9. Moses Fleetwood Walker, Baseball Player
Jackie Robinson is famous for breaking Major League Baseball’s color line in 1947. Lesser known is the fact that the “color line” wasn’t clearly established in baseball’s earliest days in the late 19th century. This loophole allowed several black men, including Moses Fleetwood Walker, to play at the major league level. One man, William Edward White, technically played before Moses Fleetwood Walker, but White was, ironically, white passing and often denied his black heritage. Walker, on the other hand, was open about his culture and often faced discrimination because of it. He played for one season as a catcher with the Toledo Blue Socks in 1884.
