Effa Manley, co-owner of a Negro League baseball team, will be the first woman inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. Manley and her husband owned the Newark Eagles, which won the Negro League World Series in 1946. She managed the business end of the team for more than a decade, working to improve salaries and conditions for Negro League players, and using baseball to promote civil rights through events such as Anti-Lynching Day. Although Manley was white, she married a black man and spent her life passing as a black woman.
Manley, who died in 1981, is among 17 players and executives from the Negro League and the pre-Negro League to be inducted this year based on the votes of a special committee. The Baseball Hall of Fame previously had only 18 Negro League players, and this year began an effort to fully explore the history of the Negro League and incorporate its accomplishments.