Colonial Heights. To most young boys growing up in Christiansburg, Virginia in the early 1960’s, these 2 words were magical, almost mythical. It meant one thing – the Boys Invitational Baseball (BIB) Tournament sponsored by the Optimist Club of Colonial Heights, Virginia. Started in 1957,  the tournament involved 16 Little League teams (11 and 12 year olds) brought to Colonial Heights for a week or so. To the little leaguers of Christiansburg it meant the chance to play under lights in a “real” ballpark with a grandstand and “real” dugouts. It also meant living in barracks with the other out-of-town teams, trips to a beautiful lake, team meals in restaurants and chocolate soft serve ice cream (the Dari-Delite in Christiansburg served only vanilla).

            Selection to the team also meant recognition as “an all star”! For many on the team it was the furthest they had been away from home. Next to looking forward to playing football for Christiansburg High on Friday nights, it was the greatest aspiration of my childhood. Kids talked about it as if it was a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. 

            The little league sports programs in Christiansburg during this era – baseball, football and basketball – were sponsored by the Christiansburg Kiwanis Club – a group of dedicated, hard working men who coached, refereed and umpired and provided the funding for all 3 programs. Little League baseball games were played (along with Minor League and Pony League games also sponsored by Kiwanis) on fields located behind what was then the Sealtest Dairy, the largest “industry” in Christiansburg.  The Little League teams of this era wore flannel uniforms (just like the major leaguers!) and played their games at 6 o’clock in the evening. There were 4 teams and the All-Star team was picked at the end of the season for the annual event in Colonial Heights.

            Colonial Heights is a small city south of Richmond near Petersburg and Hopewell. Of the 16 teams invited to the tournament in the 1960’s, Christiansburg was the only one from the “mountains.”  The other teams were from the Petersburg-Richmond area, Tidewater and northern Virginia. We definitely “stood out” – we marveled at the “sophistication” of the 12 year olds from Arlington and Fairfax (a trait I grew weary of during my later years at the University of Virginia). We were the hillbillies. We didn’t care. 

               I was on the team in 1964 (when Christiansburg won its first game ever in the tournament). I was also selected for the team in 1965. These trips and games obviously left lasting memories. It was a highlight of my early years. 

              Most writing about the mid 1960’s sets as background the changes that were beginning to occur in our society. Certainly that was true, but perhaps not quite as much in Christiansburg. In 1965 Christiansburg was still a small merchant town – it had the livestock market every Thursday and small merchants supplied the farmers who came in on Saturdays from the surrounding communities. Most residents were lifelong and often 3rd or 4th generation. Most were Scotch-Irish or German or English descendants of pioneers. There was little industry – a couple of small textile mills and a furniture factory. The town was most known by many for its church steeples in the downtown. In other words, 1965 Christiansburg had not yet become part of the Virginia Tech/Blacksburg “metropolitan area” which it seems to be part of today. It had its own identity as a working class, God-fearing community and was an idyllic small town in which to live and be raised.

            The Christiansburg Kiwanis Club took a significant and historic step with its little league programs during the 1964-65 school year – the teams were integrated! That school year, Montgomery County was still 2 years away from full de-segregation of the schools. Operating under “Freedom of Choice”, a few African-American students had elected to attend the white schools but full integration was not to occur until the fall of 1966. With this back drop, the Kiwanis Club integrated its sports programs in the fall of 1964, which in the opinion of many made the school de-segregation  process 2 years later smoother and less stressful for blacks and whites alike.

            The selection of the 1965 little league all star team for the annual trip to Colonial Heights presented perhaps the greatest challenge to the club’s efforts to de-segregate its sports programs.  Colonial Heights is in an area of Virginia historically known as the “Black Belt”, both for its rich soil and its large African-American population. It was also in the part of Virginia which at the time, along with much of the rest of the south, was practicing “Massive Resistance”. This was the ill-conceived notion that if a vast majority of the school systems in the south refused to cooperate, the federal government would not be able to enforce the school desegregation decision of the United States Supreme Court in Brown v Board of Education. No black child (at this time enlightened Americans  were awkwardly transitioning from “colored” to “Negro”, and “black” and “African-American” were not yet part of the vocabulary) had ever played in the Colonial Heights tournament. So the Christiansburg little league sponsors were faced with the dilemma of picking the 15 best players or the 15 “best white” players. To their credit they made the right decision.

            The men involved in the decision picked the all star team based on their decisions as to who the best players were, regardless of race. The list of the All Stars, which was posted every year on the door of the concession stand at the Kiwanis field and was a much awaited moment, included 4 African-Americans – Anthony “Tony” Price, Ernie Morgan, Cortez Mc Daniel and James “Scrubby” Jones. 

          Not wanting to “surprise” their hosts, the Christiansburg coaches called the Colonial Heights Optimist Club to “warn” that these 4 kids were part of our team. The initial reaction was as feared, that the hosts “preferred” that we not integrate their tournament. The Christiansburg coaches responded by saying that we would only come if we were allowed to bring our 15 best. To their credit, or perhaps unable to come up with a replacement, the Optimists ultimately relented and we took our integrated team.

            I would like to be able to say that this story ended with Tony Price (who ended up in my opinion being the best athlete in my high school class) hitting a home run in the last inning to win the tournament and being carried from the field on his teammates’ shoulders, but, as usual, we were over-matched by the big city boys and were quickly eliminated. The experience was not positive for our black teammates in other respects as well. They were not allowed to stay in the barracks or eat at the same places as the white boys. The trip to the lake with all of the teams was also not in the cards, so one of our coaches took Tony, Ernie, Cortez and Scrubby bowling. And when we went to the movies (ironically Shenandoah, a civil war movie, was playing) the black kids had to sit in the balcony. I do not recall any problems at the ball park however, although I am sure there was tension. 

            I would also like to say that the rest of our team – or myself at least – tried to do something about the injustices of the separate treatment, but that was not the way of the world at that time. We were 11 and 12 year olds. I was mainly glad that I had made the team and that we had taken our best players so we might have a chance to win a game or two. I was more worried about whether the Dodgers would win the pennant that year (they did) and whether I would be in the same class that fall with the cute little blonde that I had a huge crush on (I was). We did, however, receive an education on the racial injustices of that time, but most if not all of the significance passed over our 12 year old heads.

            I developed over time tremendous respect for the men who made the decision to pick the best players regardless of color.  Many of them played a significant part in my upbringing in other respects as well, as coaches, teachers, mentors, friends. Their actions were at a time when Dixie was still played at Christiansburg High and Virginia Tech football games and blacks had to sit in the balcony of the Palace Theatre in Christiansburg. Tensions were high nationally. The Watts (south central L A now) riots occurred one week after we returned from Colonial Heights. Parts of Virginia and much of the rest of the south faced many years of conflict before fully integrating the public schools.

            The men who made this decision almost certainly did not consider themselves crusaders or, heaven forbid, “liberals”; they were just good, decent men who wanted to do the right thing and cared about the kids of Christiansburg, regardless of color.   The black kids probably did not view themselves as pioneers, but they showed remarkable courage in going into uncharted, even hostile, waters. That was a lot to put on 12 year olds. 

            August of 2020 will be the 55th anniversary of this team. Several of the All Stars died way too young. The few league sponsors still living are in their later years. My life has been better because of having seen the efforts of these men to create a fairer world. This piece is offered to recognize their actions and to memorialize a proud moment for my home town.