Jackie Robinson’s
Legacy 70 Years Later
Part 5—The Civil Rights
Movement
While my baseball knowledge is
something I take pride in, I can’t lie and write that I know a lot about the
Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. So rather than pretend to know about Jackie
Robinson’s involvement in that cause after his baseball career ended, I will
instead take excerpts from a column written by Michael G. Long for the USA
Today on April 10, 2013. The entire column can be read here.
The following was taken from
that article:
“After integrating baseball, Robinson became a full-fledged leader in
the civil rights movement. As a board member of the NAACP, he traveled across
the country in an effort to build morale among African Americans fighting for
racial justice in their local communities. And as a friend of Martin Luther
King Jr., Robinson helped to lead civil rights campaigns in Albany (Ga.) and
Birmingham. While in Albany, he was so moved by the efforts of black
parishioners to register African-American voters -- despite the fact that their
church had been burned to the ground -- that he offered to raise enough money
to rebuild several torched churches.
“In
1964, Robinson then founded Freedom National Bank in Harlem as a protest
against white financial institutions that discriminated against African
Americans by denying them loans or setting interest rates artificially high.
And while he criticized Harlem resident Malcolm X for advocating racial
separatism and the use of "any means necessary," Robinson saved his
harshest public criticism for white politicians, including Presidents Dwight
Eisenhower, John Kennedy and Richard Nixon, when they hesitated, as they often
did, to advance civil rights legislation.
“These few examples of Robinson's post-baseball life can help us begin
to understand a claim he made in 1968: "I think I've become much more
aggressive since I left baseball." Coming from a man who stole home plate
in the 1955 World Series, this claim gives us some indication of the importance
he attributed to his baseball life.
“What fueled Robinson's aggression after baseball? No doubt, deadly
violence against civil rights activists played a role. But if we dig a bit
deeper, we can see that he was especially driven by his long-held belief that
the people of God have an obligation to "set the captive free."
Thanks to religious mentors, especially his mother Mallie, Robinson embraced a
social gospel that called for freedom and justice right here and right now.
“Just as important as faith was his love for his children -- Jackie
Jr., Sharon and David -- and his hope that their lives would not see the same
struggles for racial justice. Here's part of a letter that Robinson wrote
Malcolm X in 1963: "America is not perfect by a long shot, but I happen to
like it here and will do all I can to make it the kind of place where my
children and theirs can live in dignity."
“He was not exaggerating. Far beyond home plate, far beyond the World
Series, and far beyond the Hall of Fame, Jackie Robinson became a civil rights leader
in his own right, increasingly personifying the first-class citizenship he
considered the birthright of all Americans, whatever their race.”
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