David Naze - Reclaiming 42: Public Memory and the Reframing of Jackie Robinsons Radical Legacy

Reclaiming 42 is a must-read for anyone interested in the relationship between sports and politics. It will appeal to baseball novices and baseball experts alike. David Nazes exploration of Jackie Robinsons vocal critiques of racial inequalities, and modern-day efforts to erase any controversial elements from Robinsons memory, are especially timely.

Jonathan J. Cavallero, associate professor of rhetoric, film, and screen studies at Bates College

Dave Naze recovers a complex and human Jackie Robinson whose legacy exceeds the limitations of our preconceived narratives about the role of race and sport in the United States.... Naze invites us to understand that Jackie Robinson speaks not only to the ages but to our own time.

Robert E. Terrill, professor of rhetoric in the Department of English at Indiana University, Bloomington

David Naze

University of Nebraska Press | Lincoln

2019 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska

Chapter 4, Jackie Robinson Day: The Contemporary Legacy, originally appeared in Out of Bounds: Racism and the Black Athlete, 13558 (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2014). Used with permission.

Cover designed by University of Nebraska Press; cover image courtesy National Archives.

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Naze, David, author.

Title: Reclaiming 42: public memory and the reframing of Jackie Robinsons radical legacy / David Naze.

Other titles: Reclaiming forty-two

Description: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, [2019] |Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018048120

ISBN 9780803290822 (hardback: alk. paper)

ISBN 9781496214942 (epub)

ISBN 9781496214959 (mobi)

ISBN 9781496214966 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH : Robinson, Jackie, 19191972. | African American baseball playersBiography. | Baseball playersUnited StatesBiography. | Collective memoryUnited States. | Racism in sportsUnited States. | Political activistsUnited StatesBiography | Major League BaseballHistory. | BISAC : SPORTS & RECREATION / Baseball / History. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies.

Classification: LCC GV 865. R 6 N 39 2019 | DDC 796.357092 [B]dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018048120

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

In memory of Ed Wilson and Andrew Muldowney. Thank you for helping shape my sports world.

On April 15, 1947, the racial landscape of America changed. Not because of crisis, chaos, or confusion, but because of a political vision. That is, a vision shared by members of numerous communities and organizations. A vision not without disagreement or controversy. A vision that required colossal ambition and strategy. A vision that endured years of disappointment. A vision that was met with heavy resistance as well as anticipated approval. It was on this day that Jack Roosevelt Robinson broke baseballs modern-day color barrier, forever changing the ways in which Americans viewed, and experienced, their favorite pastime. No longer would baseball stand as a mere outlet for or escape from our quotidian routine, but baseball would forever become a microcosm of how communities embrace or reject cultural change. Mainstream America was seeing something new on the baseball field, literally, which consequently has forced us to consider the following question: Did Jackie Robinsons breaking of baseballs color barrier capture our national imagination, or does our memory of Jackie Robinson illuminate our own desires for what Barack Obama refers to as racial reconciliation on the cheap?

Either way we answer that question, there is no mistaking that Jackie Robinson was a radical. And by radical I mean in the most robust way possible. That is, Robinson was an individual whose mere presence in a white-dominated space posed a racial, political, and cultural threat beyond the periphery, a threat that posed a challenge for even those who supported racial change on a national level. This book is written through the lens of a rhetorical scholar who comes from an admittedly privileged, white, male perspective, who is specifically interested in how Jackie Robinsons legacy has been constructed by a mainstream, white, and male perspective. Robinsons identity as a radical should be clear after seven decades since his breaking of baseballs color barrier. In fact, not only should it be clear, but it should also be celebrated, if for no other reason than Robinsons legacy has forced us to reconsider what racial reconciliation truly looks like in todays mainstream America. But Robinsons identity as a radical is not celebrated, at least not in the ways by which we typically celebrate his legacy. We can pretty much agree that Jackie Robinson was pivotal in the way America began talking about racial injustice. We can pretty much agree that Jackie Robinson was a unique baseball player with a skill set unseen by many mainstream baseball fans in the 1940s. And we can pretty much agree that Jackie Robinson is an American hero and icon, deserving of every accolade and celebration of his impact on American culture. But there appears to be something missing from those sentiments, something that hasnt quite been identified in the mainstream narrative when talking about Jackie Robinsons legacy. In fact, there is a lot missing. Case in point: When we hear the name Jackie Robinson, what images and thoughts do we immediately conjure about the man? It would be a safe bet to assume that most of us would immediately think about his integrity, his perseverance, his personal character, his maturity, and, perhaps most of all, his courage. It would likely be just as safe of a bet that we dont think about his political aspirations, his postbaseball career, his harsh critiques of Major League Baseball ( MLB ), or his clashes with fellow members of the civil rights movement. Those details, the details that came to define the man more privately than publicly, have been forgotten, or more likely never been taught to the general public. Consequently, those details have been forgotten or neglected because it has been easy to forget or neglect them. And this should not come as a surprise to us as a society. Often we forget the details of one persons legacy, either because of the passage of time or because we were never really taught about those details in the first place. That is what this book is attempting to do: to reclaim at least some of the details of Jackie Robinsons life, the details that have been too easily washed away in a culture that seems to be satisfied with the idea that we live in a postracial society.

Generations never saw Robinson play, and that allows numerous overly reductive and simplistic narratives to survive. Knowing the depths of Jackie Robinson the player and political agent would take hard work that most are unwilling to begin. The ease with which we have chosen to remember Jackie Robinson in a general sense makes it a convenient legacy. In fact, Michael G. Longs recovery of Robinsons documented civil rights discourse has allowed us access to a Robinson not typically conveyed in mainstream recollections of his legacy. Longs book First Class Citizenship: The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson addresses how problematic it is to reduce Robinsons memory and legacy to an oversimplified account of convenience. As Long proclaims:

Perhaps it has been safe and convenient for us to picture Robinson as the tolerant, clean-cut ballplayer who gently helped to integrate professional sports in the United States. But however comfortable it may be, our collective focus on the first part of his baseball career is utterly unfair to the Jackie Robinson who loudly criticized the practices and policies of racist America, devoted countless hours to civil rights fundraising and rallies, twisted the arms of politicians hungry for black votes and yet fearful of a white backlash, and encouraged young African Americans who have since become well-known veterans in the ongoing battle for civil rights.