Anthony C. Williams: As Director of Birmingham’s Negro Southern League Museum, His Job is Bigger Than Baseball

By Javacia Harris Bowser | The Birmingham Times

Anthony C. Williams has always been a sports fan. But it wasn’t a love of baseball that led him to become the director of the Negro Southern League Museum. It was his love for Birmingham.

“Being from Birmingham, you pride yourself on liking all the sports,” Williams said. “I’ve always looked to the heroes in baseball — especially Bo Jackson. But baseball wasn’t for me a main sport. I never got a chance to really play baseball formally. I played soccer in high school, and I grew up loving basketball. Baseball was kind of an afterthought, but I ended up here as a result of my service in the city.”

That service began in the late 1990s when Williams was a student at Ramsay High School. He worked with street clean-up programs and anti-litter initiatives.

“That awakened within me a sense of, ‘This is my city. I should take care of it,’” recalled Williams, who went on to study English at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa.

Always focused on service, Williams spent a few years working for the Mattie C. Stewart Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by local radio legend and civil rights icon Shelley Stewart. In this role, Williams traveled around the country encouraging students not only to stay in school but also to embrace education. His work with young people led him back to serving his city through the AmeriCorps VISTA program. When the director position at the Negro Southern League Museum became available, city leaders knew Williams was the right person for the role.

“I came in because I’m good with people. I am a nerd of sorts. I love history. I love to figure things out, and I think the higher-ups knew that,” Williams said. “They needed a person who could be able to interact with the public, be able to be public -facing, but also be able to deal with all of the behind-the-scenes work and dealing with the relationships that form this institution.”

Serving Birmingham

As director of NSLM, Williams doesn’t have a typical day. Some days he’s busy giving tours to out-of-town guests visiting the museum. Other days he may meet with local residents seeking answers about baseball history or insight into an artifact they’ve had tucked away for decades, like a trophy from the Birmingham Industrial League or an autographed photo of the legendary Satchel Paige.

Some days Williams focuses on facility maintenance; other days, his priority is maintaining important relationships, such as the museum’s partnership with Dr. Layton Revell, the executive director of the Center for Negro League Baseball Research and primary owner of the museum’s collection. The museum also often hosts community events and plays a role in the Major League Baseball games held in Birmingham.

But no matter what he’s doing, Williams views his work as service to Birmingham.

“This is a city facility, and so I’m charged with making sure that I serve the citizens in this role, to make sure I open the doors first to Birmingham and young people from Birmingham, making sure they understand the stories and the legacy that we have here, and then of course, the players–the players who are still with us–making sure we do right by them, making sure we honor their legacy, honor their stories, honor their narratives, making sure that we do what we can to support and celebrate and tell their stories to the public, share their stories, get their stories right, and archive their stories.”

The Story of Baseball

The Negro Southern League was created in 1920 by a group of Black businessmen and baseball enthusiasts. From 1920 until its demise in 1951, the Negro Southern League served as a pathway for many Black baseball players to go on to the Negro American League and Negro National League. The Negro Southern League would produce some of the greatest baseball players in history, including Alabama-born Willie Mays.

When asked what sets Birmingham’s Negro Southern League Museum apart from other Negro League museums in the country, Williams quoted Birmingham’s inaugural poet laureate Salaam Green who once said, “Birmingham is America’s classroom.”

Williams shared that it wasn’t until he became director of the museum that he realized how baseball helps tell the story of Birmingham and the nation.

“The story of baseball will tell you about the city’s industrial past, about its founding,” he said. “It will tell you about other American cities that had baseball and sports and how they were founded and the different issues that a town deals with. Sports magnifies those issues. Sports shows when your city comes together. It shows when your city’s split apart.”

Baseball is part of Birmingham’s civil rights history, Williams added.

“I think baseball takes a lead role in pioneering the struggle for human rights, the struggle to be recognized as equals,” he said.

The Untold Story

When he’s not working, Williams enjoys astronomy, astrophotography, and spending time at the beach. He’s a musician and actor too, and he hopes to one day combine his love of acting with his love for the history of Black baseball.

“I’d like to maybe do something around the Negro Leagues, the stories of baseball, whether it’s stage or film,” he said. “I think there’s so many stories that need to be told and can be told in a very artful way.”

Williams hopes that the Negro Southern League Museum can help visitors expand their ideas about the story of Black baseball.

“If there is one story that I would like for people to understand about the Negro Leagues and about Black baseball is that the story of Jackie Robinson (the first African American to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era) is only the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “And while we celebrate the integration of baseball, and while we look at it as a very positive thing… there’s an untold story of the deprivation and the decline of Black baseball and the Black community that’s wrapped up in that… What if the major leagues had integrated Black teams and Black owners rather than just individual Black baseball players? What would it have looked like if entire major league Negro League teams had been incorporated into Major League Baseball?”

As he continues to serve his city, Williams will keep asking questions so he can keep telling the story of Black baseball in Birmingham and beyond.

“There’s a lot there,” he said, “and I think we’re still uncovering a lot of these stories.”

To learn more about the Negro Southern League Museum, visit www.birminghamal.gov/government/city-departments/negro-southern-league-museum.