Charlie Grant

…contract of African American player Charlie Grant from the Negro league Columbia Giants. Because of the segregation that existed in baseball, McGraw tried to pass Grant off as a Cherokee Indian. The ruse was unsuccessful, and the colour bar would not be breached until Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson in…

…a Black second baseman named Charlie Grant by saying that he was a Native American named Tokohama, a member of the Cherokee tribe. The effort failed when rivals correctly identified Grant instead as a member of the Chicago Columbia Giants, a Black team. Five years later there was an aborted…