<P> Moses Fleetwood Walker (October 7, 1856--May 11, 1924) was an American professional baseball catcher who is credited with being one of the first black men to play in Major League Baseball (MLB). A native of Mount Pleasant, Ohio, and a star athlete at Oberlin College as well as the University of Michigan, Walker played for semi-professional and minor league baseball clubs before joining the Toledo Blue Stockings of the American Association (AA) for the 1884 season . </P> <P> Though research suggests William Edward White was the first African - American baseball player in MLB, unlike White who passed as a white man, Walker was open about his black heritage, and often faced racial bigotry prevalent in the late 19th century United States . His brother, Weldy, became the second black athlete to do so later in the same year, also for the Toledo ball club . Walker played just one season, 42 games total, for Toledo before injuries entailed his release . </P> <P> Walker played in the minor leagues until 1889, and was the last African - American to participate on the major league level before Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color line in 1947 . After his baseball career, he became a successful businessman and inventor . As an advocate of Black nationalism, Walker also jointly edited a newspaper, The Equator, with his brother . He published a book, Our Home Colony (1908), to explore ideas about emigrating back to Africa . He died in 1924 at the age of 67 . </P> <P> Moses Fleetwood Walker was born in 1856 in Mount Pleasant, a working - class town in Eastern Ohio that had served as a sanctuary for runaway slaves since 1815 . Its population included a large Quaker community and a unique collective of former Virginian slaves . Walker's parents, Moses W. Walker and Caroline O' Harra, were both mulattos . According to Walker's biographer David W. Zang, his father came to Ohio from Pennsylvania, likely a beneficiary of Quaker patronage, and married O' Harra, who was a native to the state, on June 11, 1843 . When Walker was three years old, the family moved 20 miles northeast to Steubenville where Moses W. became one of the first black physicians of Ohio and later a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church . There, Walker's fifth or sixth sibling, his younger brother Weldy, was born the same year . Walker and Weldy attended Steubenville High School in the early 1870s, just as the community passed legislation for racial integration . </P>

Was the first african american man in decades to play in major league baseball