Jerry Summers
The Atlanta Crackers were a minor league baseball team in the Southern Association (1901-1971 Double A) and International Association (1962-1965 Triple A). They had a fierce rivalry with the Joe Engel-owned Chattanooga Lookouts in the Southern Association and earned the nickname the “Yankees of the Minors.”
Famous former Cracker players include Hall of Fame shortstop Luke Appling of the Chicago White Sox, Billy Goodman of the Boston Red Sox who won the American League batting title, and Tim McCarver, St.
Louis Cardinal catcher from Memphis, Tennessee, and many others.
Famous play-by-play announcer Ernie Harvell called Cracker games on the radio from 1943-1949 and was traded to the Brooklyn Dodgers for a catcher, resulting in the only time an announcer has been traded for a player. (At least they got a better deal than Joe Engel who traded a shortstop for a turkey.)
However, the current political divisions on racial grounds and the various alleged origin of the name should start with the historical fact that as in several other cities, Atlanta’s local Negro League team was named after the local white league squad. The Atlanta Black Crackers joined the Negro Southern League in 1920 and existed until the early 1950s.
The team would also win the second half championship of the Negro American League in 1938.
Wikipedia contains an interesting article on the history of the team and from 1997 through at least 2016 the major league Atlanta Braves wore Black Cracker’s uniforms against similarly clad clubs from other league cities in regulation season play. Game worn uniform sales profits through auctions have been donated to the support of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.
The origin of the team’s name has not been without controversy. In author Tim Darnell’s historical book “The Crackers: Early Days of Atlanta Baseball” (Athens Georgia: Hill Street Press 2003) he concludes that the origins of the team’s name are known “but continues to cite several possibilities as to why this name was chosen.”
In the current racist atmosphere that often divides all segments of the American population here are a few:
(1) A derogatory term for a “white Southerner” that promotes racism;
(2) A term of pride by some white Southerners to indicate descendants from the original settlers of the South:
(3) A shortened version of the “Atlanta Firecrackers,” the earlier version of a minor league team in 1992 in the Southern Association;
(4) Plowboys who cracked the whip over animals as in “Georgia cracker”;
(5) Famous columnist, Lewis Grizzard, Jr. in one of his 25 best selling books published in 1990, commented in his innocence as a 10-year-old fan of the baseball team who thought that the team’s name arose from “saltine crackers” and claimed youthful ignorance of any divisive meaning and racial division.
Other more derogatory definitions have been applied to the word including a term of contempt for the “poor” or “mean whites,” particularly of Georgia or Florida.
Another alleged origin is that the term dates back to the American Revolution and is derived from “cracked corn” which was a staple food diet of the poor.
In reality another historical allegation is that because of the high price of slaves during the 1830s -1840s made it more monetarily practical to use a “cracker” on a dangerous job than a slave because if the latter got killed or prematurely injured the price to replace them could be expensive. If a cracker got injured or died, financially the planter would have been unaffected.
“Crackers” had low social status standards and despite their positions and rank in the communities they still believed that they were better than the African slaves.
Unfortunately, that conflict still today exists as demonstrated by the ongoing turmoil still created by self-serving groups and individuals in the public and private domain.
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Jerry Summers
(If you have additional information about one of Mr. Summers' articles or have suggestions or ideas about a future Chattanooga area historical piece, please contact Mr. Summers at jsummers@summersfirm.com)