Fifty years ago, on August 9, 1971, the second Monday in August, Satchel  Paige was the first Negro League player inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. But he wasn’t the first Black American athlete inducted into the Hall of Fame. Why then was he inducted? What were the Negro Leagues, and why did they exist? The residue of segregation lingered in a subtle but pronounced way at Paige’s inauguration, on this Monday in August, fifty years ago.

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