Aingeal Rose & Ahonu and Twin Flame Productions LLC are pleased to announce the new book release "Barnstorming, A Negro Baseball Story", by Jonathan Carroll. Below is an extract from Chapter 1. Click the image to get it on Amazon. The eBook is only $3.99.
"It was a typical muggy evening in Central Florida in the summer of 1929. The air was hot. The skies were clear—full of moonlight. But the night wasn’t quiet. Field hands were excited: the fruits of their labor were about to pay off. The strawberry crop was ready to be picked.
The interesting thing about strawberry harvests is they're done at night. Harvesting strawberries during the cool of the night yields a better crop than in the heat of the sun. There’s less bruising of the fruit and the berries just taste sweeter.
On this particular evening in Winter Park, all you could see when you looked out across the fields were lanterns, moving around like fireflies, glowing and dancing in the darkness. The workers were singing Negro spirituals as generations had before them. But these songs were not signals to runaway slaves on their journeys to freedom as in the past. Tonight, the spirituals were being sung by the pickers to keep each other company—to feel a connection with each other while working in the fields with their lanterns and the moonlight guiding them in the harvest. Night harvests were good-paying money as far as coloreds were concerned. It was hard work—truly for the young and the very fit.
Harvesting in the dark made the work more difficult. Not many older folk were out there; it was mostly women doing the picking, young men doing the hauling, and some poor whites who were looked at as no better than the coloreds.
For no particular reason, the Klan decided it was time to show the local coloreds just who was in charge and the strawberry harvest was the perfect target. Without warning, out of the dark, men in masks and hoods came from all directions. Some rode horses, some drove pickups, and others were on foot. In seconds they filled the field and started beating coloreds with bats and chains and butts of handguns and shotguns.
When it was over, fields were on fire from broken lanterns. There were injured colored men all over—many close to death. There was no telling in the dark who was there and who got away. The fields looked like a war zone."
If you'd like to visit the Barnstorming, A Negro Baseball Story website, get the eBook, or read the paperback, follow the links below:
- Visit the Barnstorming, A Negro Baseball Story website
- Get the Barnstorming, A Negro Baseball Story eBook
- Read The Barnstorming, A Negro Baseball Story Paperback
Enjoy reading Barnstorming, A Negro Baseball Story. Blessings and bye for now,
