The final BHM question of 2026: Who was the Black individual who forced the MN Twins to do away with their spring training segregation practices over six decades ago?
Through a series of memorandums from the Minnesota State Commission on Discrimination (SCAD) to the Minnesota Twins, who relocated to the Twin Cities from Washington, D.C. following the 1960 season, the nine-member state-appointed group headed by James McDonald requested the Major League Baseball club to stop using a segregated Florida hotel to house its Black players.
McDonald, who came to St. Paul in 1959 to work with that city’s Urban League and later became SCAD executive director, “outlined a plan to validate the charges of discrimination in Florida against the Twins’ colored players,” wrote Charles Betthauser in his history paper for the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (2007) titled, “Bigotry is Bad for Business: The Desegregation of Spring Training Camps in the Minnesota Twins Organization, 1960-1964.”
The team’s Black players at the time complained about the segregated spring training facilities to McDonald and others. McDonald in return was persistent in his efforts “to validate the charges of discrimination,” Betthauser pointed out regarding SCAD formally filing the discrimination complaint against the Twins.
It took a couple of years of McDonald and other local activists, including the Twin Cities NAACP, keeping up pressure on the local MLB club, which included a boycott of the team’s 1964 home opener at Bloomington’s Metropolitan Stadium. The team finally ended its spring training segregation practices as a result.
Four years later, after attending a study trip to Ghana, West Africa in the summer of 1968, James McDonald returned as Kwame McDonald (1931-2011), a renowned activist, educator, journalist, and mentor to youth and others.
The Twins several years ago installed a statue outside its present downtown Minneapolis ballpark honoring the late Sid Hartman, who covered the team. Yet there’s no recognition of what McDonald did to improve overall conditions for the team’s players, especially its Black and POC players, over six decades ago. His efforts to desegregate the Twins’ spring training facilities over the years have been largely overlooked.
That diversity question
During a January 30 Zoom conference with reporters, MSR once again brought up the issue of diversity on the Twins with Derek Falvey, who announced that day that he was leaving the team after nearly a decade in the front office. There were over 40 media members on the Jan. 30 Zoom, but only MSR asked him about diversity.
During his tenure, Falvey hired former Twins Torii Hunter and LaTroy Hawkins as special assistants in baseball operations. Hawkins this season will be the team’s bullpen coach, hired in November 2025 after nine years in his former role. Hunter left the organization following the 2023 season and joined the Los Angeles Angels in the same position.
“I can say I’m proud of the work we did,” said Falvey. “I hope that commitment will continue, and I have a strong belief that it will.”
MSR asked a similar question to Minnesota Twins Executive Chair Tom Pohlad:
“That commitment to diversity starts with my family,” affirmed Pohlad, whose family has owned the Twins since 1984, first by the late Carl Pohlad, then his three sons (Jim, Bill and Bob) who took over after their father’s death in 2009. Tom, Bill’s son, became executive chair in late 2025.
“I think the Twins have held that as a top priority,” said Tom.
Charles Hallman welcomes reader comments to challman@spokesman-recorder.com.