Earlier this week, local Canadian author and University of Windsor Librarian Heidi L.M. Jacobs was awarded the 2024 Speaker’s Book Award for her non-fiction work 1934: The Chatham Coloured All-Stars’ Barrier-Breaking Year, published by the Windsor-based literary press, Biblioasis.

The Honourable Ted Arnott, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, announced the winner Monday evening during a ceremony at Queen’s Park in Toronto, ON.

1934 explores the true story of the first black team to win an Ontario Baseball Amateur Association championship, the Chatham Coloured All-Stars.

A decade before Jackie Robinson broke the colour barrier in the Major Leagues, the book not only highlights the team’s historic season but uncovers an important chapter in the history of Black baseball players fighting for their place.

In 1934, this all-Black team of players from southwestern Ontario and Michigan, achieved remarkable success during the Great Depression in Chatham, a vibrant Black community near the U.S. border.

“Heidi Jacobs’ work is not only a point of pride for Southwestern Ontario but is an essential part of Ontario’s literary history,” says Andrew Dowie, Member of Provincial Parliament for Windsor—Tecumseh. 

“I was beaming with hometown pride at the Speaker’s Book Awards when 1934: The Chatham Coloured All-Stars’ Barrier-Breaking Year was announced and give my sincere congratulations to Ms. Jacobs for her incredible contribution to Ontario’s literary arts.”

Jacobs has written 2 previous books, including the novel Molly of the Mall: Literary Lass and Purveyor of Fine Footwear (NeWest Press, 2019), which won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour in 2020, and 100 Miles of Baseball: Fifty Games, One Summer (with Dale Jacobs, Biblioasis, 2021).

Jacobs works as a librarian at the University of Windsor to help students, faculty and members of the community share their research through digital outreach.

In her work, she’s developed a special interest and passion for issues surrounding access and preservation of information.

Her most recent projects including Breaking the Colour Barrier: Wilfred “Boomer” Harding and the Chatham Coloured All-Stars (1932-1939), The North Was Our Canaan: Exploring Sandwich Town’s Underground Railroad History, and We Were Here: Documenting Windsor’s McDougall Street Corridor, tell important stories of the area’s rich black history.

“All of us at Biblioasis are very happy for Heidi Jacobs, and thankful that her wonderful book, 1934: The Chatham Coloured All-Stars’ Barrier-Breaking Year has been selected for the 2024 Speaker’s Book Award,” said Biblioasis Publisher Dan Wells.

“Heidi put a tremendous amount of herself into this book, approaching her subject with care and diligence, love and respect, and it shows on every page of this book.  And for me, as a Chathamite who would often find a couple of the men who played on this team gathered around my grandfather’s kitchen table when I was a boy, being able to work with Heidi on this book, and give these heroic men just a little bit of their due, meant a great deal.  Now, let’s get the Chatham Coloured All-Stars where they belong: in The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame!”