RPS NEGRO LEAGUES

[M i/a ster Brilliant]

In my on again, off again duties as WRPSS' Executive Secretary of Historical Affairs, I've been doing some research to answer a query I've received about an Atlanta, Georgia-based RPS league in the 1930s. I'm having trouble finding much documentation, and am about to embark upon a trip to Georgia to conduct interviews with surviving players. The resulting oral history should be compelling and add yet another dimension to our sport's great tradition.

In preliminary telephone interviews with RPS octogenarians, I'm finding via innuendo (nothing direct yet) that there may well have existed in the American South (at the very least) a parallel RPS-Negro League. I AM FLOORED THAT THIS IS ONLY NOW COMING TO LIGHT! Or, rather, have I missed something? I've checked the archives, gone through all the old microfiche files. . .yet I find zip. Smells like a cover-up to me. In fact, when hunting through  HQ's newspaper stacks, there does seem to be a dearth of papers collected from the Southern states.

Are you understanding what I'm getting at? There may very well be legions of RPS masters that have gone as yet unheralded, unappreciated,
U N K N O W N.

Anyone who has any information, please contact me. All leads, no matter how seemingly trivial, are critical.

MB

[Stu Vessant]

Damn.  It's about time someone brought up the RPSNL.

Brilliant, you are correct in that most of the information about the Leagues survive only in oral form, however my Great Aunt Genevieve has some old pictures that you are more than welcome to puruse while you're in the DC area (hit me with a PM.)  The information below is triangulated from the many stories about the Leagues I remember from my youth.  Many of the stories were of the inspirational variety, serving to fill the heads of us young players with glorious tales from the League's Golden Years.  I will attempt to restrict my commentary to matters of fact, more or less.

The roots of the RPSNL go back to at least the Civil War (further back, actually, as the game itself comes from Africa, a fact now recognized by all RPS historians.)  During the Civil War, RPS tournaments were held in many different Southern cities.  Then as now, the promoters of these tournaments were sympathetic to humanitarian concerns, and used the events as a kind of "Underground Railroad."  Many of these players, who learned the sport while in Africa, made it all the way up the Railroad to Canada.  Quite a few of them settled in Toronto, which explains why RPS is still so strong there today.

The Negro Leagues are correctly termed in the plural, for there were many of them.  These included such Leagues as the Mississippi River RPS League, the Zulu Nation League, the Tarheel League, the Friends of RPS, the Memphis Eclipse, and the Atlanta based Huck-a-Buck League.  Historically, the very first League was in the late 1800's; it failed after a month.  Many of those later groups reached their peak in the late '20s.  The players were well known, and were making more money monthly than many others in their respective cities, white or black.  This success continued into the 1930's and 1940's.  With the onset of WWII, many well-known Black players joined the war effort, which eventually led to the more widespread removal of segregated RPS Leagues.

This segregation initially mirrored society as a whole.  Just as there were "white" restaurants and "Black" restaurants, so there were "white" RPS Leagues and "Black" RPS Leagues.  Well, at least in theory.  My grandfather tells me that although no Black player could be seen at a white RPS tournament, many well known white players were known to appear at Black tournaments.  Notable among these was the late Simon "Old Timer" Watson, Sr.  He travelled the entire RPSNL circuit, and was a friend to many top players and promoters.  Time and time again, according to my grandfather, he was invited to compete in the tournaments, but refused.  As he explained it, "My people won't let any of you compete in their tournaments, so I don't think I have the right to compete in yours.  I'm just  happy to be here."  Watson went on to become involved in the civil rights movement in the 1960's.

There were quite a few well known players in the Leagues.  Carolan Trimestus of the Huck-a-Bucks followed the familiar "player/promoter" mold in use today, and was renowned for his fast-prime ability.  Abraham Walker of the Memphis Eclipse once came in second place in three consecutive tournaments of over a hundred players (but ironically, never won a tournament!)  Frank Foster of the Philadelphia City League (no relation to Mr. Urbanus' League of the same name) was a fantastic organizer during the fallout period of the late 50's.  He insisted that all Negro League promotions be run by Black entrepreneurs; given the large amount of money the Leagues were making at the time, he rightly considered that the money should stay in the community.  Rube "The Barber" Leland carried his barber shears with him during tournaments, and would sharpen them maliciously between matches.  Bruce Brownlee was a notorious numbers runner and gangster, as well as owner of the Pittsburgh Playboys RPS League.  He was immortalized by Langston Hughes in his poem "Bruce Brownlee is after Me":

Bruce Brownlee is after me
He already owns every cent I ever had
They say Bruce is loose as a goose, and I guess they're right
But I wish he'd be looser with my money
My dreams have been deferred
But Bruce won't defer the five dollars I owe him from Monday night's rochambeau
Rock, you let me down.  Feet, keep runnin'

There were several famous players who dabbled in the Leagues, but the only one to achieve respect as a player was singer Wynonie Harris of "Bloodshot Eyes" fame.  Harris would arrange tour dates to coincide with major RPSNL tournaments, and typically would emerge in the final eight.  

The big question mark is how the Leagues were actually organized.  Clearly, between the late 20's and the early 50's some sort of coalition was made to standardize rules and rankings across the Leagues, but I know nothing about how this happened.  Hopefully, the names I've given you will help you find what you're looking for.

My compliments and congratulations again on beginning this fascinating area of study.  I look forward to any new information you may uncover.

[TripleA]

Stu, that's one of the best pieces of writing I've ever read on this completely fascinating, yet almost entirely lost period of RPS history.

One of my very first RPS gigs, back when I was in journalism school, was to go to the retirement dinner for Chuck Swalla and try to get short quotes and head shots about "Stripes" from the attendees (It was for the first issue of a newsletter that never materialized). One of the players I spoke with was Rufus "Three Fingers" Elliot who was one of the most distinguished, warm, well-spoken, and truly classy gentlemen I have ever had the honour to meet. I was only able to talk with him for a few minutes, but it was such a pleasure I had (desperately and like a complete amateur) weasled an invitation to visit Mr. Elliot and his wife at his home in Spokane later in the year when I was on vacation. It shall always be one of my all time regrets that I wasn't able to take advantage of this opportunity as he passed away only a few weeks later.

His anecdote about Stripes was too long for my piece, but is one of my favourite RPS stories of all time and, actually may illustrate a little how those early leagues worked -

Rufus was a member of a league in Florida in the late 40s (I'm afraid I don't know which one exactly). He had placed highly at some high-profile open tournaments just after his discharge from the US Navy and was, I gather, the promoters dream; Very young, handsome, good war record, he was quickly signed to an "exclusivity contract" (getting some small guaranteed fee in exchange for competing for only one territory or promoter) and made the poster-boy of the league - his photo and name plastered on tournament notices and handbills state-wide. Unfortunately, after his early easy wins he started to struggle terribly - stringing together a massive run of early exits to poorly skilled (or unknown) players. I remember Rufus chuckling in his rich, mellow, baritone: "I suddenly found out that I was a very small fish in a very big pool. Then I discovered that the pool was full of sharks, a lot of sharks."

Rufus quickly became a running joke in the area, his confidence blown, he lost even more spectacularly. Finally, in frustration, the league's promoter... who I seem to recall may have been some relation (a nephew or cousin) to baseball legend Andrew Foster - made a deal to release three-fingers to an outfit based out of Boston in exchange for them allowing their superstar player at the time ("real big fellow, strong too" was the extent of Rufus' recollection of whom exactly) to attend a couple of local Florida tournaments. Anyhow, Rufus was immediately presented in Texas as an unstoppable monster - a superstar who had dominated the Florida leagues, and run out of challenges. Of course this was pure marketing baloney, but immediately goosed ticket sales as locals wanted to come out and see how their local Texan heroes stood up to this new "threat". It was actually a cagey plan by the Texas management. If Rufus regained his earlier form, they could continue to sell tickets based on his outsider status. If he continued to stink, the locals would just look that much stronger over their rival territories.

So Rufus was convinced that this was his last chance to make it as a pro (and it likely was, if he played as poorly in Texas as he did in Florida he would have had trouble getting invited to so much as a pick-up match). He gotten himself all psyched up for his debut tournament in the lonestar state and arrived only to find that his first (closely watched) match was going to be officiated by none other than Chuck Swalla who had overseen some of three-fingers more memorable blow-outs in Florida (it wasn't unusual for Referees to travel a lot more frequently than players as their low wages meant that they had to cover a lot of ground to make a living, not to mention promoters bringing in outside refs reduced the perceived risk of corruption or graft.

Rufus figured he was sunk. He knew that at the first mention of condolence (or encouragement) from the ref, or any hint from Chuck of how badly he had stunk up the Florida circuit his carefully crafted "monster" persona was down the drain, and he'd have to find a new line of work. But before Elliot had a chance to try to hide, Stripes immediately singled him out of the crowd and started berating the young man - deriding him for his "grandstanding" in Florida. "I don't care how badly you beat those (guys) on the coast." Swalla bellowed, loud enough to ensure that everyone in the gym heard, "you try any of that showboat (stuff) in my arena, and I'll toss your (behind) out of here, no matter who you are or what your record is!"

The legend of "Three-fingers" Elliot - master of the Florida leagues was cemented in Texas right then and there and gave a young player the chance to get his career back on track (the fact that Rufus couldn't remember how he did that night leads me to suspect poorly - but I found Mr. Elliot to be equally cagey about his own, considerable, career that followed).

Of course the irony here is that the charming compartmentalized (and I mean by territory, not race) leagues that allowed players to try and reinvent themselves in other parts of the country has been all but eliminated by national (and international) media - of which I've been some part. But I've always thought that particular story contains several important morals about the real heart of this fine sport, and the great women and men who have been called to her service.

[M i/a ster Brilliant]

Wow! Gentlemen, these recollections are truly stunning! And, I must confess, dispiriting to me on a personal level. After all, in my duties as E.D. of Historical Affairs, I should already know most all of this? What have I been doing this whole time? Clearly, I have not been doing the job for which I am paid (or, rather, will be as all my checks to date have been post-dated to 2012 and I am under strict orders not to cash them until then). Also, it would seem that I have been neglecting an entire race in my chronicles of the history of our sport. Yes, I've documented thousands of years of Asian contribution, and I've worked every corner of the Indian continent, chasing tales of pre-Egyptian finger games, but I have been most disrespectful to the African-American players in North America by my ignorance of their very recent contributions.

I'm afraid I've no choice but to tender my resignation, effective immediately. Know that I will endeavor to atone for my disservice to the Society by focusing much of my time to the compilation of a complete oral history of the RPS Negro Leagues. When I have completed my work and presented it to the Society, I would be most grateful to take a non-paid position within Historical Affairs as a junior assistant to the new E.D., in the hopes that my experience will help smooth the transition for this person into a rather demanding position.