Members of the 1955 Cannon Street YMCA All-Stars Little League baseball team on Saturday will launch a plan to raise $500,000 to build a meditation and memorial garden on Charleston’s West side.
Four of the surviving players also will be honored Sunday at the Charleston Riverdogs game. Then they will travel to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa., and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Seventy years ago, the 14-member team was the only Black baseball team in South Carolina chartered by the Little League. The team was later denied a chance to play in the Little League World Series because of racial segregation.
“We are blessed, especially the surviving ones, to experience this, and we are looking forward to sharing our story,” said John Rivers, the team’s shortstop who divides his time between Ecuador and Atlanta.
Rivers is one of eight members of the team still living. The other surviving members are John Bailey, Washington, D.C.; Vermont Brown and Leroy Major, Charleston; Allen Jackson, New York; and David Middleton, Norman Robinson and William Godfrey, Atlanta.
Created a non-profit
The team’s story led to the 1955 Cannon Street All-Stars Baseball Youth Academy Inc. (CYBA). The nonprofit provides baseball equipment, professional training, baseball education and skill development to the youth in underserved African American communities, Rivers said.
It is also poised to start a year-long fundraiser to pay for the mediation and memorial garden, a 40-foot-square outdoor museum at Fishburne and President streets, he said.
CYBA is going through the approval of the garden’s design with the city of Charleston, Rivers said. The nonprofit has arranged with the city to “enter into a long-term ground lease with the CYBA,” he said. The nonprofit hopes to break ground for the garden in June 2026, River added.
Companies can buy plaques and receive naming rights to objects in the garden, he explained. Individuals can purchase walkway bricks etched with their names, he said.
A history lesson
The garden will tell the Cannon Street YMCA’s history and its Little League baseball program that lasted from 1953 until 1956, River said.
It will recognize the team’s sponsors, list players and display QR codes that will open the YMCA’s history on smart phones. The all-stars will be a prominent feature in the outdoor museum, Rivers added.
Rivers, who is an architect, said he designed the garden to resemble a baseball diamond with a metal sculpture called “Images of Little Leaguers” painted with the team’s colors. The team’s gray uniforms were trimmed in green, red, royal and navy blue, he said.
As the former players travel to Cooperstown, they will stop in Washington, D.C., to meet with the Charleston Club. Its members are displaced Charlestonians who live in the Washington, D.C., area.
Rivers is the only former player who has visited the Cooperstown’s hall of fame museum that features a permanent exhibit of the team, he said.
All of the players traveled to Williamsport in 2002 to receive the S.C. Championship State banner that was not awarded to the team in 1955. This month, the team will receive a second banner to replace the first one that was misplaced, Rivers said.
The Cannon Street YMCA offered its players more than a chance to play baseball, he said.
“The values installed in us were priceless,” Rivers said. “Team play, looking out for one another, learning how to accept defeat and victory, and building self-worth are values you keep for the rest of your life.”
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