Walter "Red" Barber

Barber left Columbus at ten, when his family moved to Sanford, Florida, in 1918. In 1947 he was the first person outside the Dodgers' board told that Brooklyn would sign Jackie Robinson; he thought about quitting, then stayed and became a strong supporter of Robinson and other Black players. After the 1966 season the Yankees dropped him, a week after a game that drew a reported 413 fans. Beginning in 1981 he chatted every Friday on NPR's Morning Edition with Bob Edwards. He won the Frick Award in 1978 and died in Tallahassee in 1992.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tennessee Williams Welcome Center — 0.5 mi
  The 1875 Episcopal rectory where Tennessee Williams was born in 1911, moved to Main Street in the 1990s and now Columbus's welcome center and a National Literary Landmark.
• Waverley Mansion — 6.7 mi
  A National Historic Landmark mansion above the Tombigbee River, home of a plantation family that enslaved more than a hundred people, left empty for half a century before a family restored it.
• Howlin' Wolf Memorial and Blues Trail Marker — 15 mi
  A Mississippi Blues Trail marker and granite memorial on East Broad Street honoring Chester Burnett, who was born nearby in 1910 and became the Chicago blues giant Howlin' Wolf.
• Sam D. Hamilton Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge — 26 mi
  A 48,000-acre refuge of bottomland forest and lakes in Noxubee, Oktibbeha and Winston counties, rebuilt from worn-out farmland, with red-cockaded woodpeckers, alligators and winter eagles.

More markers nearby

• S. D. Lee Home — steps away
• Joshua Lawrence Meador — steps away
• Missionary Union Baptist Church — 0.3 mi
• Franklin Academy — 0.3 mi