Explore Bud Fowler’s path as a groundbreaking Black American baseball player who was a
player with the Guelph Maple Leafs baseball team. John W Jackson (later known as Bud Fowler) was born in 1850, just 16 years after enslavement was abolished in the US. He lived in Fort Plain, where his father migrated after escaping enslavement.
In 1881, Bud was recruited for the Professional League of Baseball. There he faced an enormous amount of discrimination and racism as The Color Line (a barrier that excluded players of African descent from all major sports) was still thriving within professional baseball at this time. Later in 1881, Bud was handpicked by George Sleeman and recruited to play on the Guelph Maple Leafs baseball team. Bud was not welcomed by his all-White teammates, and they refused to play by his side. Bud’s career did not end in Guelph, he traveled back to the US, where he played professional baseball for 14 years.
To this day, Bud Fowler is the earliest known Black man to play in an organized, professional baseball league and has been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
