Children’s Book Hits its Own Home Run By Judith Kelliher


IN 2010, Springfield College School of Human Services Professor Richard Andersen learned from a former student about a monument that honored the heroic acts of local teenage baseball players who set aside their dream of potentially making it to the national tournament in 1934 and instead took a stand against racism. The monument in


Springfield College Professor of Human Services Richard Andersen poses with young attendees of an exhibit of the art from his children’s book, A Home Run for Bunny


Springfield’s Forest Park celebrates the American Legion Post 21 junior team’s decision to leave the Eastern Regional tournament in Gastonia, N.C., after Ernest “Bunny” Taliaferro, the lone African-American on the team, was banned by tourna- ment officials from playing because of the color of his skin. Andersen, 67, a soft-spoken and


well-respected teacher of human services at the College since 1996, knew instantly that the story of Taliaferro and his 14- to 16-year-old teammates would make a powerful children’s book. A Home Run for Bunny, published in 2013, is Andersen’s first book for children and was illustrated by artist Gerald Purnell. An exhibit featuring Purnell’s illus-


trations as well as a book signing for Andersen took place in February at the College’s William Blizard Gallery. Hundreds of people attended and had a chance to meet Andersen, Purnell, and Tony King, the only surviving member of the 1934 team. Taliaferro passed away in 1967. Andersen describes his book as a


story of ordinary people taking an extraordinary stand. “The message for young people is


that everyone can be a hero at any age. We can all say ‘no, I am not going to participate in any behavior that discriminates against another human being,’” he said. “I want it to teach children that they should not do anything that devalues or dehumanizes someone else.”


Tony King, the captain of the 1934 American Legion Post 21 team, and its lone survivor


TRIANGLE 1 Vol . 85, No. 2 In preparing to write the book,


the Montague, Mass., resident spent many hours poring over local newspaper accounts of the events of 1934 when the American Legion all-star team from Springfield traveled to Gastonia to play in the tourna- ment. What Andersen learned about the team’s time there both disheartened—and encouraged—him. When the team took to the


practice field, more than 2,000 people who had learned there was an African-American on the Post 21 team, showed up to jeer, throw food and bottles at the players, and intimidate them, Andersen said. “They were told if they took the field that the people would tear


the shirts off their backs. And that the Ku Klux Klan would kidnap them in the middle of the night and their parents would never hear from them again,” Andersen said. “What I am amazed at is the heroic acts of these kids were performed under these incredible circumstances.” King, the team’s


captain and now 96, was the first player to take a stand and say he would not play if Taliaferro was not allowed to participate. His teammates followed suit and voted unanimously to forgo playing in the tournament. By taking a stand


against discrimination on a smaller scale for their teammate, the players stood firm on a larger scale in the struggle for racial equality, said Andersen, whose novel about the Post 21 team titled, We Called Him Bunny, was published this spring. While attending the art exhibit, King, a resident of Holyoke, signed


copies of the book, spoke to attendees, and talked about the team’s position on events in Gastonia. “We were just 14- and 16-year-old kids and it was our first time


away from home and we were scared,” King said. “But we knew we had to stand up for Bunny. It wouldn’t have been right to play


continued on page 40 21


Gerald Purnell, illustrator of A Home Run for Bunny, signs a copy of the book for Travis Cooley, a student from the Springfield College School of Human Services.


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