Chanté Adams first stole our hearts playing hip hop icon Roxanne Shanté in the 2017 Netflix film Roxanne, Roxanne. In subsequent roles in The Photograph and the Denzel Washington-directed A Journal For Jordan, opposite Michael B. Jordan, she’s more than done her thing. And in the Amazon Prime Video series, A League of Their Own, she doesn’t disappoint.

Taking its cues from the original released 30 years ago in 1992, A League of Their Own revolves around a women’s professional baseball league and the teammates'struggles in pursuing their dreams, personally and professionally. But the series doesn’t sugarcoat the times. Like Major League Baseball during Jim Crow, women’s professional baseball was also white-only. So much so that in the film, a Black woman is seen only for the few seconds she is challenged to pitch. In the series, Adams’ Maxine “Max” Chapman has a full storyline. 

“Max is a very driven and passionate individual,” the Detroit-native tells EBONY. “She eats, sleeps and breathes baseball. And the most important thing in her life is being a pitcher and eventually finding her team. And she's a person that's going to stop at nothing to make sure that dream comes true. She's also battling what it is to be a queer individual and hiding that from everyone that she loves.” 

To capture the essence of Max, especially in that era, Adams says she did “a lot of research regarding the time period about women playing baseball.” She also reports that Max is based off of three Black women—Toni Stone, Mamie Johnson and Connie Morgan. "All three of them played in the Negro Leagues during the same era that the All-American Girls [Professional Baseball] League was alive and well,” she shares.

Unlike many TV stories depicting that era, particularly with a largely white cast, Max is not the lone Black person. Instead, her community sets her apart. She has a loyal best friend in Ghemisola Ikumelo’s Clance Morgan, who is married and is a gifted comic book artist/creator. Her mother Toni (played by Saidah Arrika Ekulona), with whom she is often at odds over her devotion to baseball and other life choices, is a successful entrepreneur who owns a beauty salon. And her father, Edgar( portrayed by Alex Désert) who is very loving, wholeheartedly supports her big dreams of being a pitcher.

Fully representing Max and the Black community around her was a priority, Adams shares. “I wasn't going into a story that was focused and centered on Black trauma, which I think is a very easy trope to fall into when doing a piece in this era, especially one that's about a Black woman who is queer,” she explains. “I knew that I did not want to be a part of something that can be considered trauma porn. 

“I was really happy to know that we were prioritizing showcasing Black joy and what that was in Black friendship and Black love. I think it’s really beautiful [that] Max comes from a two-parent household with two parents that are in love and live in a beautiful, gorgeous home and they are business owners and they're affluent community members and church leaders. We really wanted to make sure that if we were going to display the Black community, we were going to do it in a very authentic way. But we were also going to do it where, when Black people watch this show, they can be proud of what they see.”

Through Max’s trans uncle Bernie, A League of Their Own also offers a glimpse into the Black queer community of that time. “If we were going to show queer life in this era, we may need it to make sure we were doing it on all fronts,” she says. “So [while] white women had a bar they could go to even though it was still very hidden, Black people had a house party. And it was just as fun and just as common. Those were the queer utopias from both sides.”

Despite being still relatively new in the industry, Adams, who recently made her Broadway debut alongside one of her idols Phylicia Rashad (who won a Tony for her role) in fellow Cass Tech alum Dominique Morisseau’s Skeleton Crew,shares that she puts a lot of thought in the roles she takes for personal, professional and communal reasons. 

“I try to be intentional,” she says. “I want to be able to paint a lot of different pictures and use a lot of different colors [especially] as I'm telling stories about our community that are centered around Black female voices.”

In recognition of her efforts, Adams was recently celebrated I her hometown, along with Morisseau and others who have come from Detroit and impacted Broadway. It’s an honor she says that means everything to her.  “I carry my city with me everywhere I go. I'm a Detroit girl through and through and I want to make sure that my city feels represented by me and is proud of me and my career.”

Playing Max has left a lasting impression, she says. “Max has inspired me to continue to fight for what I love and to not give up,” Adams shares. “[She] was always going to find a way to play ball and live her dream. And I want to continue to take that spirit with me as I move on to the next projects.”

Ronda Racha Penrice is the author of Black American History For Dummies and editor of Cracking The Wire During Black Lives Matter.