Frank Hart (1856 – 1908) was an American athlete famous as the first

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

world record holder in the 19th century sport of

pedestrianism Pedestrianism was a 19th-century form of competitive walking, often professional and funded by wagering, from which the modern sport of racewalking developed. 18th- and early 19th-century Britain During the late eighteenth and nineteenth cen ...

. His most noted win was in an 1879

6 Day Race The 6-Day Race became a standard footrace distance in the 1870s and was a popular form of entertainment with up to 70,000 paying visitors during such a Pedestrians event. However the widespread use of the bicycle from 1890 caused it to be replaced ...

Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylva ...

where he covered 565 miles and won $21,567 in prize money (). Later in life Hart played briefly on segregated baseball teams. Though his legacy faded with the loss of interest in pedestrianism as a spectator sport, Hart remains one of the first nationally famous Black athletes in America.

Early life and rise to fame as a pedestrian

Born in 1856 as Fred Hichborn, Hart immigrated to

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

from

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

as a teenager and worked as a grocery store clerk before joining races to earn extra money. Frank Hart was chosen as his

stage name A stage name is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers—such as actors, comedians, singers, and musicians. Such professional aliases are adopted for a wide variety of reasons and they may be similar, or nearly identical, to an individu ...

, and he was variously also known as "The Negro Wonder" and "Black Dan", after his mentor and promoter Dan O'Leary. Hart competed in at least 63 six-day pedestrian races from 1879-1902, winning 16 of them. Hart was ultimately one of the first black sports celebrities in America. Frank Hart

The first black athlete depicted on a sports card, trading card or tobacco card, Hart appears in Thomas H. Hall’s Between the Acts & Bravo Cigarettes set (1880, N344), along with nine other pedestrians and two oarsmen.

Baseball career and later life

Hart later played shortstop and second base on Black baseball teams. In 1883, he was a member of the Boston Vendome Hotel B.B.C. team, and in 1883-1884, Hart played for Saratoga Spring's Leonidas B.B.C. According to ''The Negro Leagues Were Major Leagues: Historians Reappraise Black Baseball,'' "Henry Bridgewater recruited Hart for the St. Louis Black Stockings." While no statistics are currently available for his tenure on the team, in May 1884'', The Washington Bee'' reported that the “colored pedestrian plays shortstop for a colored baseball club known as the St. Louis Black Stockings.” Hart eventually signed with Chicago's Illinois Gordon B.B.C. In Hart’s obituary in 1908, the ''Cleveland Gazette'' noted, “Like many other sporting men, he was a big liver and a good spender,’’ reportedly living off “the charity of friends” for his final years.

References

1850s births 1908 deaths Year of birth uncertain 19th-century African-American people {{US-athletics-bio-stub

Early life and rise to fame as a pedestrian

Baseball career and later life

See also

References