1934: The Chatham Coloured All-Stars’ Barrier-Breaking Year, by Heidi LM Jacobs (Biblioasis, 2023) is the winning entry for the 2024 Speaker’s Book Award. The Honourable Ted Arnott, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, made the announcement at a ceremony at the Legislative Building, Queen’s Park, on November 4th, 2024.

The pride of Chatham’s East End, the Coloured All-Stars broke the colour barrier in baseball more than a decade before Jackie Robinson did the same in the Major Leagues. Fielding a team of the best Black baseball players from across southwestern Ontario and Michigan, theirs is a story that could only have happened in this particular time and place: during the depths of the Great Depression, in a small industrial town a short distance from the American border, home to one of the most vibrant Black communities in Canada. Drawing heavily on scrapbooks, newspaper accounts, and oral histories from members of the team and their families, 1934: The Chatham Coloured All-Stars’ Barrier-Breaking Year shines a light on a largely overlooked chapter of Black baseball. 

Winning books are available for sale at the Legislative Gift Shop and featured in the Legislative Library.