The first two weeks of summer school, enrichment groups at Cumberland Middle School and Cumberland High School collaboratively created the first installment of a multipart story map series detailing the significance of James Jenkins and local “Negro League” baseball. For the entire story map that includes additional sources and works cited, please visit https://arcg.is/19q1Hv5.
James E. “Pee Wee” Jenkins Jr. was born in Hampden-Sydney, Virginia, on March 15, 1923. Jenkins was called into military service during World War II. After his service, he played for three Negro League teams: the New York Cubans, the Birmingham Black Barons, and the Indianapolis Clowns. The Indianapolis Clowns were known for their trick plays, entertaining performances, and for signing Toni Stone, the first female player to compete in a professional men’s league. They were the last Negro League team to cease operations, continuing to barnstorm until 1989. Barnstorming refers to when teams traveled from town to town to play exhibition games.
The Indianapolis Clowns returned on February 27, 2026, as a team in the Banana Ball Championship League. Their best-known current players are Jackie Bradley Jr. and Mo’ne Davis. Bradley, a former Boston Red Sox outfielder from Richmond, was named the American League Championship Series Most Valuable Player and won a World Series in 2018. Mo’ne Davis is best known for her performance in the 2014 Little League World Series. At age thirteen, she became the first girl to earn a winning decision and pitch a shutout in the tournament. She played softball at Hampton University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from the HBCU. She then earned her master’s degree in sports management at Columbia University.
Chris Burgess, the current catcher for the Indianapolis Clowns, has roots in Cumberland County. His mother, Brenda Lipscomb Burgess, played softball for Cumberland High School. In 1972, she and Patricia Scales served as co-captains. Both attended CHS before schools were fully integrated and helped to integrate Cumberland County Public Schools. Scales became the first female African American commonwealth’s attorney for Cumberland County. Brenda Lipscomb Burgess’s brothers, Wayne and Sylvester Lipscomb, were on the CHS baseball team and participated in other sports. Brenda Lipscomb’s sisters were also athletically active. Her older sister, Gwendolyn Lipscomb Hairston, was one of the first ten African American students to integrate CHS in 1966 and was a member of the softball team. Her younger sister, Michelle Lipscomb, was a multi-sport athlete, playing on the basketball and track teams. In a 2021 Eutaw Street Report post, Chris Burgess credited his mother for his success. “That play style came from my mother,” Burgess said. “That’s how she played back in the day, and also how her dad and uncles played when they played Negro Baseball with the Cumberland Sluggers in Virginia. Ever since I realized that this is what I wanted to do in life, baseball was more than a game to me.” The Cumberland Sluggers were a weekend “Negro League” team established during the Jim Crow era. Jim Crow laws segregated every aspect of society in Virginia. The Lipscomb family operated the team.
James F. Lipscomb, the family patriarch, was born a free African American before the Civil War. After the war, he became the first African American from Cumberland County elected to the House of Delegates. He voted to establish public schools and to ratify the 14th and 15th amendments to the United States Constitution. In 1870, he purchased his first property, and over the next two decades, he acquired more than five hundred acres of land. On his property, he opened a general store. James Lipscomb’s grandson, John F. Lipscomb, continued to operate the general store. John Lipscomb played football at Virginia State, was drafted into the Army during World War I, and taught at the Green Creek #5 School. He had the Cumberland Sluggers field built on Lipscomb property. The field was considered “one of the more impressive setups … complete with a fenced-in perimeter, dugouts, and a grandstand” (Howard 47). Additionally, the field was situated on a section of the Battle of Cumberland Church battlefield. General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House two days after this battle.
Cumberland Sluggers team photo. Courtesy of Michelle Lipscomb Brown.
John F. Lipscomb’s sons, Claud H. Lipscomb, Garland H. Lipscomb, and William “Billy” Lipscomb all played for the Cumberland Sluggers. Claud Lipscomb, an Air Force veteran, was a pitcher and the manager for the Cumberland Sluggers. In 1952, he tried out for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Later, he became the first African American appointed to serve on the Cumberland County Planning Commission. Billy Lipscomb enlisted in the US Army, served as the head custodian for Prince William County Schools for 30 years, and tried out with the St. Louis Cardinals. Garland Lipscomb later moved to Pennsylvania, was the first African American appointed a “State Soil Scientist” in the United States.
George “Pop” Reid played for the Sluggers for 30 years. The World War II veteran, known for hitting long home runs, was the first African American Cumberland County sheriff’s deputy. In an interview before his passing, Reid recalled, “Cumberland played everybody everywhere that had a good team, and we won” (Howard 49).
Most communities in Virginia had segregated teams. The Cumberland Sluggers played against teams from Camp (Fort) Pickett, Petersburg, Crewe, Waverly, Victoria, Blackstone, Farmville and Sturgonville. The Sluggers also traveled to Maryland, Washington DC, West Virginia and New Jersey to play baseball. The Buckingham Grays were the Sluggers’ biggest rival. Buckingham County historian Charles White Sr. mentioned, “If the Grays were playing against Cumberland, it was like a World Series game” (Howard 49). The Sluggers operated for roughly thirty years, playing games until the 1960s.
After Jackie Robinson “broke the color barrier” in 1947, many Negro League teams ceased operations rapidly. With the exception of the Indianapolis Clowns, the remaining Negro League teams folded by the early 1960s. Only a small number of the Negro League’s best players had the opportunity to play in the Major Leagues, as major league teams established unofficial quotas on African American players. James Jenkins and many other African American players finished their careers in the independent minor leagues of the Northern United States and Canada. In 1951, Jenkins played with Three Rivers in the Quebec Provincial League. He spent his final seasons in the Manitoba Dakota League, playing for Winnipeg and Brandon. His last team was likely the Indianapolis Clowns, who faced the Jackie Robinson All-Stars during a 1953 post-season barnstorming tour. The Jackie Robinson All-Stars, established by Jackie Robinson, were an integrated baseball team featuring both minor and major league players. In one of Jenkins’ final games, he pitched a complete game and allowed only four hits to the Jackie Robinson All-Stars.
