Historic Happenings
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Martin Luther King Jr. Visits SuffolkPeanut Park, 308 South Saratoga Street
On the evening of Friday, June 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to an estimated 7,000 people gathered in Peanut Park. Those in attendance saw King speak with passion and spoke about plans for a march on Washington, D.C. That march, which happened just two months after the visit to Suffolk, is where he delivered the famous “I have a Dream” speech standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
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Holland Masonic Lodge Rt. 58/189
Baseball Teams Holland Community Center
Virginia’s Negro League Players
Learn more at blackbaseballinvirginia.com
Black baseball in Virginia was family and community baseball through Jim Crow segregation, the Civil Rights movement, and the early stages of integration. Nearly every community statewide had at least one black baseball team between 1930 and 1970. The ball team carried the banner of the community, so that communities became synonymous with the baseball team and the families who filled out the team.
Harry Butts, Suffolk Virginia; p, Suffolk Aces,
1949 Indianapolis Clowns; Minor Leagues 1952,
1953 Vancouver, Portsmouth, Richmond, Piedmont
League
1949 Indianapolis Clowns; Minor Leagues 1952,
1953 Vancouver, Portsmouth, Richmond, Piedmont
League
Tidewater Fair
The Tidewater Fair was an annual agricultural fair for black people was anticipated with great excitement with its tent shows, performers, sideshows, ferris wheel, swings, concessions, horseracing and fireworks display. Equally anticipated were the competitions and exhibits for homemakers, farmers and schoolchildren. It was a four-day event centered around themes: Educational Day, Ministers Day, Farmer’s Day, Women’s Day.