[1] Throughout that time, she served as the team's business manager and fulfilled many of her husband's duties as treasurer of the Negro National League.

In 2006, she posthumously became the first (and, as of March 2024, only) woman inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, chosen by the Special Committee on Negro Leagues for her work as an executive.

[4] In 1916, she graduated from Penn Central High School, completing vocational training there in cooking, oral expression and sewing.

She remarked at how every salesgirl in the store was on hand to get a glimpse of this "old Negro man buying this young white girl a five-carat ring" and how she got a kick out of it.

Thanks to her rallying efforts, more than 185 VIPs—including New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, who threw out the first pitch, and Charles C. Lockwood, justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York—were on hand to watch the Eagles' inaugural game in 1935.

Manley was critical of Brooklyn Dodgers executive Branch Rickey, who signed Jackie Robinson to a minor league contract in 1945.

As part of her work for the Citizens' League for Fair Play, Manley organized a 1934 boycott of stores that refused to hire black salesclerks.

Manley was the treasurer of the Newark chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and often used Eagles games to promote civic causes.

The Booker T. Washington Community Hospital, which offered training for black doctors and nurses, opened due in a large part to money raised from the Newark Eagles.

They also raised money for Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World lodges, a major part of urban black social life.

In an exhibit honoring the Negro leagues at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, there is a banner given to the team by the Newark Student Camp Fund in recognition of their efforts to help the community.

Another example of the relationship Effa helped forge with the community was copying a practice of another team which allowed the city's youth to attend games for free.

[15] In 2010, her life was the subject of a children's book, She Loved Baseball: The Effa Manley Story, written by Audrey Vernick and illustrated by Don Tate.