‘Is that a hornet’s nest on your cap?’ Paying homage to Charlotte’s Negro League team

Negro League baseball teams of Charlotte’s past — with names like the Black Hornets and Pepsi-Cola Giants — were some of the most famous and successful on the East Coast of the United States.

Charlotte’s tradition of Black baseball dates to the 1880s. Some of the teams were filled by student baseball players from what is now Johnson C. Smith University.

“In the Negro Carolina League, the Black Hornets were a force to be reckoned with. They were real professionals,” Layton Revel, founder of the Center for Negro Baseball, told Observer reporter Mark Price in 2016.

Charlotte Knights throwback uniforms, Black history

Jackie Robinson Day — celebrated each April 15 — has become an annual celebration when professional baseball recognizes the impact and contributions of the man who broke the sport’s self-imposed color barrier.

On April 16, Charlotte also honored its Black baseball past, too.

The Charlotte Knights traded in their new blue and black pinstripes for the navy and white of the Charlotte Black Hornets, a Negro League Baseball team that was based in the city from the 1910s-50s. The Knights donned a vintage white uniform with a dark blue cap that features a hornet’s nest as the logo.

After coming across the Black Hornets throwback gear available on the Knights team website, I had to cop the hat, which I wear frequently, even during morning Zoom work meetings.

The cap sparked Charlotte Observer Managing Editor Taylor Batten to ask: “Is that a hornet’s nest on your cap?” I then when onto explain what it was and what the logo signified.

And that’s how this Retro Charlotte tale came to be.

This story was originally published May 10, 2023 at 11:05 AM.