First Class Citizenship: The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson - Hardcover

Long, Michael G.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805087109 ISBN 13: 9780805087109

Publisher: Times Books, 2007

Synopsis

Never-before-published letters offer a rich portrait of the baseball star as a fearless advocate for racial justice at the highest levels of American politics
 
Jackie Robinson's courage on the baseball diamond is one of the great stories of the struggle for civil rights in America, and his Hall of Fame career speaks for itself. But we no longer hear Robinson speak for himself; his death at age fifty-three in 1972 robbed America of his voice far too soon.
In First Class Citizenship, Jackie Robinson comes alive on the page for the first time in decades. The scholar Michael G. Long has unearthed a remarkable trove of Robinson's correspondence with--and personal replies from--such towering figures as Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Hubert Humphrey, Nelson Rockefeller, and Barry Goldwater. These extraordinary conversations reveal the scope and depth of Robinson's effort during the 1950s and 1960s to rid America of racism.
Writing eloquently and with evident passion, Robinson charted his own course, offering his support to Democrats and to Republicans, questioning the tactics of the civil rights movement, and challenging the nation's leaders when he felt they were guilty of hypocrisy--or worse. Through his words as well as his actions, Jackie Robinson truly personified the "first class citizenship" that he considered the birthright of all Americans, whatever their race.

About this title

About the Author

Michael G. Long is an assistant professor of religious studies at Elizabethtown College and is the author of several books on religion and politics in mid-century America, including Against Us, but for Us: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the State and Billy Graham and the Beloved Community: America's Evangelist and the Dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. He lives in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

First Class Citizenship
1FAITH IN DEMOCRACY1946-1956ROBINSON TO RALPH NORTONJackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier on August 28, 1945, when he signed a letter of agreement that bound him to the Brooklyn Dodgers. Two months later, on October 23, Branch Rickey, general manager of the Dodgers, offered Robinson a formal contract to play for the Montreal Royals, the Dodgers' top farm team. In this handwritten letter to Ralph Norton, an acquaintance from his days at Pasadena Junior College, Robinson writes of his tryout in Florida the following spring. 
March 12, 1946 
Hello Ralph, 
I too remember the good old days at P.J.C. and I remember you from the Chronicle. It was nice hearing from you and I do appreciate your well wishes. It would be really nice hearing from the fellows you mentioned, and I am sure that if we get encouraging letters such as yours it is going to be tough keeping us off the club. I would appreciate hearing more from you and I will keep you informed as to our progress. So far it has been a real pleasure playing here with the fellows. Everyone has been so nice and they have given us help along the way. I did not expect any trouble but I also did not expect to be welcomed as I have. It reminds me of the days at P.J.C. when all the fellows used to block and clear the way so I could run with the ball. We have met a couple that have resented us, but only a sharp eye could tell. All I can say is if we make the club, it will be on our own merit. If not it will be due to the fact that the many ballplayers Montreal has are better than we are. Our manager Clay Hopper has been very helpful and is giving us every chance possible. If you hear from Glick, Vanderweer or Shatford give them my regards. 
Sincerely, Jackie 
Robinson made his major-league debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947, and among his ardent supporters that year was Bernice Franklin, the owner of a general store near Tyronza, Arkansas. "I live in a small all-Negro town," she wrote Robinson. "We go to Memphis for all our amusements, but there is no greater thrill than a broadcast of the Dodgers baseball game ... right now the farmers are gathering [at the store] for your game this afternoon." Another fan was Norman Thomas, leader of the Socialist Party of America, six-time candidate for the presidency, and advocate for racial justice and world peace. Throughout 1947 Robinson agreed to follow Rickey's biblical admonition to "turn the other cheek," and Thomas was pleased with this nonviolent strategy. 
September 23, 1947 
Dear Mr. Robinson: 
Now that the Dodgers have won the pennant, it is very appropriate, I think, to thank you not only for what you did in the pennant race but for what you have done for the colored race and for the fraternity which ought to characterize our mutual relations. You have performed a real service to our country and in general to a world which must learn to honor men for what they are and do regardless of race.I am writing on the letterhead of an organization interested in the kind of world relations that will bring peace, and I rather think its members would share my feeling about your contribution to the kind of attitude on which peace depends. 
Sincerely yours, Norman ThomasROBINSON TO ADMIRERNot all fan mail was as high-minded as Norman Thomas's, and the following is Robinson's reply to a troubled young woman who had written of her love for him. The letter reveals Robinson's quick and easy appeal to moral principles--an appeal that would become characteristic of his civil rights letters. 
October 15, 1947 
Dear Miss [editor's deletion]: 
Ordinarily I wouldn't even consider answering a letter like yours, but I believe you need to get straightened out on a few things. A girl as attractive and intelligent as you sound certainly should have no difficulty in finding the right man and creating a sound, honest life together in marriage. You are suffering from some kind of mental delusion that can bring you nothing but trouble and unhappiness and my advice is to get interested in some kind of work outside your daily routine in the office.When I married Mrs. Robinson, I exchanged vows to love, honor and cherish her for the rest of my life. "Honor" means just that to me, and any sneaking, skulking escapade would destroy the very thing that enables me to hold my head up high.Just in case you might want to write me again, I must inform you that all my mail is opened at the Brooklyn baseball club offices and then forwarded to me. 
Yours in reproof, Jackie RobinsonLESTER GRANGER TO ROBINSONBy now a celebrity athlete, Robinson appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) on July 18, 1949, as it held hearings on African American loyalty to the United States. Of special concern to the committee was a remark reportedly made by Paul Robeson, the internationally renowned singer and actor, about the possibility of a war between the United States and the Soviet Union. "It is unthinkable," Robeson allegedly stated, "that American Negroes would go to war on behalf of those who have oppressed us for generations against a country which in one generation has raised our people to the full dignity of mankind." In his widely publicized testimony, Robinson characterized Robeson's remark as "very silly," adding that African Americans would "do their best to help their country stay out of war; if unsuccessful, they'd do their best to help their country win the war--against Russia or any other enemy that threatened us." Lester Granger, executive director of the National Urban League, praise Robinson in the following letter. Near the end of his life, however Robinson expressed regret for appearing before HUAC.July 19, 1949 
Dear Robbie: 
Together with hundreds of thousands of other Americans in New York City and throughout the country, I was inordinately proud when I picked up the papers last night and this morning and read the reports of your appearance before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. I don't need to tell you what impression you made on the public generally.One report stressed the dignity and sincerity with which you made your statement. In nutshell form, you have stated the case for the American Negro in such a way as to send it around the world in quarters where no other such expression would have received any notice at all. This should be a matter of great pride to you and your wife, even while you realize that there will be sharp criticism and some underhand attacks coming from left-wing or uninformed sources.I am now an old hand at the business of receiving public criticism as well as approbations. I have learned that praise never lasts as long as I would like, but also that criticism is never important when it is delivered by dishonest or uninformed people.The Communist group is exceptionally skilled at kicking up a row that seems to be out of all proportion to their actual numbers among our population. They can fill Madison Square Garden for a rally. They can recruit a hundred people to send a thousand telegrams and letters. They can magnify the squeak of a mouse to the point where it seems like the roar of a lion.I hope that you will expect this kind of result and not be at all disturbed when it occurs. For your information, after the radio and evening newspapers made their comments last night, I circulated for five hours among bars and grills, sidewalk groups and neighbors and friends. It was remarkable that in not one single case did I receive from any person to whom I talked anything but praise for the way in which you had expressed yourself. My experience may have been exceptional in its absence of any criticism, but I am confident that it was typical in its overwhelming preponderance of approval for your point of view.You have rendered a service to our people which will be gratefully regarded for many years to come. On behalf of the National Urban League and the millions of Americans who believe in what we are trying to do, I want to thank you for your service.I hope to improve upon the acquaintanceship--or, I hope, friendship--which we have developed in our contacts. Please give Mrs. Robinson my warm regards. 
Sincerely yours, Lester B. GrangerROBINSON TO BRANCH RICKEYRobinson considered Rickey to be the father he never had, and he was disappointed when Rickey sold his ownership interest in the Dodgers in 1950 and became general manger of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Robinson refers to Rickey's tenure as general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1930s and early 1940s. 
No date [November 1950] 
Dear Mr. Rickey, 
I have been intending to write for about a month now and it seems that finding the right words comes hard as I will attempt at this time to put them down.It is certainly tough on everyone in Brooklyn to have you leave the organization but to me it's much worse, and I don't mind saying we (my family) hate to see you go but realize that baseball is like that and anything can happen. It has been the finest experience I have had being associated with you, and I want to thank you very much for all you have meant not only to me and my family but to the entire country and particularly the members of our race. I am glad for your sake that I had a small part to do with the success of your efforts and must admit it was your excellent guidance that enabled me to do it. Regardless of what happens to me in the future, it all can be placed on what you have done and, believe me, I appreciate it.I don't know the circumstances that caused you to sell, but I am smart enough to know that a person does not sell a growing thing unless there is some misunderstanding some place. But I do want to wish you and your family the very best of everything and sincerely hope that you are able to bring to Pittsburgh just what you did to Brooklyn and St. Louis. I hope to end my playing in Brooklyn as it means so very much, but if I have to go any place I hope it can be with you.My wife joins me in saying thanks very much, Mr. Rickey, and we sincerely hope that we can always be regarded as your friends and whenever we need advice we can call on you as usual regardless of where we may be.My very best wishes to you and yours and a hope for your continued success. 
Sincerely yours, JackieBRANCH RICKEY TO ROBINSONDecember 31, 1950 
Dear Jackie: 
It is not at all because of lack of appreciation that I have not acknowledged your good letter of some time ago. Neither your writing and sending the letter, nor its contents, gave me very much surprise. I have observed that you have learned long ago that most things, good or bad, just don't happen to people by accident. Your thoughtfulness in the field of so-called unimportant things has doubtless led to much of your success. Anyhow, the fact that you wrote the letter, and particularly the things you said in it, not only meant very much to me, and was, as I have said, deeply appreciated, but it also revealed why you have come to so much deserved distinction.I hope the day will soon come when it will be entirely possible, as it is entirely right, that you can be considered for administrative work in baseball, particularly in the direction of field management.I do not know of any player in the game today who could, in my judgment, manage a major league club better than yourself. I recently made this statement in the presence of several writers in the course of various remarks, but I have looked in vain for the reporting of the statement.Very often during these holidays, I have thought of you and Rachel and the family. I choose to feel that my acquaintanceship with you has ripened into a very real friendship, growing out of our facing and trying to solve common problems and our continuous record of seeing eye to eye in practically all of these problems that faced us.I do not suppose that our paths will probably parallel again in any close fashion, but I do want you and Rachel to know that always I, and, indeed the family, will have a constant and lasting interest in your welfare and happiness.As I have often expressed to you, I think you carry a great responsibility for your people, and I am sure that you sense the duties resting upon you because of that responsibility, and I cannot close this letter without once more admonishing you to prepare yourself to do a widely useful work, and, at the same time, dignified and effective in the field of public relations. A part of this preparation, and I know you are smiling, for you have already guessed my oft repeated suggestion, is to finish your college course meritoriously, and get your degree. It would be a great pleasure for me to be your agent in placing you in a big job after your playing days are finished. Believe me always. 
Sincerely yours, Branch RickeyJOHN D. ROCKEFELLER III TO ROBINSONRobinson and his Dodgers teammate Roy Campanella worked together as counselors at the Harlem branch of the YMCA. They also supported the Y by soliciting funds from the Rockefeller family, a longtime benefactor of African American causes. 
January 18, 1951 
Dear Mr. Robinson: 
My son and I enjoyed very much our recent talk with you. I was especially interested to hear about the work you and Mr. Campanella are doing in furthering the boys work program of the Harlem Y.M.C.A.Because of my appreciation not only of the importance of this program but also of the part you personally are playing in it, it gives me real pleasure to send you the enclosed cashier's check drawn to the order of the Harlem Branch as a contribution toward the expense of this program during the current year. Since the Rockefeller Brothers Fund gives to the Y.M.C.A. of the City of New York, my brothers and I havenot felt that we could normally contribute to branches of the "Y" within the city. Because of this you will understand, I am sure, my asking that this gift be reported as having come from an anonymous source.In writing this letter I don't feel that it is complete without an expression of sincere admiration and appreciation of those principles for which you stand personally in American life. 
Sincerely, John D. Rockefeller"THE TRAVELERS" TO ROBINSONOn the day he received this letter, and aware of this threat against his life, Robinson slugged a home run in the first game of a doubleheader at Crosley Field, home of the Cincinnati Reds. The Dodgers swept the twin bill, 10-3 and 14-4, and the threat proved idle. 
No date [received May 20, 1951] 
We have already got rid of several like you. One was found in river just recently. Robinson, we are going to kill you if you attempt to enter a ballgame at Crosley Field. 
The Travelers"DODGER HA...

Edition details

• Publisher: Times Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0805087109
• ISBN 13: 9780805087109
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384