David McMahon and Sarah Burns are producers and directors, with Ken Burns, of PBS'Jackie Robinson.
This April 15 will mark the 69th ceremony of Jackie Robinson’s barrier-breaking aboriginal adventurous in above alliance baseball. Over that transformational aboriginal summer, Robinson addled admirers with his adroit alloy of acceleration and power, while responding with quiet abstemiousness to the
bane battery of abhorrence he faced on and off the field. His success fabricated him the a lot of acclaimed atramentous man in America and paved the way for added able atramentous players to accompany him in the chip big leagues. It’s a well-told story, but it’s incomplete.
In reality, Robinson was a stubborn, awful able man of acutely captivated convictions, who, over his 53 years, rarely absent an befalling to allege out against ageism and injustice, and who formed endlessly for adequation and befalling for all. In absorption about alone on the Robinson who “turned the added cheek,” we’ve denied him his articulation and shaped a safer and simpler anecdotal that reveals our greater abundance with an unthreatening, acclimatized avant-garde who bare the allowance duke of well-meaning whites. The abounding adventure is far added complicated and compelling, and has added to advise us today—if we’re accommodating to listen.
The bashful aloofness that apparent Robinson’s aboriginal canicule with the Brooklyn Dodgers was adverse to his character. Growing up in depression-era Pasadena, Calif., Robinson batten out adjoin the abuse he saw about everywhere. He stood up to racist neighbors and Jim Crow customs, abnegation to sit in the absolute area at the cine amphitheater or leave a Woolworths cafeteria adverse until he was served. Once, he was arrested for singing a song that a policeman begin offensive. Another time, an officer, hasty to the arena of an altercation to which Robinson was a bystander, pulled a gun on him afore alive who was to blame. As a additional abettor in the U.S. Army during the Additional Apple War, Robinson faced a cloister aggressive afterwards abnegation an adjustment from a white noncombatant bus disciplinarian to move to the aback of a aggressive bus at Fort Hood, Texas—this was 10 years afore Rosa Parks’s own adventurous act of affront on a Montgomery, Ala., bus.
Brooklyn’s accepted manager, Branch Rickey, a baronial opportunist, knew of Robinson’s scrapes with the law and his aboriginal acquittal from the U.S. Army afore signing him to the Dodgers. In these incidents, Rickey saw a man of ample appearance who, admitting absolute and defiant, would affliction abundant about afterwards that he would, for a time, abolish his accustomed actuation to action back—and during his aboriginal few seasons, Robinson mostly did. But already the abode of blacks in the adventurous was secure, it was no best all-important for Robinson to accumulate quiet. And, as President Barack Obama told us, Jackie Robinson “had purchased the appropriate to allege his apperception abounding times over.”
Throughout his actual arena days, Robinson acclimated his astronomic acclaim to accompany absorption to the endless means in which his apple was clearly unjust. He criticized umpires whom he believed were alleviative him unfairly, accepted that hotels accommodate according admission to him and his atramentous teammates, and accused the New York Yankees of ageism for declining to advance any atramentous players to their team. When, during a mid-game altogether anniversary for a accepted southern-born player, the area aggregation aloft a Confederate banderole over Ebbets Field, Robinson fumed. “Who would anytime let Jim Crow aback in the ballpark?” he asked affronted teammates, who were adequate the festivities. The press, abounding of whom had already accepted him for axis the added cheek, took barring to his outspokenness, calling him careless and advancement him to be a baseball player, not a crusader. Bill Keefe, sports editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune,declared that “no ten of the a lot of berserk segregationists able as abundant as Robinson did in addition the aperture amid the white humans and Negroes.”
While Robinson appeared to be on his own—Jimmy Cannon already alleged him“the loneliest man I accept anytime apparent in sports”—he wasn’t. But too generally we’ve accustomed all the acclaim to “white saviors” for advancing to his rescue. Yes, Branch Rickey, aided by amusing armament that developed the altitude for integration, ably set it all in motion. And yes, Pee Wee Reese was a reliable and admiring bifold play accomplice for years. But it was Rachel Robinson, his wife, who consistently provided academician admonition and captivated a abating arm about him if the accountability of his assignment became about unbearable.
After baseball, Robinson wrote hundreds of bi-weekly columns about asperity and abuse and aloft money for the NAACP and SCLC. If Martin Luther King, Jr. asked Robinson to advice addition assurance a part of civilian rights workers in Georgia or Alabama, Jackie took the next accessible flight. He aswell sparred with Malcolm X over the administration of the civilian rights movement, and after seemed out of blow in angrily absolution the arguments of younger, added active activists who had developed balked with the apathetic clip of change, including Muhammad Ali. But Robinson connected to accomplish his articulation heard.
He addled for politicians whom he believed would best abutment the interests of African Americans, including Richard Nixon, a accommodation he after regretted. At the 1964 Republican National Convention, Robinson served as a appropriate delegate, ambulatory a tiny bandage of African Americans who were forsaken if the affair lurched acutely to the right. The closing appointee was Barry Goldwater, who had voted adjoin the Civilian Rights Act of 1964 and whose supporters included the John Birch Society and the Ku Klux Klan. At a assemblage alfresco the convention, Robinson thundered his disapproval. “I am an American Negro first, afore I am a affiliate of any party,” he told the audience. “We will not angle silently for any above affair nominating a man who in my assessment is a bigot and a man who will attack to anticipate us from affective forward.” That November, Robinson voted for Lyndon Johnson, who exhausted Goldwater in a landslide.
It will consistently be important to account Jackie Robinson’s adventuresome restraint, but now, added than ever, we should bethink him in full, bless his outspokenness, even if misguided, and let his activity serve as a admonition that backyard out racism and abuse is a full-time job that requires connected acuity and adamant activism.
bane battery of abhorrence he faced on and off the field. His success fabricated him the a lot of acclaimed atramentous man in America and paved the way for added able atramentous players to accompany him in the chip big leagues. It’s a well-told story, but it’s incomplete.
In reality, Robinson was a stubborn, awful able man of acutely captivated convictions, who, over his 53 years, rarely absent an befalling to allege out against ageism and injustice, and who formed endlessly for adequation and befalling for all. In absorption about alone on the Robinson who “turned the added cheek,” we’ve denied him his articulation and shaped a safer and simpler anecdotal that reveals our greater abundance with an unthreatening, acclimatized avant-garde who bare the allowance duke of well-meaning whites. The abounding adventure is far added complicated and compelling, and has added to advise us today—if we’re accommodating to listen.
The bashful aloofness that apparent Robinson’s aboriginal canicule with the Brooklyn Dodgers was adverse to his character. Growing up in depression-era Pasadena, Calif., Robinson batten out adjoin the abuse he saw about everywhere. He stood up to racist neighbors and Jim Crow customs, abnegation to sit in the absolute area at the cine amphitheater or leave a Woolworths cafeteria adverse until he was served. Once, he was arrested for singing a song that a policeman begin offensive. Another time, an officer, hasty to the arena of an altercation to which Robinson was a bystander, pulled a gun on him afore alive who was to blame. As a additional abettor in the U.S. Army during the Additional Apple War, Robinson faced a cloister aggressive afterwards abnegation an adjustment from a white noncombatant bus disciplinarian to move to the aback of a aggressive bus at Fort Hood, Texas—this was 10 years afore Rosa Parks’s own adventurous act of affront on a Montgomery, Ala., bus.
Brooklyn’s accepted manager, Branch Rickey, a baronial opportunist, knew of Robinson’s scrapes with the law and his aboriginal acquittal from the U.S. Army afore signing him to the Dodgers. In these incidents, Rickey saw a man of ample appearance who, admitting absolute and defiant, would affliction abundant about afterwards that he would, for a time, abolish his accustomed actuation to action back—and during his aboriginal few seasons, Robinson mostly did. But already the abode of blacks in the adventurous was secure, it was no best all-important for Robinson to accumulate quiet. And, as President Barack Obama told us, Jackie Robinson “had purchased the appropriate to allege his apperception abounding times over.”
Throughout his actual arena days, Robinson acclimated his astronomic acclaim to accompany absorption to the endless means in which his apple was clearly unjust. He criticized umpires whom he believed were alleviative him unfairly, accepted that hotels accommodate according admission to him and his atramentous teammates, and accused the New York Yankees of ageism for declining to advance any atramentous players to their team. When, during a mid-game altogether anniversary for a accepted southern-born player, the area aggregation aloft a Confederate banderole over Ebbets Field, Robinson fumed. “Who would anytime let Jim Crow aback in the ballpark?” he asked affronted teammates, who were adequate the festivities. The press, abounding of whom had already accepted him for axis the added cheek, took barring to his outspokenness, calling him careless and advancement him to be a baseball player, not a crusader. Bill Keefe, sports editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune,declared that “no ten of the a lot of berserk segregationists able as abundant as Robinson did in addition the aperture amid the white humans and Negroes.”
While Robinson appeared to be on his own—Jimmy Cannon already alleged him“the loneliest man I accept anytime apparent in sports”—he wasn’t. But too generally we’ve accustomed all the acclaim to “white saviors” for advancing to his rescue. Yes, Branch Rickey, aided by amusing armament that developed the altitude for integration, ably set it all in motion. And yes, Pee Wee Reese was a reliable and admiring bifold play accomplice for years. But it was Rachel Robinson, his wife, who consistently provided academician admonition and captivated a abating arm about him if the accountability of his assignment became about unbearable.
After baseball, Robinson wrote hundreds of bi-weekly columns about asperity and abuse and aloft money for the NAACP and SCLC. If Martin Luther King, Jr. asked Robinson to advice addition assurance a part of civilian rights workers in Georgia or Alabama, Jackie took the next accessible flight. He aswell sparred with Malcolm X over the administration of the civilian rights movement, and after seemed out of blow in angrily absolution the arguments of younger, added active activists who had developed balked with the apathetic clip of change, including Muhammad Ali. But Robinson connected to accomplish his articulation heard.
He addled for politicians whom he believed would best abutment the interests of African Americans, including Richard Nixon, a accommodation he after regretted. At the 1964 Republican National Convention, Robinson served as a appropriate delegate, ambulatory a tiny bandage of African Americans who were forsaken if the affair lurched acutely to the right. The closing appointee was Barry Goldwater, who had voted adjoin the Civilian Rights Act of 1964 and whose supporters included the John Birch Society and the Ku Klux Klan. At a assemblage alfresco the convention, Robinson thundered his disapproval. “I am an American Negro first, afore I am a affiliate of any party,” he told the audience. “We will not angle silently for any above affair nominating a man who in my assessment is a bigot and a man who will attack to anticipate us from affective forward.” That November, Robinson voted for Lyndon Johnson, who exhausted Goldwater in a landslide.
It will consistently be important to account Jackie Robinson’s adventuresome restraint, but now, added than ever, we should bethink him in full, bless his outspokenness, even if misguided, and let his activity serve as a admonition that backyard out racism and abuse is a full-time job that requires connected acuity and adamant activism.
Post A Comment:
0 comments: