We Are the Ship; The Story of Negro Baseball

New York: Jump at the Sun/Hyperion (An imprint of Disney Book Group), 2008. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/very good. Kadir Nelson. [8], 88 pages. Color illustrations. Large Format book (approximately 11.5 inches by 11.5 inches). Foreword by Hank Aaron. Kadir Nelson (born May 15, 1974) is an African-American artist, illustrator and author. His work is focused on African-American culture and history. Nelson was born in Washington, DC,. He received his early training in art from his uncle, Michael Morris,who was an artist and art instructor. ]Nelson graduated from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Nelson has had exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout the United States and the world, including the Museum of Tolerance and the Society of Illustrators. The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams predominantly made up of African American and, to a lesser extent, Latin Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be used narrowly for the seven relatively successful leagues beginning in 1920 that are sometimes termed "Negro Major Leagues". In 1885 the Cuban Giants formed the first black professional baseball team. The first league, the National Colored Base Ball League, was organized strictly as a minor league but failed in 1887 after only two weeks owing to low attendance. The Negro American League of 1951 is considered the last major league season and the last professional club, the Indianapolis Clowns, operated as a humorous sideshow rather than competitively from the mid-1960s to the 1980s.