Norman Blackwell, building a legacy of service in Oak Park

(FOX40.COM) — After more than 80 years of living in Oak Park, Norman Blackwell has built a legacy of service in his neighborhood.

“When you’ve called the same place home for most of your 90 years, that place is you and you are that place. It’s your history and it’s yours,” Blackwell said in early 2024.

He arrived in Oak Park as a boy after moving with his family from his birthplace in Santa Monica.

As he and his family moved into one of Sacramento’s first suburbs, the lack of diversity was evident.

“Well this is back in the 40s and 50s,” Blackwell said. “Oak Park was not what you call a diverse group here. Then, it was only a few African Americans living here in my area.”

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Growing from a boy to a young man, Blackwell would discover one of his true passions in life: baseball.

America’s pastime would provide this young African American man, living in a predominantly white neighborhood, the clarity in life he was looking for.

“Playing ball was just fun to me,” Blackwell said. “I didn’t realize I was that good.”

However, a crippled economy and the newly constructed Highway 99 that physically divided the neighborhood would cause many Oak Park residents to leave.

Blackwell marks this time as the beginning of Oak Park’s decline as realtors pushed to fill homes with Black families looking to make a life in Sacramento.

With an increased African American population now living in Oak Park, Blackwell watched as the city began neglecting the once well-kept neighborhood.

While in high school, Blackwell received what appeared to be the offer of a lifetime as he was offered an opportunity to play professional baseball with the St. Louis Cardinals.

He rejected it after getting a warning about the hostile environment he would most likely be stepping into at the team’s training camp in the more racist South.

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A white friend of the family said to him, “If you went down to Savannah, Georgia and performed like you do, they could hang you or even shoot you.”

Deciding to stay in Sacramento, Blackwell took a plane wheel maintenance job at Mather Air Force Base.

He would also begin growing of family of his own, eventually having 13 children.

Race would once again become a hurdle as he and his wife looked to buy a home in Oak Park and were held back by redlining practices.

Redlining was a real estate practice designed to keep African Americans out of certain areas.

A white friend of Blackwell’s would cut a deal with his brother-in-law to help secure the family home in their beloved Oak Park.

“Then the friend sold the house to them. They lived here for a while and then they sold the house to me,” he said.

Now that Blackwell had once again established firm roots in Oak Park it was time for him to find his purpose, and that’s when baseball came back into his life.

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Over the next several decades, he would invest in the youth of Oak Park by coaching little-leaguers, the semi-pro Peacemakers and currently the Senior Softball USA team, the Sacramento Gold.

Today, Blackwell’s Oak Park home is filled with shelves covered in silver and gold trophies from his lifetime career on the diamond.

His service to Oak Park did not stop at the dugout, because for the last 40 years, he has been providing food to those in need from his driveway on 8th Avenue.

It all got started when someone shared items from their church with his kids and he decided he should secure food for others who needed more help than he did.

“And then people started coming from all over…Roseville, Granite Bay families,” he said.

There may not be a trophy for this specific win, but without a doubt, people recognize all he’s achieved.

City of Refuge Co-Founder Rachelle Ditmore said that there is no Oak Park without the Blackwell family.

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“So the Blackwells you know, they’ve been hitting a home run for Oak Park since time began,” Ditmore said. “And they’ve marked this community and we are just so incredibly grateful for the way that they continue to feed and nourish and remind us all to keep on running and not lose hope.”

Norman Blackwell does his food distribution on Wednesdays and is always looking for groups with excess items that he can gift to those in need.

When it comes to baseball, he’s had seven players go professional out of his system, two of them his sons.

He sent Orlando to play with the San Francisco Giants and Juan to New York to play for the Yankees.

His own new season on the field with the Sacramento Gold starts in March.

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