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Negro Leagues Baseball Museum Receives $300,000 Grant
		NLBM Logo. (PRNewsFoto/Bank of America) KANSAS CITY, MO UNITED STATES 05/30/2007

		Bank of America logo. (PRNewsFoto/Bank of America Corporation) CHARLOTTE, NC UNITED STATES 09/18/2006
     Funding to support three-year tour of Negro Leagues exhibition to
                Historically Black Colleges and Universities

    KANSAS CITY, Mo./PRNewswire/ -- The Negro Leagues Baseball
Museum (NLBM) announced today that the Bank of America Charitable
Foundation has donated $300,000, one of the largest corporate contributions
given to the museum in recent years, to support a three-year national
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) tour of the museum's
acclaimed traveling Negro Leagues history exhibition, "Discover Greatness".
  

    Black College campuses once served as training camps for many Negro
League teams and a number of Negro League players attended those
institutions. The grant supports the museum's plans to re-introduce the
Negro Leagues to many of the same campuses that players once attended while
introducing the story to a new generation. The exhibition will be made
available at no cost for schools interested in serving as a host site.
    "As the official Bank of Major League Baseball, Bank of America is
honored to provide thousands of people across the country the opportunity
to learn, and hopefully gain a greater appreciation, of the contributions
of African- Americans to the game of baseball and its impact on America,"
said Spence Heddens, Kansas City market president for Bank of America. "By
teaming up with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, we're giving more people
the chance to experience a compelling piece of history and reconnecting
Historically Black Colleges and Universities to an era they played a major
role in shaping."
    "Discover Greatness" is a powerful and compelling examination of the
Negro Leagues that brings the fascinating story of triumph over adversity
to life. The exhibition features 90 black and white photos, pennants,
jerseys and a video that chronicles the rise and fall of the Negro Leagues
while celebrating the contributions of America's unsung baseball heroes to
the game and the social advancement of our nation.

    Cinematic portrayals depicted the Negro Leagues as a vaudeville act and
its players as tramps and hobos. And, for nearly six decades, these
talented baseball players were shut out of the Major Leagues because of
their skin color and a pervasive perception that they weren't "smart
enough" to play America's national pastime.
    In actuality, a great many Negro Leagues players were college educated
men. It is estimated that more than 40 percent of Negro Leagues players had
some level of college education in stark contrast to their Major League
counterparts during that era of segregation. They were scholars who
happened to be great athletes. And long before they hit the field in the
Negro Leagues they were hitting the books on America's Black College
campuses.
    "We are thrilled to partner with Bank of America on this exciting and
historic tour that we believe will open eyes and minds to one of the great
chapters in American history," said Bob Kendrick, NLBM marketing director.
"It is important that the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum reestablish the
connection between the Negro Leagues and Historically Black Colleges and
Universities. We believe this tour will not only validate the caliber of
athlete that played in the Negro Leagues but will educate and serve as a
source of pride and inspiration for students attending those schools."
    The partnership will also make the exhibition available to African-
American Museums in collaboration with the NLBM to support audience
development. In March, the exhibition was hosted by the National Civil
Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee in conjunction with the inaugural Civil
Rights Game developed by Major League Baseball(R). The exhibition will open
in Baltimore, Maryland at the Great Blacks in Wax Museum from June 1
through July 14. Additional locations are:

    National Center for Civil Rights Study and African American Culture
Alabama State University, Montgomery, Alabama July 26 - September 23
    Florida Memorial University
Miami Garden, Florida
October 5 - November 17
    "Discover Greatness" will be on display at each venue for a
six-to-eight week period. The tour runs through the fall of 2010.
    In addition, the partnership will support a 10-city Major League
Baseball(R) (MLB) stadium tour of another Negro Leagues exhibition
entitled, "Times, Teams and Talents". The exhibition, a concourse display,
will travel to ballparks throughout the 2007 MLB season. The tour opened at
McAfee Stadium in Oakland, CA on May 28.
    About the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
    The NLBM, located in Kansas City, Mo., is the world's only museum
dedicated to preserving and illuminating the rich history of black
baseball. It is a privately funded, 501c3 not-for-profit organization
incorporated in 1990. The NLBM operates one block from the Paseo YMCA where
the Negro National League was founded by Andrew "Rube" Foster in 1920. For
more information about the NLBM, please visit http://www.nlbm.com.
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