The Chicago Cubs star should be championed by his own hometown.
In this 1970 file photo, Ernie Banks poses in his Chicago Cubs uniform. Banks died in January 2015. He was 83. , boosting the profile of a number of Black players along the way. Many Black legends got their start in the Negro Leagues before crossing over once Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color line in 1947.
But before he was a Chicago MVP, Banks was a skinny kid growing up in a shack in a freedman’s town on land that is now the Dallas Arts District. One of 12 children raised in extreme poverty, Banks starred on the football team at Booker T. Washington High School, then a school for Black students. Banks received the presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013. A bronze statue of him sits north of the main entrance to Wrigley Field.Dallas did a poor job of championing Banks in life. The city gave him a hero’s welcome during an exhibition game in 1955, but our attention faded with time. Donors finally placedA line on an obelisk at Griggs Park tells visitors that Banks played there. That’s a start, but Dallas should share his story more widely and visibly.
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