As a filmmaker, author, performer and motivational speaker, Byron Motley conveys the history of the Negro Baseball Leagues from a unique angle that is as insightful and educational as it is entertaining.
Motely will bring his presentation entitled “The Negro Baseball Leagues: An American Legacy” to Daytona State College on Thursday, Feb, 9 at 7 p.m. The event will be in the Theater Center on the Daytona Beach Campus, 1200 W. International Speedway Blvd. Admission is free and open to the public.
The presentation will chronicle the creation of the Negro Leagues that was formed decades before Major League Baseball was integrated, as well as the lives of some of its all-time great players. It will emphasize how the league evolved and players were affected over decades of slow progress in American race relations that ultimately led to desegregation in professional baseball and in society.
On his website, Motley notes that this is not an African-American story, but an All-American story, one about men and women who “simply wanted to play ball.”
The son of Bob Motley, the only living umpire from the Negro Leagues, Byron Motley shares his father’s behind-the-plate perspective of how the Negro Leagues helped to transform not only America’s pastime, but society as well.
The presentation will include segments from “Oh How They Lived: Stories of the Negro Leagues,” an upcoming television documentary produced by Motley which features interviews with his father and baseball legends Hank Aaron and Willie Mays. Also highlighted are such national figures as author Maya Angelou, former President Bill Clinton, retired Secretary of State Colin Powell and broadcasting’s Walter Cronkite.
The presentation is sponsored by Daytona State’s Office of Student Activities in celebration of Black History Month.
For more information, please call (386) 506-4417.
