George Sweatt

In a six-year period, Walter Johnson (1887) and George Sweatt (1893) were born in Humboldt. Sweatt worked at the Monarch Cement plant in Humboldt and played baseball with the Iola Go-Devils until he joined the U.S. Army’s all-black 816th Pioneer Infantry Division, which served in France in World War I. 

Following the war, Sweatt became the first African­American to letter in basketball, football and track at State Manual Training Normal School in Pittsburg (now Pittsburg State University). While in college, he began to play baseball for the Kansas City Monarchs. Still, he earned a teaching certificate in 1922 and would teach sixth grade and physical education at a segregated school in Coffeyville during the offseasons of his professional career. 

Sweatt played seven seasons in the Negro Leagues, starting in 1921. In 1926, he was traded to the Chicago American Giants. Splitting time between second and third base, Sweatt was one of only two players to appear in all four Negro World Series between the Negro National League and the Eastern Colored League – the first two with Kansas City and the second two with Chicago. 

Following the 1927 season, Sweatt was not offered a raise, so he elected to retire as a player and stay in Chicago, working for the U.S. Postal Service. From 1928-33, he spent his weekends managing the Chicago Giants. 

Sweatt retired from the postal service in 1957 and lived in the Chicago area until the later years of his life, when he moved to Los Angeles to be with his son. He died in 1983. 

In 1999, the Johnson-Sweatt Classic baseball tournament began in Humboldt and the George A. Sweatt Park was dedicated in his memory.