Jackie Robinson

"Jackie Robinson was a sitter inner before sit-ins, a freedom rider before freedom rides." 

(Martin Luther King Jr.)

Pitchers threw at his head.  Runners tried to spike him.  Players taunted him.  Fans issued death threats.  The Brooklyn Dodgers Jackie Robinson, despite all of the abuse, turned the other cheek.  It was through his talent on the baseball field, rather than through fighting back, that he earned the respect of the nation.  

Jackie Robinson at UCLA courtesy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Robinson#Minor_leagues.

Born in rural Georgia and raised in Pasadena, California, Jackie Robinson faced adversity at an early age when his father walked out on his family.  Robinson excelled as an athlete, lettering in four sports at the U.C.L.A.  He joined the Army where he even learned how to box.  It was during his Army stint that he was reprimanded for sitting beside a white person on a bus.  It would be the first of many reprimands.

Jackie Robinson in the U.S. Army courtesy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Robinson#/media/File:Jackie_Robinson_military.jpg.

Brooklyn Dodgers coach Branch Rickey saw promise in Jackie Robinson.  He asked him to sign with his farm team, the Montreal Royals.  He had one question for the athlete:  "Did he have the guts?"  Jackie immediately said yes.  Mr. Rickey qualified the question:  "Did he have the guts not to fight back?"  Jackie promised to keep his temper in check.

Jackie Robinson playing for the Montreal Royals courtesy 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Robinson#Minor_leagues.

In 1947, Jackie broke the colour barrier in major league baseball when he played his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers.  It was a historic occasion, but it was the first step in the process of integration.  Travelling with the team, Jackie was sometimes banned from the all white hotels.Some Dodgers voiced formal complaints about a black being on the team.  IN an era when Black sports reporters still sat in the stands rather than the press box, fans booed Jackie.  Some stadiums banned the baseball club they had a Black player on their team.  And Phillies player, and later manager, Ben Chapman called Jackie a "nigger" and told him to "Go back to the cotton fields."  The abuse was so volatile that it made headlines in the New York papers.  

Jackie Robinson poses with Ben Chapman circa 1947, a publicity stunt to prove that Chapman was not a racist courtesy http://seamheads.com/2013/04/20/ben-chapman-and-jackie-robinson/.

However, some individuals stood behind Jackie.  Mr. Rickey continued to support his newest player.  A black sports writer befriended Jackie and followed him from game to game, reporting on his success.  And Jackie's wife, Rachel, was always by his side, giving Jackie a stability that he never had when he was a little boy.  

The Robinsons on their wedding day circa 1946 courtesy http://munaluchibridal.com/throwback-thursdays-the-marriage-of-jackie-and-rachel-robinson-1940s-wedding-fashion/.

Jackie led the Dodgers to a World Series pennant in 1955 and retired two years later, to the disappointment of his loyal fans.  In a shocking twist, the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles shortly thereafter.  The times were changing.  

Brooklyn Dodgers win the World Series in 1955 courtesy http://lipulse.com/2015/10/02/celebrating-the-60th-anniversary-of-the-dodgers-world-series-win/.

Jackie worked as an executive at Chock Full of Nuts.  He became the voice of the civil rights movement.  He never hesitated to speak up about what was wrong with America.  He participated in the famous March on Washington where Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his I Have a Dream speech in 1963.  Jackie never had the chance to enjoy his retirement.  He succumbed to diabetes and heart disease at the young age of 53.

Jackie Robinson, with wife Rachel on the right and son David on the left, participates in the famous March on Washington in 1963 courtesy 

http://theundefeated.com/features/jackie-robinson-vs-malcolm-x/.

The Freedom Riders

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Attacked by a white mob when participating in the first Freedom Ride in 1961, James Peck lay on an operating table as a doctor closed a head wound 4 inches long.  In total, he required 50 stitches.  Once sewn up, James was asked by an Anniston, Alabama reporter if now that he was seriously injured, would he abandon the ride.  His response?  “I’ll be on the bus tomorrow for Montgomery.”

The first Freedom Ride bus left Washington D.C. on May 4, 1961 filled with 13 riders, 7 Black and 6 White.  Their aim was to ride through several Southern States as an integrated party.  They planned to arrive in New Orleans, Louisiana on May 17.  No incidents occurred in Virginia.  However, when the Greyhound bus reached South Carolina, one of its occupants, John Lewis, was attacked.  Arrests for alleged violations of the segregation laws took place in North Carolina, South Carolina and Mississippi.

                                

Map of Freedom Ride routes courtesy blogspot.com.

In Birmingham, the Klu Klux Klan planned an assault on the Freedom Riders, sanctioned by the local police who said they would give them 15 minutes to attack before they arrived.  On Mother’s Day Sunday, a white mob, some still wearing their church clothes, attacked the Greyhound bus, slashing the tires.  In fear, the bus driver put the petal to the metal, but the angry mob followed in hot pursuit in cars.  They chased the crippled bus which soon blew some tires and was forced to stop.  The mob firebombed the bus and then held the doors shut, trapping the Freedom Riders.  Either an exploding fuel tank or a trooper with a revolver forced the mob members to retreat, enabling the riders to make a hasty exit.  The mob still beat the riders, and if not for the arrival of a trooper with a revolver, would have likely lynched them.

Birmingham Bus Station courtesy crmvet.org.  Note the "Colored Waiting Room" sign, indicative of why the Freedom Riders were protesting.

Hospitalized, many of the Freedom Writers were refused care.  Hospital officials released then at 2:00 am, fearful of the mob assembling outside the hospital’s doors. 

President Kennedy saw the image of the burning bus on his television screen.  Knowing he must act, he put pressure on the Greyhound bus drivers to complete the ride.  They refused and therefore Kennedy offered them a police escort to which they said yes.  Driving down the Alabama freeway at 90 miles an hour, the riders remained safe with the Alabama State Highway Patrol at their side.  But they were abandoned by the escort at the Montgomery city limits.  An angry mob greeted them at the bus station, which started to beat the riders while the local police looked the other way.  Reporters and photographers were attacked first so there would be no evidence of the assault.  Ambulance drivers refused to transport the injured riders to the hospital; it was local black residents who rescued the wounded riders. 

media.npr.org

The freedom riders finally arrived at First Baptist Church in Montgomery where they were greeted by a crowd of 1500 people to honour their efforts.  Martin Luther King addressed the congregation along with Ralph Abernathy.  After the service, Dr. King was told that an angry white mob totalling 3000 was outside waiting to pounce on the parishioners.  Rocks flew through the stained glass windows.  Tear gas canisters were released.  Armed black taxi drivers arrived to rescue those inside.  However, fearful of more violence, Dr. King managed to talk the taxi drivers into leaving.  The National Guard arrived later and dispersed the angry mob. 

The second Freedom Ride bus to leave Washington D.C. in May, a Trailways vehicle, received a similar reception as it made its way through the Southern states.  In Birmingham, KKK members, along with police officers led by Commissioner Bull Connor, attacked the non-violent protesters using baseball bats, iron pipes and bicycle chains, leaving them semi-conscious.  This was where rider James Peck ended up with a four-inch gash on his head.  He was refused treatment at the first hospital he went to, but he was treated at the second one.  

                          

Klansmen attacking a Freedom Rider in May 1961 courtesy neh.gov.

In total, there were 60 Freedom Riders that participated that first summer.  More than three hundred arrests were made.  Many of the riders chose to stay in jail rather than post bail.  In groups, they sang freedom songs to help pass the time and boost morale.  One sheriff was so annoyed by their singing that he personally drove a group up to the Tennessee border.  Another group had their mattresses, sheets and toothbrushes confiscated.  But still they sang.

On September 22, 1961,  the I.C.C. outlawed segregation on Interstate Busses.  All "Whites Only" signs were ordered removed by November of that year.  

For more information, read:

1. Freedom Ride, James Peck, 1962.
2. Walking with the Wind:  A Memoir of the Movement, John Lewis, 1998.
3. Freedom Writers:  1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, Raymond Arsenault, 2011.

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The Greensboro Four

"It was February 1, 1960.  They didn't need menus.  Their order was simple.  A doughnut and coffee with cream on the side."*

Four black men from the local Agricultural & Technical College walked into a Woolworth's at 132 South Elm Street in Greensboro, North Carolina on February 1, 1960.  They headed for the "Whites Only" lunch counter, sat down on stools, placed their order, and then waited...and waited...and waited.  In fact, they sat on their lunch counter stools all day.  They studied, they did their homework and they waited in silence. 

News spread across town.  In time their numbers grew.  They returned on Day 2, twenty strong, prepared for another long wait.  Reporters started to cover the event, called a "sit-in".  The manager called the police but the police chief said that unless they protested violently, he could do nothing.  And so they sat.  All they wanted was a cup of coffee and a doughnut.

By Day 3, news had spread even further.  At 60 strong, the growing story was widely covered in the press.  When Whites approached the lunch counter, some refused to sit with them, some heckled them (KKK) and some joined the sit-in.  The protesters' numbers were so great that they had to start taking shifts to cover the day.  They did their school work.  They waited in silence.

By Day 4, their total reached 300.  "The times, they were a-changing" in North Carolina as other cities joined in:  Raleigh, Charlotte, Durham, and Winston-Salem.  Later, sit-ins were held in Richmond, Virginia and Nashville, Tennessee.  One report stated that some protesters even had food poured on them by rabble rousers.  But still they waited.

By February 7, the sit-ins totalled 54 in 15 different cities.  And still they waited.

Black organizations suggested a boycott of all stores with segregated lunch counters and many complied, sending Woolworth's sales plunging by a third.  Protests spread to lunch counters at Kress and Walgreen's. 

President Eisenhower made a speech announcing that he was "deeply sympathetic with efforts of any group to enjoy the rights of equality that they are guaranteed by the Constitution."  Yes, "times they were a-changing".

Finally, on July 25, 1960, the black employees at the Greensboro whites only lunch counter were served on the same stools that the Greensboro Four had sat on.  The following day, Woolworth's opened up the counter to all blacks and 300 were served that day.  The Greensboro Four, Joseph McNeil, Frank McCain, David Richmond and Ezell Blair Jr., finally got their cup of coffee and doughnut.

It would take another four years, but the Civil Rights Act was finally signed by President Johnson in 1964, thanks largely in part to the lunch counter sit-ins of 1960.

*Sit-In:  How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down (Andrea Davis Pinkney)

Cicero Race Riot

"Get out of Cicero and don't come back in town or you'll get a bullet through you."

(Chicago police officer to new tenant, Mr. Clark)

On July 11, 1951, a mob of 4,000 whites attacked a Chicago suburb apartment building where one black family had moved in.  When the fires burnt out, and the rubble was cleared away, 19 people were hurt and 117 arrested.

Mob of 4000 riots at Cicero apartment buildling courtesy originalpeople.org.

Mrs. DeRose, the landlord of a Cicero, Illinois apartment building, supposedly had a disagreement with some of her renters.  To get back at them, she rented out her unoccupied apartment to the first black family in the neighbourhood.  On June 8, police stopped a moving van with $2000 worth of furniture inside, which arrived at the apartment building.  The black family, the Clark's, were pulled aside by police and warned:  "Get out of here fast.  There will be no moving into this building."  Mr. Clark was hit eight times by police officers and warned:  "Get out of Cicero and don't come back in town or you'll get a bullet through you."

Harvey Clark and his wife circa 1951 courtesy https://plus.google.com/communities/113086078474409920236.

Mr. Clark, a World War II veteran, filed a lawsuit with the NAACP and tried to move into the Cicero apartment building again on June 26.  Some whites in the building stored their furniture and moved out.  Others plotted.  On the night of July 11, 4,000 whites gathered at the apartment building.  Twenty-one occupants fled to the rooftop.  The mob set to work destroying the building:  radiators were ripped from the wall; holes were punched through the plaster; windows were smashed, and furniture was set on fire.

Fires set at Cicero apartment building courtesy img.groundspeak.com.

For the first time in America's history, television crews were there to document what happened next. The police were called to the scene:  they could not do much given there were only 60 officers.  Their chief was supposedly "out of town".  Firefighters were called to the scene.  Asked by police to turn their fire hoses on the unruly mob, they refused.  Their fire chief was also "out of town".  The firemen were greeted by the protesters with a shower of bricks.

National Guard on front lawn of Cicero apartment building circa 1951 courtesy img.groundspeak.com.

Finally, the National Guard, armed with bayonets, rifle butts and tear gas, ended the riot the following day.  Damage was estimated at $20,000.  However, a Cook County jury did not charge the rioters.  Instead, they went after the NAACP lawyer and Mrs. DeRose.  But the charges did not stick. The apartment buildng was so severely damaged, all of the tenants, including the Clark's had to move out and the building was boarded up.

Boarded up apartment building courtesy img.groundspeak.com.

Note:  For more information, read As Long as They Don't Move Next Door (Hirsch).

*First published in 2014.

The Warmth of Other Suns

Why did 100 years elapse between the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and the American Civil Rights Act in 1964?  Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson’s book, The Warmth of Other Suns, sheds much light on this question.  Although black slaves were freed during the Civil War, it took another century for attitudes in the Deep South to change.  After a brief respite for blacks during Reconstruction, they were subjected to a more subtle form of slavery with the adoption of the Jim Crow laws.  “Separate, but equal” became the motto:  blacks ate in different restaurants, drank from different water fountains, borrowed books from different libraries, lived in different neighbourhoods, attended different schools, rode in separate railway cars, sat in a separate section of busses and earned different (lower) wages.

Although blacks were no longer “owned” by whites, they still had to answer to them in the South, sometimes paying with their life:  lynchings were a dangerously common occurrence for decades.  Whites dictated the wages blacks received as they performed the back-breaking work of cotton picking on the large plantations.  Any attempt to organize to demand higher wages was met with hostility by the sharecroppers.  Any attempt to speak out against Jim Crow laws was met with resistance:  one newspaper writer was locked up in an insane asylum; a man who belonged to the NAACP had a bomb go off under his bed on Christmas Day.  Any attempt to “mix” with white society, even a young black boy speaking to a white girl, could result in dire consequences:  one boy was tortured mercilessly. 

Blacks finally sought refuge in the North and West of the United States:  it was called The Great Migration and would last from 1917 until 1970.  Refugees purchased train tickets and, with a box full of chicken and sweet potatoes for the journey, said goodbye to their loved ones at railroad stations across the south, making their way to destinations like Washington D.C., New York City, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, etc.  In the later decades, some left by car, travelling across the Arizona desert to the ‘promised land” of California, settling in cities like San Diego, Oakland and Los Angeles. 

Those blacks who feared repercussions left in sneakier ways.  One man was stuffed in a box in the fetal position, put on a train and turned upside down, a position he held for 26 hours as he headed north to Washington DC where he was met at the station by a member of the NAACP.  The black newspaper reporter who was deemed insane and locked away in an asylum, managed to escape, with the help of Northerners, and was hustled away in a car, joined by a caravan of other cars; once the motorcade crossed the state line, the reporter found his way to a railroad station and purchased a ticket to freedom in the North. 

While the North and the West provided freedoms for blacks that they did not have in the South, it was not always the promised land that they had hoped for.  One farmer from Florida, who moved to New York City and became a railroad porter, remembers changing the cars at Washington D.C., as the train changed from an integrated to a segregated one.  Another central figure in the book leaves Mississippi for California, attempting to find a hotel in the desert, only to see VACANCY signs be turned off the second he arrived and requested a room.  One black couple moved to Chicago where they tried to get into the neighbourhood of Cicero, only to have their new apartment ransacked, and to see a riot ensue.  Cicero, a neighbourhood that had made room for immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, sadly had no room for black migrants.  One black boy accidentally crossed the invisible colour line in the water at a Lake Michigan beach and was drowned by whites.

While blacks in the Southern towns risked lynchings, black migrants to the Northern cities faced the vices of the streets like drugs, prostitution, etc.  Children of migrants sometimes succumbed to these temptations.  Furthermore, the South held two centuries of history for many black families, roots that were lost once they moved to the North.  Some blacks chose not to dwell on their pasts, hoping to make a new history for their children, but in essence leaving them rootless.  

Even so, many blacks found work in the Northern factories at wages they never could have earned in the South.  Many migrants were able to send their children to integrated elementary and high schools and even to Ivy League Universities where they trained for professions that they would likely not have learned in the South.  Some migrants saw their children win sports scholarships to colleges and later find jobs in the NBA or the NFL.  One young runner named JC, the son of a migrant, went on to win a gold medal at the Berlin Olympics in 1936; we know him as Jesse Owens.

The Great Migration is a fascinating topic to explore.  Isabel Wilkerson’s book is packed full of American History.  What a great read!

Image courtesy http://nationalpostarts.files.wordpress.com/.

*First published in 2012.

Coach Herman Boone's Remember the Titans Speech

"This green field right here was painted red, bubblin' with the blood of young boys, smoke and hot lead pourin' right through their bodies." (Herman Boone) 



The hour was early.  The sun was had just peaked above the horizon.  The young football players, both black and white, ran behind their coach, unaware of where they were headed.  As they arrived at a cemetery, fog lingered above the headstones.  Why were they here?

The coach broke the silence:

"Anybody know what place this is?  This is Gettysburg.  This is where they fought the Battle of Gettysburg.  Fifty thousand men died right here on this field, fightin' the same fight that we're still fightin' amongst ourselves today.

This green field right here was painted red, bubblin' with the blood of young boys, smoke and hot lead pourin' right through their bodies.  Listen to their souls, men:  'I killed my brother with malice in my heart.  Hatred destroyed my family.'

You listen.  And you take a lesson from the dead.  If we don't come together right now, on this hallowed ground, we too will be destroyed -- just like they were.  I don't care if you like each other or not.  But you will respect each other.  And maybe -- I don't know -- maybe we'll learn to play this game like men."(http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechrememberthetitans.html)

The football players, led by Coach Herman Boone, attended T. C. Williams High, a newly integrated Virginia school.  Despite their differences, the football team went on to win a state title.  The football team served as a uniting force for the school.  Their story is portrayed in the movie Remember the Titans, starring Denzel Washington.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/images/rememberthetitansgettysburg.JPG

Coach Boone Battles Racism on the Football Field

"I can't make you like each other, but I will demand that you respect each other." 

(Coach Herman Boone)

When Coach Herman Boone walked into the dining hall at his football camp in 1971, he saw whites sitting at white tables, blacks at black tables.  He marched his team onto the bus and took a field trip    -- to Gettysburg.  In the early morning hours, the boys' eyes still half closed, Coach Boone told them about the young men who, over a hundred years before, had fought about the same thing that they were fighting about.  Only now they were wearing tombstones for hats.  The following morning, Coach Boone saw "a noticeable change in the dining hall".

In the 1950's and 1960's, schools were integrated across the United States.  The city of Alexandria, Virginia was no exception.  Parker-Gray, a black school, and George Washington and Hammond, both white high schools, were integrated into one school called T. C. Williams in the fall of 1971.  Resistance came from both blacks and whites.  Suddenly, children could not graduate from the same school as their parents or grandparents.  Alexandria students had to be bussed from one end of town to the other, often bypassing their "home school" on the way.  Blacks and whites would share the same classrooms for the first time in Alexandria.

With the integration of the schools came the integration of the sports teams.  T. C. Williams football team was in a shambles.  It was crying out for leadership.  And that came in the form of head coach, Herman Boone, a black who grew up in North Carolina.  A controversial decision, Boone was hired by the city of Alexandria instead of the more experienced white coach, Bill Yoast.  

Like baseball's Jackie Robinson, Herman Boone knew that if he were to be accepted by whites, he would have to deliver a top notch performance.  From the moment he set foot on the T. C. Williams field, he was a disciplinarian.  For the first time, white football players were facing off against blacks. And these were blacks who were originally on opposing teams.  But that didn't matter to Boone who reminded them:  "I can't make you like each other, but I will demand that you respect each other."

As Boone explained:  "Nobody wanted me to succeed but me."  But the T. C. Williams coach started to deliver immediately.  President Nixon heard about the fuss and sent his aide, Dr. Browne, to check out the Titans shortly after they returned from Gettysburg.  The interaction among the players likely accounts for some of the growing respect between blacks and whites.  However, as one former player points out:  "Boone's gradual acceptance by fans, neighbours and colleagues might have more to do with winning than enlightenment."  Like Jackie Robinson, Herman Boone knew how to win.  

With a no loss record, the Titans went on to win the Virginia State Championship that year and were ranked second in the United States.  Not just an inspiration at T. C. Williams, they inspired their entire community.  Richard Nixon called them "the team that saved Alexandria".  Coach Boone had a large part to play in that transformation.

Coach Boone with Titans players courtesy http://deadspin.com/remember-the-titans-is-a-lie-and-this-man-wants-you-to-1609473834.