie (or Frenchy) Henry, who was accompanying Goree in the latter’s new Buick when Goree was pulled over for very specious “official” reasons (but more likely for “DWB,” or Driving While Black), which led to his murder.

Because Goree was driving to a game scheduled near St. Louis for the baseball team he owned (likely the Chicago Independents), it’s been assumed that Frenchie Henry was a player on the Independents, but I haven’t been able to confirm that. (That inability to nail down Henry as a player is largely the result of the lack of clarity or dearth of information about the Chicago Independents team itself, a topic I explored in my previous post.)

So who was Frenchie Henry? His story begins in the Deep South town of Yazoo City, Miss., where he was born in June 1906 (some sources say 1904) to parents Anderson and Mollie (or Mary) (nee Grant) Henry. At different times, Anderson worked as a farm laborer or a carpenter.

Pre-Civil War Census slave schedules show several slaveholders with the last name of Henry in Yazoo County; the white Henrys might have belonged to the same family, with a man named Dixon (or Dickson) Henry as a patriarch. It’s likely that Anderson Henry, or at least his parents, were owned by one of the slaveholding white Henrys.

An Anderson Henry appears in the 1870 Mississippi state census in Hinds County, which is adjacent to Yazoo County, although if that was our Anderson Henry, he would have been around just 15 years old. Mary Grant is listed in Yazoo County in the 1880 U.S. Census. 

While Anderson Henry and his family lived in Yazoo County for maybe a couple decades, they at some point moved, with young Frenchie in tow, to Montgomery County, Mississippi, eventually settling in the county seat of Winona, which at the time was about half the size of Yazoo City, population-wise. (In 1920, Yazoo City had about 5,200 people.) Frenchie was one of a whopping 17 siblings, 11 of them apparently older than him, and five younger.

Also living in Yazoo City at the time was the Moore family, which included Cora Lee, Frenchie Henry’s future wife, who was born around 1907 to Edward and Maggie (nee Tillman) Moore. Edward worked as a brick mason. Given that Yazoo City was a relatively small town/city at the time, it seems likely that Frenchie and Cora knew each other as kids.

Like the Henrys, the Moores had left Yazoo City by the time of the 1920 Census, which has them listed in the Mississippi Delta city of Clarksdale in Coahoma County. Clarksdale was arguably the locus of early blues history, lore and tradition, including, just outside of town, the intersection of Highways 61 and 49, where Robert Johnson allegedly sold his soul to the devil in exchange for musical genius. (A few years ago I did an interview with author Michael Lortz about his book, “Curveball at the Crossroads,” which tells a variation of the Johnson crossroads legend.)

Sometime between 1920 and 1930 – likely before 1925, when the Goree tragedy took place –  Frenchie (and, apparently, one or more of his siblings) joined the Great Migration and moved to Chicago, where he likely met Fred Goree and began playing on Goree’s baseball team(s). It was in this decade that Cora Moore headed north to the Windy City as well.

I wasn’t able to find Frenchie taking part in any more baseball activity beyond Goree’s Chicago Independents, unfortunately. As far as what he did for employment, I’m also not really sure. According to media coverage from the Goree murder, Henry worked at that time as a car washer for the Pullman train company. His World War II draft card, which was signed Feb. 16, 1942, states that he was unemployed at the time, while the 1940 Census, when he was still living in Chicago, lists him as a “cement worker.”

Now, what precisely happened to Frenchie and Cora Henry in the 1920s and ’30s is, well, unclear. Like I stated earlier, I wasn’t able to find any definitive, or even circumstantial, evidence that Frenchie was involved in baseball besides being with a team owner at the time that said owner died. (Also remember that I haven’t found any further concrete evidence – besides the coverage of his murder – of Goree’s involvement in the sport, and I’ve likewise found only scant mentions of any team called the Chicago Independents or some variation of that name. I detailed those media references in my previous post.)

However, regarding Frenchie’s personal and/or non-baseball activities during that nearly two-decade span, there does appear to be a fascinating, and maybe even unseemly, possibility.

The 1930 Federal Census seems to have no listing for Cora and Frenchie living together in Chicago. However, it does list a Cora L. Henry, born in Mississippi in roughly 1907, residing by herself in Chicago at a boarding house on Bowen Avenue. She’s listed as married and working as a houseworker for a private family.

So I think it’s safe to say that that is indeed Cora Lee Henry. But what about Frenchie? Where was he? In another example of a recurring theme here, I found no Frenchie (or Frenchy or French) Henry in Chicago in the 1930 Census.

But … I did turn up one Frank Henry listed as a 23-year-old (so born in about 1907) African American from Mississippi. Given that Frenchie is a somewhat common nickname for Frank (or, less regularly, vice versa), this could very well be our friend, Frenchie Henry.

But then why is he listed separately from Cora Lee?

Because Frank Henry was living in the Cook County House of Correction.

That’s right: Frenchie might have been incarcerated.

On the other hand, though, I’ve come across no articles or other documents that call him Frank, so maybe the jailbird Frank Henry isn’t, in fact, Frenchie. (But just as an aside, there was a Frank Henry in Chicago at the same time who, let’s just say, ran afoul of the law once and again. He worked as an undertaker with several funeral parlors and allegedly stole some money from the Elks Club. He then was accused of embezzlement from a funeral home, but the case was eventually thrown out. Whether or not this Frank Henry was the one in Cook County jail, I’m not sure conclusively. However, I’m reasonably sure that the undertaker Frank Henry was not, in fact, our ol’ Frenchie.)

Regardless of the status of their relationship in 1930 – or Frenchie’s legal situation – Frenchie and Cora had their first child, daughter Pauline, in 1932, followed by four more children, all daughters – Dorothy, Cora Lee, Yvonne and Betty.

By 1940, Frenchie and Cora were back together and living on St. Lawrence Avenue in the Windy City, and by the time Frenchie Henry registered for the World War II draft in February 1942, he was living at 508 E. 38th St. His older brother, Elias Henry – and not, notably, Cora, his wife – was listed as the person who would always know Frenchie’s address.

That curiosity might make the fact that the 1950 federal Census denotes only Cora with their five daughters, and Cora’s marital status is listed as separated and living on Chicago’s 38th Street – seemingly right next door to where Frenchie was living in 1942. I couldn’t find Frenchie in the 1950 U.S. Census, unfortunately. 

But there’s something else strange, however. The 1940 Census seemingly lists Cora Lee and her daughters twice in different locations in Chicago. In addition to the one I already mentioned, Cora and the girls – and, notably, not Frenchie – are placed living on St. Lawrence Avenue, just a block down from where the 1940 Census also lists the whole family, including Frenchie. 

All these different but strangely similar addresses seemingly cloud the picture of Frenchie Henry’s time in Chicago, and we can add that to the already substantial list of other mysteries, like how Frenchie connected with Fred Goree; what Frenchie did for a living; and if he played any further baseball besides Goree’s Independents.

The elder Cora Lee Henry died in September 1984, after serving many years as a community rights activist, according to an obituary article in the Oct. 2, 1984, Chicago Defender. Her community efforts included working with the Ida B. Wells tenant organization, the Parent-Teacher Association and the Maryland Avenue Baptist Church, the last of which she did missionary work for, according to the article. The story also noted that she was a graduate of Wendell Phillips High School, Chicago’s first major high school for African-American students.

(Interestingly, the Defender piece noted that Cora moved to Chicago when she was 8, which would have made it around 1915, but the 1920 Census lists Cora still living with her family in Clarksdale, Miss.)

But what happened to Frenchie Henry himself? I couldn’t find much info at all about the latter years of his life, just that he died on Jan. 28, 1977, more than seven years before his wife. Unlike Cora Lee, Frenchie didn’t get much of a sendoff when he passed, just a standard, eight-line, block obituary in the Feb. 1, 1977, issue of the Defender.

He was buried in Alsip, Illinois‘ Burr Oak Cemetery, a somewhat famous burial ground that includes the graves of dozens of African-American athletes, musicians, artists, politicians and other famous figures, including a bunch of Negro Leaguers, some of whose graves received markers through the Negro League Baseball Grave Marker Project.

Several of Frenchie’s siblings joined him in Chicago at varying points. As stated, Elias Henry, who was a few years older than Frenchie, moved to the Windy City and apparently remained close with his little bro. Elias worked at Carnegie Illinois Steel, located in Joliet, Ill., at one point, and he also was employed as a laborer at what a Census taker called a “food manufacturer.” Elias lived in Chicago with his wife, Roberta, for most of his life, but he died in Detroit, Mich., in 1974 at age 72.

Another older brother, James, spent the majority of his life in Mississippi (including a stint in Bolivar County, Miss.) with his wife, Mattie, but he died in Chicago in 1964 at 60 years old. Frenchie’s oldest sibling – and the first of Anderson and Mary’s children – Elizabeth married the Georgia-born Frank Harris and lived, like James Henry, for a while in Bolivar County before the couple moved to Chicago before 1930. Elizabeth died in the Windy City in 1957 at the age of 71. In addition, Alberta Henry got married (I’m not sure to whom) and divorced and lived in Winona before moving to Chicago, where she died in 1979 at 81.

I looked through the list of the databases available to me for a quick post while I continue to work on some bigger projects, and the one featuring the FBI’s declassified files and documents from the agency’s decades-long surveillance of the Civil Rights Movement caught my eye.

It’s pretty well known that the longtime and infamous FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover – everybody’s pal, my friend and yours – and his agents kinda had it in for everyone from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Malcolm X to Ralph Abernathy to Huey Newton.

One of the central foci of the chillingly omniscient was the supposed “communist infiltration” of the Civil Rights Movement, including Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, or SCLC, as well as the reactionary, bigoted pushback – like the countless bombings and bomb threats – from white segregationists.

So, on a lark, I decided to search through these declassified files to see which famous sporting figures might happen to pop up. I especially looked for Jackie Robinson in them, given his participation in and support of the Civil Rights Movement.

And, wouldn’t you know it, his name does, in fact, pop up a few times in the FBI’s surveillance files.

Now, he doesn’t appear too often, indicating that he seemingly wasn’t a primary focus of the surveillance, but he is in there, unfortunately.

Many of these instances center around his appearances at official SCLC meetings or conventions, including the organization’s 1962 annual national meeting, held that year in Birmingham, Ala., from Sept. 25-28.

In the days leading up to the convention, one confidential FBI communication indicated that Robinson was scheduled to be one of the speakers, along with leading Civil Rights lights Fred Shuttlesworth and Adam Clayton Powell. The surveillance team also stated that their were no demonstrations scheduled by the organizers of the meeting.

Communications after the conclusion of the convention reported that no violence of major incidents occurred during the gathering, and that everything proceeded peacefully. In one memo, an agent described Robinson’s appearance as a speaker: “Jackie Robinson spoke at SCLC banquet night of [Sept. 25] and indicated he wanted President Kennedy to take action in Civil Rights.”

However, an ensuing document reporting on the gathering including much of Jackie’s speech verbatim – it covers roughly two full pages of single-line text, seemingly indicating that the agents focused extra attention on the former baseball great.

In his speech, Robinson urged attendees to support and donate to the effort to rebuild several Black churches that had recently been burned down by segregationists.

“It has been tough for me not to hit back [on news of the burnings],” Jackie said. “Anyone who would burn a church is the lowest type of individual in the world. They must be stopped for America’s sake. …

“My mother told me a long time ago not to go South,” he added. “I kept her advice for a long time. I don’t believe I could turn the other cheek down here. At least that was the way I felt when I saw those burned churches in Sasser, Georgia. … This is all of our fight.”

Those last comments are particularly interesting given that, when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers and throughout his on-field career, he did, in fact, figuratively turn the other cheek while enduring horrific abuse from fans and other players, because he knew that he simply had to do so if he was to succeed, both as a player and a sociocultural trailblazer and bellwether.

Jackie then urged President Kennedy to actively join the fight for justice: “I am not interested in the President’s talk, what we need is action.”

He added that “[T]hey should not worry so much about sending the Peace Corps to Africa, they should send it to Birmingham, Alabama and Mississippi. There are many backward people here. I don’t believe we will continue to permit these people to deny us our privileges and opportunities.”

He expressed his support for the Freedom Riders and obliquely criticized Bull Conner. Robinson concluded his speech:

“Even though I have lost many awards because of my stand, I have not lost my self respect. They tell me that Birmingham is the worst city in the United States. I was born in Georgia but I got away quick. I have seen the love and admiration people have for Dr. King in New York. They have asked him many questions, but have not been able to twist him up. I am sorry we can’t participate more.”

The declassified archive of FBI surveillance documents also included brief references to Jackie in its reportage on the 1964 SCLC Convention, held from Sept. 26-Oct. 2 of that year in Savannah, Ga. The interdepartmental memorandums stressed that organizers of the SCLC gathering had received bomb threats warning of attacks on the convention. However, the agents later reported that the meeting proceeded without incident.

The references to Robinson in the documents were brief and included a notation that a story that had just appeared in the Savannah Morning News; the memo reported that the article had stated that Robinson had criticized Adam Clayton Powell for not being active enough in the Civil Rights fight, to the detriment of the Movement.

The surveillance reportage also stated that news coverage of Jackie’s speech at the 1964 convention had sharply condemned Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and that he had “implored the nation’s Negroes to defeat” the GOP candidate. Such statements are key, given the fact that Jackie had previously supported Republican positions and candidates, including Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election.

Many of the other references to Robinson in the FBI files centered somewhat around his conflicts with and criticisms by leaders of the Nation of Islam, the Black Muslim organization popularized most prominently by Malcolm X.

Jackie and the Nation did not, shall we say, get along. The former, as reflected in the FBI communications and memorandums, believed the latter was hateful against whites, and Robinson was staunchly opposed to the Nation’s militant advocacy of Black separatism and use of violence in the face of white violence.

For their part, Malcolm X and/or the Nation’s leader, Elijah Muhammad, frequently leveled criticisms toward Robinson, and the FBI’s agents were sure to note it. For example, the federal surveillance documents reported that, on March 9, 1964 – one day after he broke from the Nation of Islam – Malcolm appeared on a news show in New York City and was interviewed extensively by commentator Joe Durso, who at one point in the interview asked Malcolm what the Malcolm thought about Jackie Robinson calling the Muslim leader “a threat to integration.” Malcolm responded by referring to Robinson’s association with then-New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, a Republican who later became vice president under Gerald Ford.

“Jackie Robinson has just become a part of Governor Rockefeller’s political machine,” Malcolm said, as quoted in the FBI report, “and it is his job to make Negroes think that Nelson Rockefeller is the Saviour [sic] who will lead us to the promised land of integration.”

And, reported FBI agents to their superiors, Elijah Muhammad stated on an October 1965 news program in Chicago that “such prominent [B]lack men Dr. Ralph Bunche, Jackie Robinson and the like only serve the white man and do nothing to better their [B]lack brothers.”

One of the battlegrounds, as it were, of this verbal conflict between Jackie and the Nation was the new media powerhouse that was television. Robinson occasionally appeared on TV news programs that featured a panel of guests discussing the Nation of Islam, Muhammad and Malcolm X, and when Jackie did make those appearances, he was included in the FBI’s surveillance reports. 

The declassified archives, for example, include an interdepartmental FBI memorandum describing the now-infamous five-part documentary series on WNTA-TV by broadcast news greats Mike Wallace and Louis Lomax that was broadcast for a week in July 19. The FBI report noted that Jackie Robinson took part in the discussion panel.

Called “The Hate That Hate Produced,” the series examined the burgeoning Black nationalist movements, with much of the focus on the Nation of Islam. (I haven’t seen the series, but from what I gather, it was biased, one-sided and purposefully sensationalistic and inflammatory.)

Finally, the FBI files include a few articles/commentaries written by Robinson and published in various newspapers that were part of the back-and-forth between Jackie and Malcolm in the press. Malcolm X at the time was a lightning rod for controversy, and because of his radicalism, the FBI focused a massive amount of its surveillance on him.

Robinson’s published missives frequently came after Malcolm X had in the media recently vociferously criticized Jackie and other mainstream Civil Rights figures, including, for example, an interview Malcolm gave to reporters in May 1963, and the FBI was quick to note it in one of the agency’s voluminous reports on Malcolm’s words and activities.

In his comments to the journalists, Malcolm asserted that the majority of African Americans who took part in a recent protest in Birmingham rejected Dr. King’s message of non-violence, and the FBI memo noting the statements by reporting that “in the interview … subject had attacked Martin Luther King, Jackie Robinson and [boxing champion] Floyd Patterson as unwitting tools of white liberals.”

One ensuing piece by Robinson, published in the Dec. 14, 1963, issue of the Amsterdam News came in the form of an open letter to Malcolm in which Robinson defends his own record on Civil Rights and the social justice effort, and vociferously criticizes Malcolm’s militancy.

Other published commentaries by Robinson, however, quite significantly came after Malcolm’s March 1964 break with the Nation of Islam, his rejection of Black separatism and the softening of his criticism toward whites. One such column by Jackie, coming in early May 1964, continued to harshly criticize Malcolm, and it blamed prolific media coverage of Malcolm’s earlier, more militant activity and statements, as well as a lack of pushback from society as a whole, for the elevation of Malcolm to hero status.

Then, a July 1964 article published a couple more months later expressed Robinson’s confusion with Malcolm’s break from the Nation of Islam and rejection of hate and violence. In the piece, Jackie wondered where exactly Malcolm now stood on Civil Rights and challenged him to more concretely and decisively state what he now believed. Seven months later, Malcolm X was assassinated.

That’s all I could find in the online archives of the FBI’s declassified surveillance project that targeted Black leaders. But what I did find in the files about Jackie Robinson – who today is almost universally revered as a national hero and beloved by many millions of people in America and beyond – was a little chilling, but it also wasn’t exactly surprising.

The presence of Robinson’s name scattered through these archives perhaps reflects how disturbingly far-reaching and all-consuming that the racist, paranoia-driven federal surveillance effort was. As millions of Americans of all races, ethnic backgrounds, genders, ages, orientations and identities were fighting for social justice and egalitarianism, others were seeing “Reds” around every corner and afraid that society was completely collapsing because of it.

I won’t attempt to make parallels between the Hoover-fueled, half-century-long surveillance of Black Americans and the chaos and reactionary splitting at the seams currently engulfing our society and tearing us asunder.

But feel free to do so on your own, of course …

Home Plate Don’t Move will never be placed behind a paywall, but we certainly welcome donations to the effort. To give to Home Plate Don’t Move and its staff — well, me, the staff is me — go here if you’d want. Thanks, and continued thanks for reading!

This post was originally designed to be part of my previous one about the details of Alexander Albritton’s death and the blanks that still need to be filled in more than eight decades later. The idea was to segue from the grim specifics of the death of one patient at Philadelphia State Hospital, commonly known as Byberry hospital, into a discussion of the horrific conditions in general at Byberry and the myriad tragedies that took place there in its long, troubled history.

But the post just grew longer and longer, and potentially more tedious. Plus the stuff in this new post doesn’t directly involve Alexander, but instead subjects kind of tangential to him. So I decided to break this off into a sort of postlude or sidebar to the previous, main post about Albritton’s death.

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Warning: This post contains information and photos that might be disturbing to some readers.

In the larger view, Alexander Albritton’s tragic death served to underscore the fact that Philadelphia State Hospital, commonly known as Byberry, was rife with deplorable conditions that most likely led to Albritton’s death – and the deaths and suffering of countless others.

Albritton’s violent demise prompted a local military veterans leader to publically call on the four Black members of the state legislature from Philadelphia to demand an investigation into the conditions at Byberry.

The question soon became how, exactly, the conditions at the hospital were such that a single attendant was monitoring an entire ward; why the injuries that caused Albritton’s death went undiagnosed and untreated for two-plus days; and how and why Albritton ended up dead, sitting on a bunch, unnoticed?

Some of the most piercing criticism was leveled by Deputy Coroner Vincent Moranz, who told the Philadelphia Tribune that the “(t)his system is obviously undermanned and underpaid. If there were more attendants, it would not be necessary for one attendant to take such strenuous measures in handling persons like Albritton.”

Moranz added that Weinand was “the victim of a system which fails to provide proper supervision over its charges.” The Tribune also noted that Genevieve Davis, the supervising nurse general at the hospital, stated (it’s unclear exactly when and where she gave this testimony) that the facility only had three doctors and seven nurses caring for more than 1,000 patients.

The Pittsburgh Courier reported on a recent report stating that recently, Byberry had been seeing a death every week to 10 days, and it took only an astonishingly short time for another questionable, violent death to occur at the institution; less than an hour after Albritton was found dead, 61-year-old Francis Hughes succumbed to injuries suffered about a month earlier in a scuffle with Alfred Gilmore, 46, that took place roughly 24 hours after the latter was admitted to the hospital.

The tragic pattern continued seemingly ad infinitum throughout the hospital’s history, both before and after Albritton’s death, from the facility’s opening in 1911 and the closure of its last buildings and wards in 1990. In June 1938, the Philadelphia Inquirer published an investigation by reporter John McCullough, who toured both Byberry and Norristown State Hospital, another large psychiatric facility in Pennsylvania. In comparing the two hospitals, McCullough gave a largely positive review of Norristown, but leveled substantial criticism at Byberry, which he said featured such apathy and disregard toward patients by the staff, the facility seemed like it was in the diseased “dark ages” compared to Norristown.

About a month after the Inquirer’s article, the state legislature released its own, scathing study of Byberry, dubbed the Shapiro Report, which, another Inquirer article stated, “literally crawl[s] with ghastly detail of incompetence and mismanagement and their selfish perpetuation, coercive administration and medical irresponsibility, professional misconduct, and bland and persistent toleration of mistreatment and the lack of treatment of the 5400 helpless inmates.”

In particular, the report mercilessly ripped into hospital superitendent Wilbur Rickert, who was described as grossly incompetent and infuriatingly indifferent to the suffering of thousands of patients.

An editorial in the July 22, 1938, issue of the Inquirer did not pull any punches on that last count, asserting that Rickert had made a “disgraceful botch” of administration at the beleaguered facility.

“The Legislative Committee minces no words about the superintendent’s unfitness,” the editorial stated, “and upon his shoulders it places full responsibility for conditions that are made up of inefficiency, cruelty, intrigue and barbarity reminiscent of the dark ages. It is an appalling line of soiled linen that the report stretches in public view. It is not pretty to look at, but it has to be seen if the full story of Byberry and its shame is to be comprehended.”

The report also strongly recommended that the state take over the administration of the hospital from the city, a move the Inquirer’s editorial page praised and raised hope for a radical rectification of the terrors at Byberry.

This firestorm came less than two years before Alex Albritton was fatally beaten within Byberry’s walls, and in the dozen or so years following the former baseball pitcher’s death, the continuous line of tragedies did not abate immediately after state takeover.

In January 1941, in fact, Time magazine published an article about Byberry, to report on the progress, and lack of further progress, under Woolley, the man who had been appointed by the state to “clean up” the nighmarish conditions at the facility.

The Time story largely painted Woolley in a favorable light, describing him as a beleaguered administrator hamstrung by paltry funding and a swelling patient population that had reached about 5,800 against a capacity of less than half that. Woolley stated that while some progress had been made, the conditions were still embarassingly dire.

“When I came here Byberry was a medieval pest house,” the magazine quoted him as saying. “It’s now the equal of an 18th-Century insane asylum. It’s a disgrace to any community or government which calls itself civilized.”

Nearly 80 years ago, in 1946, Life Magazine – at the time the country’s premier general-interest publication – ran a lengthy expose of the nation’s psychiatric wards and mental hospitals, including those in Pennsylvania. Referring to the facility by the nickname given to it by its patients – “The Dungeon” – reporter Albert Q. Maisel wrote that “[i]n Philadelphia the sovereign Commonwealth of Pennsylvania maintains a dilapidated, overcrowded, undermanned mental ‘hospital’ known as Byberry.”

In July 1988 – roughly two years before Byberry closed completely and for good – the Inquirer ran a comprehensive investigative package detailing all the social, cultural, economic and political factors that created the hospital’s horrors.

Included in the reporting was a necrology – a list, far from complete, of dozens of violent deaths and suicides ending in 1970. The distressing listing included 28 such incidents in the 11 years following Albritton’s death, culminating in February 1951, when four female patients were killed in a fire caused by arson on the part of other inmates. (Following the fatal fire, the hospital declared it would, in addition to investigating the blaze, examine 10 other recent deaths at the asylum.)

That section of the necrology included two male orderlies – one dishonorably discharged from the Navy, the other a former prizefighter dubbed “the Slugger of Byberry” – being convicted of the manslaughter of a patient; at least five suicides; and six patients whose bodies were discovered in various places after going missing from between two days to a month.

Byberry’s history did include occasional periods of improvement, thanks to developments like new building construction, other infrastructure projects, and the introduction of newer, more holistic and humane treatment practices. Some accounts reported that the situation improved gradually after state takeover. But dark stretches and horrific tragedies consistently continued to take place throught Byberry’s often macabre history. 

The Ancient History/Ancient Myths Facebook page includes a short essay on Byberry and pointedly states how the notorious hospital “didn’t just confine the mentally ill—it locked away the vulnerable, the unwanted, and the forgotten. Overcrowded, understaffed, and poorly managed, it became a dumping ground where basic human rights were routinely violated. Patients were often left unclothed, unfed, or shackled in filth.”

The essay summed up the hospital’s social significance and historical legacy, stating:

“Byberry wasn’t just a failure of mental health treatment—it was a mirror held up to a society that chose to look away. A place where suffering was hidden, silenced, and normalized. Its eventual closure in the 1990s came far too late for those who endured its cruelty. Today, the ruins of Byberry stand as a decaying reminder of how institutions, left unchecked, can become prisons of torment rather than places of healing.”

In the Inquirer’s article from 1988, writer William Ecenbarger eloquently described the lingering, seemintely infinite impact had on the City of Philadelphia, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the nation’s mental-health system:

“… It was opened in 1907 and operated much of the time on the theory that circumstances that would drive a sane person mad might drive a mad person into sanity.

“Byberry. Like the Holocaust, it is impossible to amend, impossible to accept. … Perhaps we should allow it to stand out there on Route 1 as a reminder that in a bureaucracy, there is no problem too big to be avoided; that the humans given responsibility for other humans cannot sit back and admire their intentions; that injustice always walks softly – and we must listen for it carefully.

“Byberry. It pulls you in and wrings you out like a rag. It’s a lake where all the world’s tears have flowed. The history of Byberry reads as though it were written by Dante, and then rewritten by Kafka with Poe looking over his shoulder. Byberry’s story is freighted with tragedy. All institutions fall short of the aspirations of those who create them, but seldom in the 20th century has this occurred with such devastating effect on its guiltless residents. There are a few heroes, and they’re not hard to spot. And like all true stories, this one has no end.”

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Let’s digress a little and look into who the other person in the scuffle that killed Albritton was.

Frank (sometimes stated Franklin) Lewis Wienand (some documents and articles say Weinand) was born on Jan. 26, 1913, in Gladwyne, Pa., in Montgomery County to Charles Wienand, an electrical engineer for a paper company, and Martha Wienand, nee Righter, a housewife. Frank was a third-generation German-American; his paternal grandparents immigrated to the United States from Deutschland, probably between 1881 and 1884. (Montgomery County is adjacent and located to the north and northeast of Philadelphia County.) I wasn’t able to find out much about Martha Righter Wienand, other than she died in 1973. (Charles died in 1944.)

The family – including Charles Sr., Martha, Frank and younger brothers Charles Jr. and William Lloyd – apparently shuttled back and forth between Montgomery County, Pa., and Philadelphia during Frank’s childhood. Frank was the oldest of the three boys.

By 1940, Frank was living in Bucks County, Pa., adjacent to Philadelphia County to the northwest, and commuting to work at Byberry Hospital. His wife, Mary Stella Wienand (nee Herner), was also an attendant at the hospital and was a second-generation Polish-American. However, it must be noted that there exists discrepancies between various documents about Frank Wienand’s adult life, not the least of which is the different spellings of his name. Most of the contemporaneous articles I’ve found spell it Weinand, while many official documents, as well as a large family tree on Ancestry.com, spell it Wienand. Some sources list it as Wienant and Weinard, too.

In Frank and Mary’s listing from the 1940 federal Census, dated April 9, 1940, two months after Albritton’s death, the couple is living in the Bucks County township of Middletown. However, on Frank Wienand’s World War II draft card, which is dated Oct. 16, 1940 – roughly eight months after the death at Frank’s hands of Alex Albritton – Frank reported that he lived in the borough of Langhorne, in Bucks County, and was still employed at Byberry.

After all the furor and, presumably, legal wrangling over Albritton’s death and the abhorrent conditions at Byberry – although criticism of the hospital would continue as long as it remained open, and even long after – Wienand seems to have had a relatively normal life.

Frank and Mary apparently had three children at some point – Frank Jr., Robert and Terry – and they were members of Langhorne Presbyterian Church for a while. There are scattered indications that the couple lived in Penndel and Hulmeville, additional boroughs in Bucks County. In 1962, Frank was called to jury duty in Bucks County, and his residence was listed as Penndel.

Mary Wienand died in December 1968 at the age of 61 from a heart attack. However, I’ve been unable to pin down for certain where and on what date Frank himself passed away; most likely he died in Langhorne, but while his Social Security records state that he died in December 1980, his precise date of death has eluded me. Those Social Security records list his last place of residence as Langhorne. (One curious detail from the federal records says Frank’s Social Security number was issued in Texas before 1951. I’ve found no other evidence that he lived in Texas or had any solid connection to the Lone Star State at any time.)

To continue the Alexander Albritton story, I wanted to write a little about the event that makes his saga as intriguing as it is – the particularly tragic way he died.

His violent, horrific death at Byberry State Hospital in Philadelphia is, quite understandably, a discomforting, even disturbing subject to broach, let alone examine in detail. To do so, truthfully speaking, can feel particularly macabre or morbid.

But maybe Albritton’s death – including the at times graphic details – must be examined because it embodies some of the uncomfortable realities about life in decades and centuries past.

In Alex’s case, we find a severely mentally ill Black man killed during a violent altercation with a white hospital orderly who was ostensibly acting as an authority figure.

In Albritton’s situation, we have a death with questionable, unclear circumstances of a patient at a now-shuttered psychiatric institution that had a notorious reputation for deplorable conditions, overcrowding and abusive treatment of helpless, captive, suffering patients – a reality that, sadly, was endemic to mental hospitals in times past.

That, to me, is why the details of the death of Alexander Albritton, a major-league pitcher who played with and against some of the greatest baseball players and managers of all time, are worth examining – and questioning.

According to the Feb. 8, 1940, issue of the Philadelphia Tribune, Albritton’s wife, Marie, said he had been hospitalized “following a nervous breakdown” in January 1939, a little more than a year before his death in Byberry on Feb. 3, 1940, just nine days short of his Feb. 12 birthday. (The year of his birth varies; his World War I draft card gives it as 1894, while the 1900 Census states 1892. The 1910 Census indicates 1893, the 1930 Census asserts 1896, and his death certificate states that he was 42 when he died, indicating he was born in 1897.)

The Tribune article reported that, according to Byberry officials, the 160-pound Albritton, who had been committed to the hospital’s violent ward, “had delusions that he possessed much money, that he was the father of President Roosevelt [I’m assuming FDR, who was president at the time], and that God was always speaking to him …”.

The Feb. 10, edition of the Pittsburgh Courier asserts that Albritton “was found [on Feb. 3] sitting upright on a stool, stone dead, hastened to eternity by his injuries, at Byberry … .”

The paper further stated that he was found as such at 2 p.m. by an attendant, and that the superintendent of the hospital, Dr. H.C. Woolley, said that Byberry physicians had examined Albritton previously, right after learning of the patient’s Feb. 1 altercation with Frank Weinand, a white orderly who reportedly outweighed the former baseball player by 70 pounds.

That initial exam “found nothing wrong” with Albritton, and at an ensuing exam, at 1 p.m. on Feb. 3, “Albritton was stripped for a routine examination and still nothing was found wrong with him … .”

The Philadelphia Tribune, meanwhile, reported that when examined by staff right after the fight, Albritton “made no complaint. He had a few bruises but when [hospital staff] applied a cold pack to quiet his nerves, they were unable to obtain a coherent story from him.”

The paper said hospital officials reported that, apparently on Feb. 3, Albritton “again became violent. Wrapped in sheets to quiet him this time, he calmed down. Two hours later he was found dead.”

It seems, shall we say, incongruous that a 42-year-old patient who had, according to one report in The Philadelphia Inquirer (a mainstream daily paper) been “beat into submission” by a 31-year-old man who outweighed the victim by roughly 70 pounds, could be deemed injury-free, but then found dead, unattended, two days later.

That reflective dissonance could be because the extent of Albritton’s actual injuries remain a little unclear, just as they were 85-plus years ago. His death certificate states that he died from “[i]njuries to chest in altercation at above hosp. on 2/1/40 at hands of Frank Weinand while subduing the dec’d a patient of above hospital.”

The ultimate determination by coroner Charles A. Hersch, according to the death certificate? “Homicide.”

Still, that vague summary is just that – a summary. But what, exactly, were the “injuries to chest”?

The Inquirer reported that a post-mortem exam of Albritton found four broken ribs, a punctured lung, and contusions on the body and arms. The Baltimore Afro-American, though, quoted a police report that asserted Albritton “suffered broken right and left ribs, punctures of the lung, and lacerations of the lip and eyelids,” while The Philadelphia Tribune stated that the former ballplayer had been “[t]he victim of a severe beating the results of which were five broken ribs, a punctured lung and lacerated lip.”

The severity of the injuries inflicted upon Albritton by Weinand was so extensive that one police detective was quoted by The Tribune saying, “Allbritton [sic] appeared to be the victim of an unnecessarily savage attack.” The paper then quoted a hospital official responding to the detective’s assertion: “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, but a man doesn’t get broken ribs easily.”

Which begs the question: What, precisely, did happen between Weinand and Albritton that would have injured the latter so badly that he was found dead two days later?

Again, there’s mainly vagaries. But the basic outline upon which all accounts generally agreed is this:

Weinand had earlier been charged with assigning tasks and chores for Albritton to do, and on Feb. 1, the attendant gave the patient a wooden broom with which to sweep up the ward. Albritton, for whatever reason, didn’t react well to the directive and attacked Weinand with the broom handle, cracking Weinand on the head with the instrument hard enough to cause a contusion severe enough to require several stitches. Weinand then physically subdued Albritton.

That outline leaves a pair of mysteries; One, why exactly did Albritton, as stated in some media reports, “go berserk” and attack Weinand?; and two, precisely what methods or actions did Weinand employ to “subdue” Albritton?

The first question will probably forever remain unanswered. Based on the assertions by hospital staff that Albritton heard voices and had specific delusions of grandeur, he was likely schizophrenic and possibly prone to periodic psychosis. He had also been committed to the facility’s “violent ward.”

However, it must be remembered that the overwhelming majority of people with mental illnesses, even those with severe cases, rarely if ever lash out with violence or threaten or cause physical harm to other people; in fact, they are much more likely to be the victims of violence, including on themselves. Many folks in the public only hear about the isolated, rare cases in which the mentally ill attack other people.

So we shouldn’t necessarily chalk up Albritton’s reaction to Weinand’s order as “crazy people do crazy things.” Just like so many asylums in the U.S. in times past, conditions at Byberry were deplorable, so much so that I imagine that living at the hospital could easily make patients extremely unhappy as it was.

Plus, the Feb. 17, 1940, Afro-American reported that during an earlier visit to the hospital by Albritton’s wife, Alex told her that “he was being ‘picked on’ by ‘someone around here’ and that he was going to ‘get even.’” He didn’t give any names, however, so it’s uncertain whether his bully was, in fact, Weinand.”

Which brings us to the actual fight on the day of Feb. 3, 1940. Investigators with both the Philadelphia police and the hospital attempted to piece together what happened, but unfortunately, they were unable to assemble the entire picture because it lacked the input of one of the two key players – Alexander Albritton himself. However, it would be fair to note that if Albritton had survived, the reliability of his testimony given his psychological conditions might have been somewhat weak.

According to an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer from Feb. 5, 1940, investigators, after initial interviews with Weinand and several WPA workers who were present, laid out what they believed happened.

According to their story, Weinand had handed Albritton “a heavy broom, of the type used to sweep streets” and directed the patient to sweep a cellar way in one of the facility’s violent wards. As Weinand then turned away, Albritton allegedly swung the broom and hit Weinand on the head, causing the orderly to fall to the floor with a gash on his head.

Added The Inquirer: “The broom handle broke and Allbritton [sic] continued to belabor Weinand with the broken portion until the latter regained his feet and grappled with his attacker. Other attendants assisted Weinand in overcoming the deranged man and removed him to the infirmary for treatment to quiet his nerves.”

Weinand was arrested by detectives at his home in the borough of Hulmeville, Bucks County, Pa., on the night of Feb. 3 and appeared before a magistrate the next day. He was charged with homicide and held without bail pending the result of a coroner’s inquest. (Bucks County is adjacent to Philadelphia and considered a large suburb of Philly.)

However, it only took a day for Weinand to be informally but virtually absolved of any wrongdoing in Albritton’s death after three separate reports – by the Coroner’s Office, the PPD and the state police – determined that Weinand used necessary force to subdue Albritton. Weinand was released from jail a little while later.

While the white press reacted to the clearing of guilt for Weinand with much of the typical, passive credulity regarding the official line that the media of the day usually viewed matters of race, the country’s African-American media was, shall we say, significantly less willing to swallow the legal absolution of Weinand.

For example, within its Feb. 10, 1940, article about Albritton’s death, The Pittsburgh Courier included a paragraph bulletin of breaking news, and the paper didn’t mince words:

“Investigators Tuesday applied the whitewash on Byberry for the death by beating of Alexander Albritton, former star Hilldale pitcher. In absolving physicians and attaches of blame in the fatal beating, the implication was that [g]uard Frank Wienand [sic] was justified in cracking Albritton’s ribs, puncturing his lung and administering to him a savage beating.”

“Investigators Tuesday applied the whitewash on Byberry for the death by beating of Alexander Albritton, former star Hilldale pitcher. In absolving physicians and attaches of blame in the fatal beating, the implication was that [g]uard Frank Wienand [sic] was justified in cracking Albritton’s ribs, puncturing his lung and administering to him a savage beating.”

Pittsburgh Courier, Feb. 10, 1940

The Philadelphia Tribune interviewed three local Black doctors for the paper’s  Feb. 8, 1940, article on the incident, and all three expressed astonishment that Weinand could have inflicted as much injury to Albritton as he did.

“Why, a person would practically have to stomp on a man’s chest to break five ribs,” one physician said, while another asserted that “[t]o beat a man to death requires great strength. Ribs aren’t easily broken with fists. I would say that some heavy instrument was used in this case.”

Even with all this media reportage, I couldn’t pin down precisely how Weinand’s case proceeded through the criminal justice system. Following the news of the investigations informally clearing him, he seems to have stayed in jail pending a coroner’s inquest. 

On Feb. 6, three days after Alex’s death, Coroner Charles Hersch issued an initial death certificate for Albritton that left the cause of death section simply stamped “inquest pending.” However, I couldn’t find any news coverage of the results of that inquest or even when it took place.

Hersch did eventually file a second death certificate, but it contained several inconsistencies and incomplete information. The cause of death was listed as “homicide” as a result of severe chest injuries “at the hands of Frank Weinand while subduing the dec’d [deceased].”

However, there’s no filing date given, just a death date of Feb. 3, 1940, which is consistent with the first death certificate. In addition, the date of Feb. 13, 1940, is stamped in the section for when a doctor attended to Albritton’s death and when the doctor last saw Alexander alive. (In another deviation from the first death certificate, the second document is supposedly signed again by Hersch, but the handwriting is blatantly different than on the original certificate.)

That means the inquest might have happened on Feb. 13, but again, I’ve found no confirmation for that inference. Moreover, an article in the Saturday, Feb. 10 Philadelphia Inquirer has the charge downgraded to manslaughter, with Weinand still being held in jail without bail.

But that Inquirer article also reports, though, that Weinand’s attorney had obtained a writ of habeas corpus, and that a court hearing would be held concerning the writ the following Tuesday, Feb. 13, at which time Weinand’s attorney “will seek to show at the hearing that Weinand struck the patient in self-defense.”

Then, on Feb. 21, 1940, according to news reports, was released from jail under $1,000 bail as a result of the habeas corpus hearing, and that Weinand’s trial had been scheduled for some time in April.

But that’s all I could glean from newspaper reports. Police, jail and court archives from Philadelphia in 1940 might be able to clear things up, but at the moment that doesn’t appear possible online, and I can’t travel to Philly to look up the information in person – if those records still exist at all.

It should be noted that in the fall of 1940, news reports show that Weinand had been issued a questionnaire by the draft board for possible military service. The newspaper listings state that Weinand was living in the borough of Bristol in Bucks County.

That seems to indicate that he wasn’t in prison at that time, which would mean he was either legally exonerated of the crime or that he was found guilty of at least one but given a relatively light sentence. Again, I’m not sure on this matter.***

Meanwhile, Alex Albritton’s 37-year-old widow, Marie (nee Brooks), reportedly retained attorney Raymond Pace Alexander to advocate for further investigation into her slain husband’s death; however, how that lobbying for more investigation turned out, I’m not sure. Marie seems to have then at some point moved to New Jersey, where she died in the city of East Orange in 1975.

(Pace Alexander spent a lengthy career fighting for Civil Rights, particularly advocating for public or commercial entities to stop excluding or barring people of color. He later became a Philadelphia city councilman and later was the first Black judge on the city’s Common Pleas Court, eventually becoming the court’s senior judge before dying in 1975.)

I’ve hemmed and hawed about trying to monetize my blog for a long time. I’ve worried that doing so might cheapen it, because it truly has been a labor of love for, wow, a dozen years. I’m finally deciding to open it to voluntary donations. If you want to give a couple bucks, I’d be grateful, but if not, it’s no problem at all. I’ll keep doing this thing for the foreseeable future, whether it makes me money or not. I love it too much. What are your thoughts on opening this up to donations? Does it lessen what I’m doing?

The recent Jerry Malloy Negro Leagues Conference in Louisville concluded informally with, as we say here in New Orleans, a lagniappe of baseball history and paying of respects to a legendary local Negro Leaguer who many believe belongs in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

About 15 or so people gathered at Louisville Cemetery on Sunday, Aug. 10, to dedicate a new tombstone on the grave of Sammy T. Hughes, one of the best, most well rounded second basemen in Black baseball in the 1930s and ’40s.

The headstone was the product of SABR’s Pee Wee Reese Louisville Chapter, said chapter president Chris Betsch. Discussion of such a project began a couple years ago, Betsch said, but the effort really picked up steam when the Louisville Chapter learned that it would host the 2025 Malloy conference.

The small gathering at Hughes’ grave began with SABR Negro Leagues Committee chair Leslie Heaphy reading a proclamation from the City of Louisville declaring Aug. 10 as Sammy T. Hughes Day in the city.

Betsch, during brief comments to those gathered at the cemetery that day, then said he first learned about Hughes a few years ago, when a similar effort resulted in a new headstone being placed at the grave of another Louisville Negro Leagues great, Felton Snow, in Eastern Cemetery.

Betsch said Hughes was one of the top three keystone sackers in Black baseball history, and, as such, deserves to be inducted in Cooperstown.

“Maybe someday we can rectify that,” he said.

He added that if Hughes had had such a beautiful new headstone years ago — as well as long deserved recognition from baseball and its fans — Hughes might have received the call from the Hall of Fame already.

“If he had this year’s back,” Betsch said, “maybe Louisville would be honoring Hall of Famer Sammy Hughes. You never know.”

Unfortunately, he added, “[h]e died at a time when a lot of Negro Leaguers were being forgotten.”

Hughes died on Aug. 9, 1981, in Los Angeles at the age of 70. He began his semipro baseball career in his teens on local Louisville teams in the late 1920s before becoming a major leaguer in 1930 when the Louisville Black Caps joined the Negro National League.

He eventually landed with the NNL’s Nashville Elite Giants and established himself as a star second baseman with the franchise for the next decade as the team moved to Columbus, then Washington, then, finally, Baltimore in 1938.

Hughes helped the Elites with the second Negro National League pennant in 1939, over time playing with several other sterling handball heroes on the Elites like Snow, Roy Campanella, Biz Mackey, Leon Day, Joe Black and Jim Gilliam, the last of whom Hughes tutored at second base before Gilliam went on to star for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers. Sammy also ended up being voted to eight East-West All-Star Classics and played in five of them.

Hughes also starred for several all-star exhibition teams over his career, including an aggregation of the some of the best players in Black baseball that crushed the competition and won the title in the prestigious Denver Post Tournament in 1936.

Sammy also shined in other leagues across North America, including the trailblazing California Winter League and the upstart Mexican League. But perhaps Hughes reached the most recognition in his lifetime in 1942, when he was one of three Negro Leaguers — the others were pitcher Dave Barnhill and Baltimore teammate Campanella — invited to a tryout with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

At the time, Hughes was viewed as solid candidate to crack the color line. Norfolk New Journal and Guide sports columnist Lem Graves Jr. wrote that Hughes “is rated as one of the best in the business,” adding that the second baseman “gets our stamp of approval for this opening try.” The Cleveland Call & Post likewise stated that “Hughes is brilliant at his fielding position and is good with the stick as well.”

Unfortunately, and also perhaps unsurprisingly, the tryout never happened, meaning Hughes came agonizingly close to becoming the one who would integrate Organized Baseball, several years before Jackie Robinson did.

After a two-year stint in the Army during World War II, Hughes, despite trying to restart his baseball career, never played at his peak level again, retiring after the 1946 season and settling in Los Angeles for his later years.

Although never receiving adequate due for his baseball greatness during his lifetime, in the years since Hughes has gradually been recognized more and more as the Negro Leagues have gained their own long-overdue recognition and honors.

In his autobiography, “20 Years Too Soon,” longtime Negro Leagues catcher Quincy Trouppe named Hughes as one of the Blackball players who could have made the Majors if given the chance. Trouppe also listed Hughes as a utility infielder on Trouppe’s “Number One All-Time Team.” (George Scales was the assigned second baseman on Trouppe’s team.)

In a 1978 newspaper article, groundbreaking author John Holway listed Hughes as one of the 10 Negro Leaguers “most eligible” for induction into the NBHOF, writing that Hughes was “one of two top second basemen in blackball annals — Campanella says the best.” (Holway also interviewed Hughes for the former’s most influential books, “Black Giants.”)

The Baltimore Sun, in a retrospective of that city’s connections to and involvement in the Negro Leagues, stated this about Hughes: “The premier second baseman in the Negro Leagues was a solid contact hitter and magnificent fielder.”

I think a lot of people’s feelings about Hughes can be summed up by writer and artist Gary Cieradkowski, who wrote an excellent biography of Sammy T. at his Web site, in which Gary powerfully advocates for Hughes’ inclusion in the Hall.

“Every time the Hall of Fame convenes one of their Negro League committees,” Cieradkowski wrote in April 2024, “Sammy T. Hughes’ name makes the conversation, but he’s always pushed aside for players of seemingly lesser talent who played for better-known teams or had friends among the powers-that-be. Someday the Elites’ second baseman may get the recognition he deserves, but until then, Cooperstown is not complete because Sammy T. ain’t in there.”

I’ve been delaying this post to account for all the most recent progress made on this project, but I think I can finally provide a substantive update on the effort to place a new marker at the grave of New Orleans athletic legend and Chicago American Giant John Bissant.

It’s going to happen.

We have all the key players in step with the project.

Jeremy Krock, founder and president of the famed Negro Leagues Baseball Grave Marker Project, says that once the group has funding open up – probably after the start of the New Year – the Bissant grave will be one of the markers slated by the NLBGMP for 2026.

Charisse DeLois Smith, John’s granddaughter, has given her support and help on the part of Bissant’s family.

And Jessica Strawn, Acting Cemeteries Superintendent at the City of New Orleans’ Cemetery Division, has connected with the team to provide information that will help move the project along and to offer moral support for the grave marker effort. She also said City staffers can assist in placing the new marker once it’s ready.

John Bissant is buried in Carrollton Cemetery No. 1, in the city’s Carrollton neighborhood near Tulane University. He’s interred in the same grave as two other family members, his wife Delores and his daughter Barbara.

(For earlier posts about Bissant, his grave and Carrollton Cemetery, check out this, this and this.)

Several years ago I pitched the idea of a grave marker for Bissant to Jeremy, and, after some discussions, he decided to climb on board with the project. There’s never been an NLBGMP marker placed in or near New Orleans, I wanted to generate more recognition for New Orleans Black baseball, and Jeremy said he’d been thinking about getting an effort going in the South. It all dovetailed.

(Although there’s never been an NLBGMP marker placed in this region, there has been a similar project taking place here. In 2013, a group effort helped place one on the grave of Wesley Barrow in the City of Gretna, just across the Mississippi River from downtown New Orleans.)

Meanwhile, I was able to connect with Charisse to learn more about John Bissant, and to raise the possibility of placing a new marker at her grandfather’s final resting place. As it turned out, she and her family had been working independently to honor John’s memory and get his name out into the public, including producing amazingly cool Bissant jerseys.

Getting the City of New Orleans on board was the most challenging venture. After months and months of trying to contact anyone at the Cemeteries Division to frustratingly no avail, I used my connections as a news reporter for The Louisiana Weekly, I emailed City Councilman Joe Giarrusso, whose Council district includes Carrollton Cemetery (it also includes my neighborhood, coincidentally), and whom I’d interviewed a few times for news stories for The Louisiana Weekly.

That unclogged the pipeline, and a City grounds employee called me within a couple days, which set in motion a process that led to Jessica emailing me and offering her and the City’s full help early this year.

Some more email correspondence, a phone call and Zoom session or so, and we scheduled and attended a group meeting in front of John’s grave in Carrollton Cemetery on April 2 of this year. We all introduced ourselves to each other, then touched base about what was left to be done to make a new marker a reality. (Jeremy, who lives in Peoria, Ill., obviously wasn’t able to attend, but I emailed him with details of what happened at the gathering.)

The biggest sticking point was the fact that the grave included two other people besides John, but a little hashing it out seems to have solved the issue – Jeremy and I will work on getting the marker for John Bissant produced (me doing a draft of the text, him securing funding), and Charisse said she and her family would investigate a smaller marker or something similar acknowledging her other two family members.

It must be noted that a tombstone does already stand at the grave, but it’s been so exposed to the elements and worn down by the weather that the text on it is completely obscured and illegible.

And that’s basically where things stand at this point. I’m working on the text, Charisse is looking into the other stone, Jeremy is waiting for funds to free up, and Jessica is coordinating on the City’s end and offering to assist whenever possible. I’m hoping that when we can get the marker installed, we might be able to do an unveiling or dedication event at the grave.

I actually spoke with Jeremy a couple weekends ago, when we both attended SABR’s Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference, which was held this year in Louisville. He and I were able to touch base in person and coordinate a bit on what the next steps are. Plus, it was just really good to see him.

Plus, last month I attended the regular meeting of the Schott-Pelican New Orleans chapter of SABR, where I updated attendees about the Bissant grave project, and I made a pitch for any assistance or support the chapter wanted to provide, including possible additional funding. (The chapter recently received a $500 grant from SABR headquarters, and for the last few local meetings, we’ve talked about how we can recognize and honor Black baseball in New Orleans, including getting a historical marker placed somewhere in the city. But hopefully more on that later.)