Michael G. Long - 42 Today

Foreword by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon

Edited by Michael G. Long

Afterword by Kevin Merida

A Washington Mews Book

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Long, Michael G., editor.

Title: 42 today : Jackie Robinson and his legacy / foreword by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon ; edited by Michael G. Long ; afterword by Kevin Merida.

Other titles: Forty-two today

Description: New York : New York University Press, 2021. | Series: Washington mews books | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020015026 (print) | LCCN 2020015027 (ebook) | ISBN 9781479805624 (cloth) | ISBN 9781479805631 (ebook) | ISBN 9781479805617 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH : Robinson, Jackie, 19191972. | Robinson, Jackie, 19191972Influence. | African American baseball playersBiography. | Discrimination in sportsUnited StatesHistory20th century. | United StatesRace relationsHistory20th century.

Classification: LCC GV865.R6 A15 2021 (print) | LCC GV865.R6 (ebook) | DDC 796.357092 [ B ] dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020015026

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020015027

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To Rachel Robinson

I have devoted and dedicated my life to service.

* Jackie Robinson

Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon

Michael G. Long

Howard Bryant

Randal Maurice Jelks

George Vecsey

Jonathan Eig

Mark Kurlansky

Chris Lamb

David Naze

Sridhar Pappu

Gerald Early

Yohuru Williams

Peter Dreier

Amira Rose Davis

Adam Amel Rogers

Kevin Merida

Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon

On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson sent a seismic wave across America with his barrier-breaking first game in Major League Baseball. It was arguably the most significant progress in civil rights since Reconstruction.

That summer, Robinson captivated fans with his electrifying blend of speed and power, while meeting the withering barrage of hate he faced on and off the field with quiet restraint. His success made him the most famous black man in America and paved the way for other talented black players to join him in the integrated big leagues. Its a well-told story, one that in the decades since Robinsons pioneering first season has become almost mythological and taken on a sentimentality that has blinded us to his true nature and minimized the noxious racism that hardly retreated in his heroic wake. Too often we have remembered him as an unthreatening martyr who turned the other cheek, dependent on a helping hand from well-meaning whites. Its a safe and simple narrative that provides white America convenient cover and does a disservice to an uncompromising patriot. It also distracts us from a dark reality: the oppressive conditions Robinson faced across his fifty-three yearscasual and structuralremain as present in society today as they were then.

The silent stoicism that marked Jack Roosevelt Robinsons initial year with the Brooklyn Dodgers ran contrary to his character. Stubborn, intelligent, with a fiery temper and full of deeply held convictions, Robinson had rarely missed an opportunity to speak out against the prejudice and injustice he saw nearly everywhere. Growing up in depression-era Pasadena, California, he faced down racist neighbors and refused to sit in the segregated section at the movie theater or leave a Woolworth lunch counter until he was served. Once he was arrested for singing a song that a police officer found offensive. Another time, while just a bystander to an argument, an officer rushed in and pulled a gun on Robinson before knowing who was to blame. As a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army during the Second World War, he faced a court-martial after refusing an order from a white civilian bus driver to move to the back of a military bus at Fort Hood, Texasten years before Rosa Parkss own bold act of defiance in Montgomery, Alabama.

Brooklyns general manager, Branch Rickey, a high-minded opportunist, knew of Robinsons scrapes with the law and his early discharge from the U.S. Army before signing him to the Dodgers. In these incidents, Rickey saw a man of considerable character who, though strong-willed and defiant, would care enough about succeeding that he would, for a time, suppress his natural impulse to fight backand during his first few seasons, Robinson mostly did. But once his place in the game was secure, it was no longer necessary for Robinson to keep quiet. As President Barack Obama later observed, Jackie Robinson had purchased the right to speak his mind many times over.

Throughout his remaining playing days, Robinson used his enormous fame to bring attention to the countless ways in which his world was patently unjust. He criticized umpires who he believed were treating him unfairly, demanded that hotels provide equal access to him and his black teammates, and accused the New York Yankees of prejudice for failing to promote any black players to their team. When, during a midgame birthday celebration for the teams Kentucky-born shortstop Pee Wee Reese, the grounds crew raised a Confederate flag over Ebbets Field, Robinson fumed. Who would ever let Jim Crow back in the ballpark? he asked resentful teammates, who were enjoying the festivities.

If you showed anything that suggested dignity and the sense that you believed in equality, you were immediately undesirable, said Harry Belafonte, referring to Robinson. Theres always going to be a price to pay for any rebel sound that challenges oppression. This of course remains true to this day. In 2016, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick chose not to stand for the national anthem in protest of police brutality against African Americans. His actions were denounced by star quarterback Drew Brees as disrespectful and criticized by the National Football League as unpatriotic, and President Donald Trump described his dissent as grounds for firing. A free agent the following season, Kaepernick went unsigned and three years later remained out of the league in spite of his earlier success and widely acknowledged talents.

Toward the end of his career, when Jackie Robinson and his wife Rachel sought to buy a larger house to accommodate their growing family, they were met with resistance. Touring homes in New York Citys northern suburbs, they were glared at by neighbors, denied access by owners, and in one case, after making an offer, told it was off the market. The effect of such racially restrictive agreements among homeowners, brokers, and community associationseven though in some cases ruled unconstitutional decades earliercontinues to keep neighborhoods segregated and limits the housing opportunities of people of color.