Baseball as a whole served a unique purpose for the African American community. It served as a space for them to find leisure in a slave-owner society and eventually, with the formation of the Negro Leagues, became the largest black business in American history. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, the Great Migration of African Americans into the North and Midwestern regions provided newly freed slaves with the opportunities to find jobs. These individuals now had expendable income and leisure time, the perfect combination for what was regarded as independent ball to expand into an organized business - the Negro Leagues. An increasing racial awareness across the nation also drew in fans during expedition and barnstorming games, as black vs.
