I Was Born Poor, I Was Born Black, and I Was Born in Mississippi

In this groundbreaking study of the quintessential African American athlete of the Deep South, George "Boomer" Scott, born into Mississippi's racially turbulent Delta and the shameful Jim Crow period of his youth, manifests a tale of how this young black man navigated those periods of racial unrest - and they were numerous - with its ubiquitous inequities of racial segregation, its violence, and how he overcame these injustices rising to preeminence as an athlete in major league baseball joining, ironically, the Boston Red Sox, an organization whose history was grounded in racial transgressions. The nagging effect of racial non-acceptance remained prominent throughout his baseball years, and major league baseball would ultimately turn a blind eye to his ambitions, and the ambitions of others.

This is a story built around meticulous research over the course of innumerable years comprised of endless interviews with George Scott, his associates, coaches, managers, colleagues, ex-ballplayers, journalists, historians, and towns people, chronicling his life from a young age and the numerous challenges he confronted both on and off the playing field, with a focus on the racial elements and bigotries that filled his life, and black teammates, and which followed him into major league baseball.