Martin Stadium

The Red Sox owned their ballpark, a rarity in the Negro leagues. Drs. J. B. and W. S. Martin took control in 1929 when Richard Lewis could not repay a loan secured by team and stadium, and B. B. Martin later joined them. The club sold Dan Bankhead to the Dodgers in 1947 for a reported $15,000; he pitched in the majors that August as the first Black pitcher of the modern era. When Bob Boyd went to the White Sox in 1950, W. S. Martin sued over the sale; it settled in 1951.

What the plaque says

Martin Stadium Martin Stadium, formerly known as Lewis Park, was home of one of the most enduring teams of the Negro Leagues — the Memphis Red Sox (1920s-1950s). During its era, the stadium was one of the few African-American-owned and operated ball parks in the country. Robert S. Lewis, Sr., one of the pioneers in Negro baseball, built the park at the corner of Iowa Avenue and Lauderdale Street. Lewis sold the park and Memphis Red Sox to W. S. Martin and his brothers in 1927. Before it was demolished in 1961, Martin Stadium also hosted African-American community events.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• 1866 Memphis Massacre Marker at Army Park — 0.9 mi
  A privately funded NAACP marker in a small downtown park, placed in 2016, that names the May 1866 attack on Black South Memphis as a massacre.
• Elmwood Cemetery — 0.9 mi
  Memphis's oldest active cemetery, a rural garden cemetery of about 1,500 trees opened in 1852, with Black civic leaders, yellow fever victims and the city's whole history in its lots.
• National Civil Rights Museum — 1.0 mi
  The Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was killed on April 4, 1968, kept as a museum of the civil rights movement from the nineteenth century to today.
• Stax Museum of American Soul Music — 1.0 mi
  A rebuilt Stax studio on the site of the old Capitol Theatre, with a replica of the sloped-floor Studio A, Isaac Hayes's Cadillac and the story of an integrated soul label.

More markers nearby

• Lucie Eddie Campbell — 0.2 mi
• Bishop Charles Harrison Mason — 0.3 mi
• People's Grocery — 0.5 mi
• Centenary United Methodist Church — 0.6 mi