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Last Update: 6/21/04

By Maureen Jenkins

CHICAGO -- When The Negro League Cafe opens its doors on Chicago's South Side next month, owner Don Curry hopes to do more than serve upscale soul food to patrons in search of the next hot spot. He promises to shed light on a colorful chapter in black history, a chapter that celebrates baseball pioneers who not only played a sport but helped rewrite the rules of the game.

That's why, says Curry, the restaurant's motto is "Enjoy the food, digest the history."

After all, without the Satchel Paiges and Minnie Minosos of the Negro Leagues paving the way -- and Jackie Robinson shattering the color barrier in 1947 -- there likely wouldn't be multi-millionaire Derek Jeters and Sammy Sosas ruling Major League Baseball today.

Yet this history, Curry told BlackAmericaWeb.com, "hasn't truly been celebrated by the masses, just straight up and in-your-face. This is what the business represents."

"We certainly applaud Curry for his effort to do such an innovative and entrepreneurial project that is in the spirit of Negro League Baseball -- creating opportunities and supporting black businesses," said Bob Kendrick, director of marketing for the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo. He noted that Friday is the league's 84th anniversary.

The restaurant will be housed at the corner of 43rd Street and Prairie Avenue in Bronzeville, a storied neighborhood in Chicago's "Black Metropolis" past. It's a community where Louis Armstrong once lit up the stage, where music pioneer Thomas A. Dorsey sowed the seeds of gospel, where activist Ida B. Wells took her stands. And it's now touched on all sides by gentrification, as affluent blacks and others are snatching up soon-to-be prime property at relative bargain rates.

New residential construction is rising where garbage-strewn vacant lots once stood. And businesses, encouraged by the neighborhood's proximity to Lake Michigan and downtown, are starting to put down roots. Curry wants The Negro League Cafe to be part of the Bronzeville renaissance, hoping the full-service restaurant will draw "historians, baseball fans, just anybody who has an overall love of food," he said.

The 34-year-old dreamed of opening such a place since July 1996, when he attended a Chicago White Sox game featuring a "Negro League Hat Day" promotion. A chance airplane encounter with Negro Leagues Baseball Museum Board Chairman Buck O'Neil confirmed it.

So putting his accounting and taxation degrees -- and years of experience as a corporate tax analyst -- to work, Curry began crafting a solid business plan that would launch the eatery. The Chicago native scouted locations, talked to bankers, and solicited input from actual Negro League veterans.

In fact, said Curry, former players who live in the Chicago area will play a starring role at the cafe. They'll serve as hosts, make public appearances, and Curry hopes, will swing by the restaurant to pitch a little baseball history to patrons.

"I figured I'd do something that benefits them," says Curry. "I'm putting something back in their pockets by them giving me two or three hours. And then the community's (pockets), as well."

Curry hopes to serve as a young role model for folks in the neighborhood, employing some as servers and cooks.

The cafe will feature upscale, Caribbean-tinged soul food, as Negro League teams often played in Cuba and the Dominican Republic during the winter months. Dishes such as chili-roasted Cornish Hen with orange red pepper salsa and jerk seasoned ribeye steak with sauteed yellow plantains are on the starting lineup of executive chef Rhamell Moore's specially created menu.

Also integral to the restaurant's theme: vibrant artwork from New York state artists John D. Wolfe and son John A. Wolfe that celebrates life in the Negro Leagues and the players who lived it.

One such pioneer is 73-year-old Johnny Washington Sr., a former player with the Chicago American Giants and Houston Eagles before being called up to the majors by the Boston Red Sox in 1959. He tells stories of Negro League players having to change into their uniforms on buses, as they couldn't use locker rooms at white stadiums.

Washington recalled his teams outdrawing and outplaying white major league squads during the Negro Leagues' heyday. This left-hand legend is frequently invited to speak at Chicago-area elementary and high schools -- but more often than not, he says, these schools are white.

The Negro League Cafe is especially relevant, he said, "because blacks don't know us, but whites do." Even when he contacts black schools, he finds teachers and administrators unfamiliar with Negro League history.

"And it's not their fault," said Washington, "because our leaders have not exploited us. It's the same thing with the Tuskegee Airmen. Our leaders don't explore our history." But he believes The Negro League Cafe can go a long way in setting the record straight.

To help spread the word, Curry is planning grand opening activities during the week of April 4, coinciding with the start of the Major League Baseball season. He hopes to host elementary students from the nearby Jackie R. Robinson School, introducing them to other black baseball giants. He plans to host a "friendly forum" on why more whites than blacks are Negro League enthusiasts, wondering whether this sport's history will go the way of jazz and blues.

Down the line, Curry envisions Negro League Cafes in other cities that had black teams such as Detroit and Atlanta. He hopes to encourage black folks to move beyond being mere consumers and into the ranks of entrepreneurs.

"If someone else sees me do it, they're inspired," he said. "All it takes is one business -- others will come in. Somebody's got to take that chance."

For more information, go to www.thenegroleaguecafe.info