I'd read somewhere that when major league baseball integrated with the Dodgers signing of Jackie Robinson in 1947, they opened the door for America to begin desegregation. The following year, President Harry S. Truman would sign executive order 9981 which states:
"It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin."
Six years later NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall would win a suprrme court case that ruled segregation in public schools as unconstitutional. From there sprang the Civil Rights Movement for racial equality in America. The movement continues to fight battles for minority equality in America.
Today I gave a book about the Negro Leagues of Baseball to a traveling friend. Its a book I've read more than once and felt that my friend would truly enjoy. It felt like giving a gift that you wanted to keep for yourself. I parted with the book knowing that my friend would enjoy reading it on his journey back east. Before giving him the book I spent about thirty minutes flipping through its pages and saying goodbye to some of the stories in it. I know I'll come across the book again, but for me, parting with books is like wishing a friend well on a journey, just as this friend of mine was journeying. Its great to send a visiting friend off with a friendly gift.
Well, in leafing through the book's pages I came across a few paragraphs I wanted to retain as a memory of my friend the book. Here below are the book and the lines from it that show in words what the negro baseball players faced every day of their lives; a color barrier that prevented them from gaining national sports recognition as professionals of the game they loved so much, baseball. Though Negro men had proven themselves heroic, capable of soldiering bravely in foreign battles of World War II, America was still treating them as second class citizens or less here at home. Major League Baseball would lead the nation in recovering from its racial prejudicial past. The nation, even with a Black President, is still playing catch up.
excerpt from"Black Diamond: The Story of the Negro Baseball Leagues"
by Patricia McKissack & Fredrick McKissack, Jr.
Only one thing is keeping them out of the big leagues, and that is the pigmentation of their skin." Shirley Povich washington post
Clark Griffith, owner of the Washington senators, the first one to speak out against the 'gentleman's agreement" that had banned blacks from the sport since the National League was founded, made this famous prediction:
"A lone Negro in the game will face caustic comments. He will be made the target of cruel, filthy epithets. Of course, I know the time will come when the ice will have to be broken. Both by the organized game and by the colored player who is willing to volunteer and thus become a sort of martyr to the cause."
Gabby Hartnett, manager of the Chicago cubs, added this: "If managers were given permission, there'd be a mad rush to sign up Negroes."
Although the critics of segregation were growing in number, there weren't enough of them to overcome the strong opposition that wanted to maintain the status quo. They used these arguments to keep the color line clearly drawn:
1. A large number of major league players were southerners, and they wouldn't play with or against black players.
2. Fans might riot if there was a dispute between a white and black player.
3. The clubs trained in the South. Black players couldn't stay in hotels, and they were forbidden by law to participate in sports with whites.
4. Black players just weren't good enough.
Everybody knew these were hollow excuses, but nobody was willing to rock the boat.
Black players had heard it all before. "We didn't think anything was going to happen," said Buck Leonard. "We thought that they were just going to keep talking about it, that's all. They'd talked about it all those years and there'd been nothing done. We just didn't pay it any attention. We'd say, well, if it comes, we hope to have a chance to play, but we just didn't pay it any mind."
The African American Baseball Experience
The African American Baseball Experience
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