11

Jackie Robinson and Civil Rights (1946 to 1989)

jim crow began to weaken after the war, first in baseball and then across the country. In July 1948, President Harry Truman issued an executive order that ended segregation in the armed forces. The Supreme Court delivered the greatest blow to Jim Crow in May 1954 when it handed down its unanimous decision in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled that the Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine of “separate but equal” did not apply to public education because “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Although southern states bitterly resisted the desegregation of schools, integration continued. In 1955, Rosa Parks, the secretary of the local NAACP chapter, refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery city bus to a white rider and was arrested for violating Alabama’s Jim Crow law. The NAACP responded with a boycott of the bus lines, which launched the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. into the national spotlight. In 1960, students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University staged a sit-in to integrate the lunch counter at a Woolworth’s department store in Greensboro, while Freedom Riders—both black and white—attempted to end segregation at southern bus stations. Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy were reluctant to get involved until circumstances forced their hands. In 1957, Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army to integrate Little Rock Central High School. Six years later, Kennedy introduced a moderate civil rights bill that became the Civil Rights Act of 1964, signed into law by his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. The following year, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Some civil rights opponents resorted to violence, culminating in the murder of King in April 1968. Meanwhile, facing violent opposition and frustrated with the slow progress of civil rights, some African Americans grew impatient with their own nonviolent methods. As the decade continued, racial unrest, including the outbreak of riots, increased. By the end of the sixties, with disenchanted whites fearing a breakdown in order, support for the civil rights movement was on the wane. Since then, events such as the 1991 beating of motorist Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers and the killing of unarmed African Americans by police in Staten Island, Baltimore, and Ferguson, Missouri, in the 2010s illustrate that racial problems remain. Still, the civil rights movement made real advances, such as changes in voting rights that led to the election of more black leaders, and Americans of all backgrounds embraced black actors and actresses, black athletes, black rock stars, and black talk show hosts. But, sadly, many white Americans today still harbor resentment toward the achievements of African Americans.

With a cloudless sky and an afternoon high of 68 degrees, April 15, 1947, seemed perfect for Opening Day at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. As it was every year, the air was tense with the anticipation of another baseball season, even more so because the previous year the Dodgers had finished the regular season in a tie for first place, only to be swept by the Cardinals in a special tie-breaking series. Brooklyn fans were extra nervous, however, because just five days earlier, Commissioner A. B. “Happy” Chandler had suspended Dodger manager Leo Durocher for the season for associating with known gamblers, and the club had not yet named a permanent replacement. If that did not create enough tension for Dodgers fans, a rookie would be playing first base—a former Negro leaguer named Jackie Robinson, the first African American allowed to play baseball in the major leagues in sixty-three years.

Twenty-six thousand fans, more than half of them black, gathered at Ebbets Field that day. While the attendance was respectable, more than seven thousand seats remained empty, and the crowd was smaller than the nearly thirty-two thousand fans who had turned out the year before for the home opener against the crosstown rival Giants. White fans in the stands were polite but unenthusiastic about Robinson’s arrival, and the mainstream New York media, while acknowledging Robinson’s presence, downplayed its significance and focused instead on Durocher’s absence and the return to the lineup of the potent but injury-prone center fielder Pistol Pete Reiser. The African American press, however, underscored the significance of the event, with the Pittsburgh Courier publishing a regular column, ghostwritten by black sportswriter Wendell Phillips under Robinson’s byline, while New York’s New Amsterdam News urged black patrons to moderate their excitement at Dodgers games lest they provoke a backlash from uncomfortable white fans.

The Boston Braves held Robinson hitless in three at-bats in his first major league game, and in the fifth inning, Robinson hit into a double-play, ending a nascent Dodgers rally. Yet his enormous talent still helped Brooklyn win. In the seventh inning, with Brooklyn trailing 3–2 and Eddie Stanky on first, Robinson dropped a bunt. First baseman Earl Torgeson scooped up the ball, but, hurried by Robinson’s surprising speed, sent a wild throw toward pitcher Johnny Sain, who was covering first. The ball hit Robinson in the back and ricocheted into right field, sending Stanky to third and Robinson to second. A double by Reiser knocked in both runners, giving Brooklyn the lead.

As the fourteen thousand African American fans who attended Opening Day in Brooklyn demonstrated, Robinson had an immediate impact on baseball. Black fans, who previously had followed only the Negro leagues, started to attend Dodgers games, and not just in Brooklyn. Railroads in the Deep South had to add extra cars to trains heading to Cincinnati and St. Louis—the National League’s two southernmost outposts—when the Dodgers were in town. But Robinson also had an impact across America. White fans in Brooklyn, who at first were indifferent to Robinson, began to appreciate his bat and speed. When Robinson first took the field in Brooklyn, white fans saw him as a black ballplayer, but as his talent emerged during the course of the season, his race started to matter less. If Robinson came to bat with two runners on base and the Dodgers down by a run, white fans saw him as simply the player who could win the game.

While the civil rights movement was changing America, baseball was changing as well. Since the 1880s, the color barrier had kept African Americans out of the major leagues. Some white Americans, however, believed segregation in baseball was wrong. In 1923 the Sporting News, the most important baseball newspaper, wrote an editorial calling for African Americans to be allowed in the major leagues. In the thirties, having been forced to sell his stars because of the Great Depression, Connie Mack considered signing Negro league players to restore competiveness to the Philadelphia Athletics at an inexpensive price. Ultimately, however, he decided not to do so because he did not want to challenge the other team owners.

Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play in the major leagues in six decades, joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, breaking the color barrier and changing America. National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Cooperstown, N.Y.

With the United States’ entry into World War II, more voices called for an end to segregation in Major League Baseball. New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, whose city boasted three major league teams, demanded an end to the color barrier. Boston city officials, threatening to repeal the law allowing baseball on Sunday, pressured the Braves and Red Sox to integrate. To appease the city, the Red Sox invited three Negro league players—Sam Jethroe of the Cleveland Buckeyes, Marvin Williams of the Philadelphia Stars, and Jackie Robinson of the Kansas City Monarchs—to Fenway Park to try out for the team. The Red Sox had no intention of signing the players; the audition was held strictly for show. Although Boston manager Joe Cronin was impressed with Robinson, nothing came from the tryout.

The color barrier nearly collapsed in 1943. For several years the Philadelphia Phillies had been operating on the brink of bankruptcy. At the conclusion of the 1942 season, Phillies owner Gerald Nugent put the club up for sale. In his 1962 autobiography Veeck—As in Wreck, Bill Veeck, who in 1942 owned the minor league Milwaukee Brewers but would later be a maverick owner of three different big-league teams, claimed that he had reached a deal with Nugent to buy the Phillies. Because of the war, it was difficult to find quality ballplayers, but Veeck had a solution. He planned to stock the Phillies with a virtual Negro league all-star team. On his way to Philadelphia to close the deal, Veeck stopped off in Chicago to pay a courtesy call on Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Although Landis’s racist views were widely known, Veeck divulged his plan to the commissioner. When Veeck arrived in Philadelphia, he discovered the team was no longer for sale; the National League had taken control of the club. In his book, Veeck accused Landis of arranging the takeover to prevent the integration of the team.

Also in 1942, Larry MacPhail, the president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, resigned to join the army. To replace MacPhail, the Dodgers hired Branch Rickey, the general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. Rickey, who had invented the farm system in St. Louis, emphasized efficiency and profit, but he also possessed a strict moral temperament. He was a devout Methodist who did not drink or smoke. Rickey would not even attend ball games on Sundays, although he had no problem making money from Sunday games. From a moral perspective, Rickey was greatly troubled by the color barrier, but he also saw financial opportunity in integration—adding black players would make it easier to market the Dodgers to African American fans. Besides, black players could help the Dodgers win.

When Landis died in November 1944 and thus no longer presented an obstacle to ending the color barrier, Rickey began to consider ending segregation in baseball. In 1945 he announced the formation of a new Negro league, an organization he named the United States League. Rickey said he would own one of the franchises in the league, a club called the Brooklyn Brown Dodgers, which would play at Ebbets Field when the white Brooklyn Dodgers were on the road. The African American press criticized Rickey’s proposal; the existing Negro leagues were dominated by black businessmen, and they might not be able to compete against white owners like Rickey. The black press did not realize, however, that Rickey’s announcement was a ruse. In August 1945 he invited Jackie Robinson, a shortstop for the Kansas City Monarchs, to come to Brooklyn to try out for the Brown Dodgers. When Robinson arrived at Ebbets Field, Rickey informed him that he was not there for the Brown Dodgers, but to try out for the Brooklyn Dodgers’ top minor league team, the Montreal Royals of the International League.

Sportswriter Wendell Smith of the African American newspaper the Pittsburgh Courier had long championed Robinson as the best candidate to break the color barrier, and Rickey chose Robinson for more than his ability. The Dodgers owner wanted a ballplayer who was not only good (and Robinson was nationally known from his college days at UCLA as a top athlete in football and track as well as baseball), but who was mature and had “guts enough not to fight back.” Robinson already had earned a reputation for fighting back. In 1944, while a member of the army, he had been court-martialed after he refused to move to the back of an army bus in Fort Hood, Texas. Because the military was not subject to Texas state law, an all-white panel cleared Robinson of wrongdoing. At their meeting in August 1945, Rickey tested Robinson by unleashing a string of racial epithets, then explained to the shocked ballplayer that he would face much worse from fans and from players on other teams. Rickey feared that if Robinson lost his temper on the field, his plan would fail. After extracting a promise that, at least for the first few years, Robinson would not react to racial taunts or even opponents’ aggressive play, Rickey signed him to a minor league contract.

Although Robinson was good enough to play in the majors in 1946, he spent the season in Montreal, where he would not be subjected to racial taunts from American fans when the Royals were at home or when they played their closest International League rival, the Toronto Maple Leafs. The other six clubs in the league were in the United States, but three of them—the Buffalo Bisons, Rochester Red Wings, and Syracuse Chiefs—were in New York State, while two others, the Newark Bears and Jersey City Little Giants, were in New Jersey. Only the Baltimore Orioles were based south of the Mason-Dixon line. Robinson had a great season in Montreal, leading the league with a .349 batting average as the Royals took the pennant by 18½ games over Syracuse.

Following Robinson’s season in Montreal, many people in baseball suspected that he would be promoted to Brooklyn in 1947. To prevent that from happening, major league team owners at the January 1947 winter meeting held a secret vote on Robinson that only became public years later. By a 15–1 margin, the club owners voted against allowing Robinson in the big leagues. Only the Dodgers voted to let him play. Commissioner Happy Chandler, however, overruled the vote. Chandler was a southerner who had served as the governor and US senator from Kentucky, and, like many southerners, he often used racist terms like “boy” when he spoke. But unlike Landis, he recognized that the color barrier was wrong. The war influenced Chandler’s decision. He defended his decision by saying, “Plenty of Negro boys were willing to go out and fight and die for this country. Is it right when they came back to tell them they can’t play the national pastime?” His religion also figured into his thinking, as the commissioner explained, “I’m going to have to meet my Maker someday. And if He asks me why I didn’t let this boy play, and I say it’s because he’s black that might not be a satisfactory answer.” Chandler would pay a price for letting Robinson play; when his term as commissioner expired in 1951, the owners refused to rehire him.

For the 1947 season, Rickey decided to hold the Dodgers’ spring training in Havana, Cuba, far from the Jim Crow laws of Florida, and he invited the Montreal Royals to train alongside the Dodgers. Rickey hoped that once the Dodger players saw how good Robinson was, they would demand that he be promoted to Brooklyn. But there was no groundswell of support for Robinson. Instead the players circulated a petition refusing to play with him. Opposition was especially strong from the many southerners on the team. Manager Leo Durocher responded by saying, “I don’t care if the guy is yellow or black or if he has stripes like a . . . zebra. I’m the manager of this team, and I say he plays. What’s more, I say he can make us all rich.” Although most players backed down after Durocher’s rejoinder, one player, an outfielder from Alabama named Fred “Dixie” Walker, still resisted. Walker, who was so popular with Dodgers fans that, in their Brooklyn accents, they called him “The People’s Cherce,” asked to be traded. When the 1947 season ended, Rickey sent him to the last-place Pittsburgh Pirates. Walker later called his request to be traded the biggest mistake of his life.

On April 10, five days before the start of the season, Rickey promoted Robinson to the Dodgers. Because veteran Harold “Pee Wee” Reese was entrenched at shortstop, Robinson played first base in 1947. The following season he shifted to second base, the position he played for most of his major league career.

Opposing fans and players directed a great deal of abuse at Robinson when the Dodgers were on the road. In Philadelphia, the Phillies’ bench, led by manager Ben Chapman, hurled an endless string of racial slurs at Robinson. Knowing he had promised not to fight back, opposing base runners slid at Robinson with their spikes high, and pitchers threw at his head. In Cincinnati, where the crowd at Crosley Field was especially brutal, Robinson received death threats.1

Before the Dodgers arrived in St. Louis, the entire Cardinals team threatened to go on strike if Robinson played. National League president Ford Frick responded quickly, warning that any player who went on strike would be permanently banned from baseball. Frick concluded by saying, “I don’t care if it wrecks the National League for five years. This is the United States of America, and one citizen has as much right to play as another.” The Cardinals backed down.

The Dodgers had a great season in 1947, winning the pennant with a five-game lead over St. Louis. At age 28, Robinson won the Rookie of the Year Award. Just as important to Rickey, the Dodgers drew 1.8 million fans and led the National League in attendance.

Robinson opened the door for other African American ballplayers. Eleven weeks after he joined the Dodgers, the Cleveland Indians, now owned by Bill Veeck, signed Larry Doby, the first black player in the American League. Doby had been the center fielder for the Newark Eagles of the Negro American League, and when Veeck tried to obtain him, Eagles owner Effa Manley insisted that Veeck buy his contract from Newark. Recognizing the Eagles as a legitimate club that owned the rights to Doby, Veeck agreed to compensate Manley’s team, setting a precedent that major league clubs must respect Negro league contracts. Major league clubs, however, continued to ignore the Negro leagues’ reserve clause.

In 1947 the St. Louis Browns signed third baseman Hank Thompson. The following year the Dodgers brought up two more black players, pitcher Don Newcombe and catcher Roy Campanella. The Giants signed two African American outfielders, Monte Irvin in 1949 and Willie Mays in 1950. But after that, integration seemed to hit a wall. To some, it appeared that major league teams had a quota of black ballplayers that they would not exceed, perhaps out of fear that too many African Americans on a team would keep white fans away. Other teams were very slow in signing black players. The Yankees claimed they were searching for a black ballplayer who represented the “Yankee image.” The excuse did not sound plausible, as neither Babe Ruth nor Mickey Mantle were wholesome role models. Finally, the Yankees signed catcher Elston Howard in 1955. The Boston Red Sox were the last team to sign a black player. In July 1959, more than twelve years after Jackie Robinson took the field in Brooklyn, utility infielder Pumpsie Green joined the team.

By the 1960s, however, the color of baseball players stopped mattering to most people. In 1971, when the Pittsburgh Pirates played a game with nine black starting players, few people noticed. Many black players, including Robinson, were active in the civil rights movement, and African American integration opened the door wider to other minorities, particularly Latinos. But it would be a generation after Jackie Robinson’s debut before major league clubs hired black managers. Finally, in 1975, the Cleveland Indians made Frank Robinson (no relation to Jackie) their manager. Still, by the mid-1980s only three black men—Robinson of the Indians and later the Giants, Larry Doby of the White Sox, and Maury Wills of the Seattle Mariners—had managed in the major leagues.

Table 11.1. The Integration of Major League Baseball

1947 Brooklyn Dodgers Cleveland Indians St. Louis Browns   1949 New York Giants   1950 Boston Braves

1951 Chicago White Sox   1953 Philadelphia Athletics Chicago Cubs   1954 Pittsburgh Pirates St. Louis Cardinals Cincinnati Reds Washington Senators

1955 New York Yankees   1957 Philadelphia Phillies   1958 Detroit Tigers   1959 Boston Red Sox

On April 15, 1987, on the fortieth anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s first major league game, the ABC nightly news program Nightline dedicated the show to Jackie Robinson’s historic first game. During the program, host Ted Koppel asked Los Angeles Dodgers general manager Al Campanis why there had been so few African American managers in the major leagues. Campanis replied that African Americans “may not have some of the necessities to be a field manager or a general manager.” Suddenly Major League Baseball had a serious public relations crisis on its hands. The Dodgers immediately fired Campanis, while Major League Baseball worked overtime trying to repair its image. In 1989 the Toronto Blue Jays made Cito Gaston the fourth African American to manage a major league team. Gaston became the first African American manager to win the world championship as, under his leadership, the Blue Jays won the World Series in 1992 and 1993. Since then, African American managers have become so commonplace that few people remark on their color when they are hired or fired—although in baseball, as in other professional sports, a debate persists over why there are not more African Americans in top executive and ownership positions.

In many ways, the history of baseball reflects what happened in American society, but when it came to the civil rights movement, baseball helped lead the way. The collapse of baseball’s color barrier had a significant influence on American society. It was probably baseball’s most important contribution to American life. Jackie Robinson joined the Dodgers in 1947, more than a year before President Harry Truman integrated the military and seven years before Brown v. Board of Education integrated public schools. Robinson’s arrival on the Dodgers marked the first major step of integration. It prepared America for civil rights. If a player helped a team win, that player’s skin color no longer mattered to that team’s fans. As Americans began to realize this, racial hatred lessened.