An event to celebrate the launch of the website, Breaking the Colour Barrier: Wilfred ‘Boomer’ Harding and the Chatham Coloured All Stars, will be held on Thursday, October 19, from 4 to 6 p.m. in Katzman Lounge, Vanier Hall.

Breaking the Colour Barrier is part of a larger project digitizing the career of Wilfred (Boomer) Harding, a pioneering multi-sport athlete who broke multiple racial barriers in the early 20th century.

The website, http://cdigs.uwindsor.ca/BreakingColourBarrier/, tells the story of the Chatham, Ontario, baseball team which in 1934 became the first Black team to win a provincial Ontario Baseball Amateur Association championship. It features new oral histories with All-Stars players’ families, provides documents that illustrate the team’s story, and recognizes Harding’s unique role in Canadian sports history.

The first phase of Breaking the Colour Barrier involved collecting oral histories from family and friends of the players, newspaper documentation of the 1934 season, artifacts about the team, developing teaching materials for kindergarten to grade 12 classes, as well as a traveling storyboard exhibit. The website is intended to bring the Boomer Harding story to an even wider audience.

The project is a joint initiative among the Harding family, the Chatham Sports Hall of Fame, and the University of Windsor, funded by the Ontario Trillium Foundation.