Election 2008
(2009-01-23)
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Why was this so important? Because contrary to popular belief, the decades between the Civil War and World War II were not marked by slow, steady progress for African-Americans, but setback after setback, from "separate but equal" Jim Crow laws, to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, to over 2000 lynchings. Robinson's debut was the first step forward in almost a century, but it was big enough to launch all the changes that followed.
The mastermind behind this master stroke was Brooklyn Dodgers GM Branch Rickey, a 1912 graduate of Michigan's law school. He was no bleeding heart liberal, but a staunch conservative who detested Franklin Roosevelt, the New Deal and welfare in equal measure.
But Rickey fervently believed in both the Bible and the Constitution, which instilled his convictions that we are all God's children, and we are all created equal,no matter what the Jim Crow laws said. He once said, "A person can be so sincere about rules and law, as to blind himself to justice."
Rickey wanted to strike a blow against segregation. But who could do it? There were better black ballplayers than Jackie Robinson, and certainly more passive ones. During World War II, a bus driver ordered Robinson, then an army captain,to move to the back of the bus. Robinson loudly refused and was court-martialed for it.
When Rickey learned about this, he wasn't critical, but impressed. He said, "I don't like silent men, when personal liberty is at stake." Rickey didn't make the obvious or safe choice. He made the right one.
When Jackie Robinson stepped up to the plate on April 15, 1947, no figure in American history ever stood more alone. Lincoln had an army behind him. King, a movement. Obama, a party. All Jackie Robinson had was a baseball bat. But in his hands, it was enough.
Robinson's success now seems inevitable to us. After all, we know how it ends: He triumphs over evil, and becomes a national hero. But on that day, Robinson could not know that he would succeed or even survive. The fans sent death threats to his home, and the pitchers hurled beanballs at his temple in an era when the batters wore only wool caps.
Robinson had countless reasons to fail or simply give up, or give in to the rage building inside him,but he drew on his super-human discipline and determination, and outperformed his foes. Sound familiar?
Robinson did so seven years before Brown versus Board of Education, eight years before Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of her bus, 16 years before King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech, and 17 years before Congress passed the first Civil Rights legislation since the Civil War. Our nation changed not gradually but on a single day, and forever.
Robinson's solitary act of courage not only preceded all those advances, it made them possible. Martin Luther King, Jr. honored this debt when he said, "Jackie Robinson made it possible for me in the first place. Without him, I would never have been able to do what I did."
Barack Obama could say the very same thing. I'm sorry, President Barack Obama.
Jackie Robinson left us in 1972. But I saw him again on Tuesday, and he looked as dignified as ever.
© Copyright 2012, Michigan Radio
