“I Think Chatham Should Realize We Were Somebodies”

Between 2015 and 2019, I was part of a university-community collaboration creating a website on a Black amateur baseball team from 1930s Chatham, Ontario, Canada, called the Chatham Coloured All-Stars. At a time when local sports were largely racially segregated, the All-Stars became the first Black team to win a provincial championship in a primarily white league. Decades later, the story of this team was mostly unknown outside Chatham. Our community partners, which included family members of the All-Stars and the local Black history society and museum, wanted to ensure this history highlighting athletic achievement and pride in the Black community as well as racism in 1930s southern Ontario was widely shared. This article focuses on the role of our partners in shaping the project's direction and the ways the museum used the website to engage members of the Black community, local schools, and the wider public.