Jackie Robinson: A Spiritual Biography

by Long, Michael G.

  Robinson breathed a sigh of relief.

  He enjoyed another breather of sorts later in the month when

  Roone Arledge, head of ABC-TV Sports, called a press conference to

  announce that Robinson would provide commentary for Major League

  Baseball games televised in the East during the upcoming season.

  144

  JACKIE ROBINSON

  Four years earlier, Robinson had told his friend Caroline Wallerstein that he had felt disconnected from Major League Baseball: “I can’t get worked up at all over the game. I believe it’s primarily because I feel the people connected with the game are such little people. It’s bad to say all, and I know there are some very good people connected; however, a bad experience spoils it all.”5

  Robinson was still stinging from his troubling experiences with

  Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley.

  Nevertheless, Robinson had often commented on baseball in his

  newspaper columns, and Rachel later told biographer Arnold Ramp-

  ersad that, while Jackie did not go to the ballpark before the ABC gig, he loved watching it on television and would even jump out of his seat and yell at the players and managers during a game.

  Robinson was certainly excited about, and thankful for, the oppor-

  tunity to provide commentary for ABC-TV in 1965. “If it hadn’t been

  for sports, I doubt I would have accomplished much in life,” he said at the end of March. “Maybe God would have given me some other

  ability. I don’t know. I do know what athletics have meant to me. It’s nice to be able to repay debts, and I have paid mine, but it’s good to be back in sports.”6

  In early summer, Robinson took his family to yet another event

  honoring his contributions to baseball and US history. The Los Ange-

  les County Board of Supervisors had proclaimed June 16, 1965, as

  Jackie Robinson Day, and part of the festivities were held at Dodger Stadium. The driving force behind the proclamation was Jackie’s childhood friend and Los Angeles County supervisor Walter Dorn, who had

  arranged not only for a local park to be named after Robinson but also for the Dodgers to honor him at a pregame event.

  The involvement of the Dodgers was significant because Robin-

  son and O’Malley had been estranged since Jackie’s departure from

  baseball. Rachel had long encouraged her husband to make amends

  with O’Malley, and Jackie felt a similar pull during a cordial conversation with Kay O’Malley, Walter’s spouse, on the night before his 1962

  induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

  Robinson sent O’Malley a letter indicating his willingness to discuss their past problems during an upcoming trip to Los Angeles, and while the proposed meeting did not take place, O’Malley later approved of

  Jackie Robinson Day at Dodger Stadium.

  Robinson was grateful for the owner’s cooperation, even if the two did not meet during the event, and a few weeks after the celebration he wrote

  “Good lord Has sHowered BlessInGs on Me and tHIs country” 145

  to O’Malley. “Thanks for helping to make the Jackie Robinson Day a big success, at least for my family,” he wrote. “I am told everyone considered the day a success; much of it was due to your cooperation.” The owner of the Dodgers replied shortly thereafter, saying, “It was thoughtful of you to write me and I do appreciate it.”7 The simple exchange of letters was far from pregnant with words of sorrow and forgiveness, but it indicated at least some level of reconciliation between the two men.

  Back in his adopted hometown of Stamford, a shocking event

  occurred, much to Jackie’s dismay, in the summer of 1965: two thou-

  sand residents turned out for a meeting of the John Birch Society.

  Established in 1958, the society used appeals to God and Christian

  Scripture to oppose both communism and the civil rights movement.

  Like others on the far right, John Birchers claimed that atheistic communists were founding members of the civil rights movement and that

  they continued to control the movement, with a desire to disrupt and take over the country.

  Since its founding, the society had spread rapidly, and Robinson

  had recently learned that the organization was opening offices in Washington, DC, and even in Los Angeles, which had just experienced a

  race-related riot in the Watts area.

  “We cannot afford any more riots,” Jackie wrote to Vice President

  Humphrey, suggesting that the growth of the society would result in an explosion of violence from frustrated African Americans.8

  In his reply, the vice president stated not only that he shared Rob-

  inson’s concern about the far right but also that he was pleased to be able to point to President Johnson’s June 2 announcement of a future White House conference titled “To Fulfill These Rights,” which would seek to help “the American Negro fulfill the rights which, after the long time of injustice, he is finally about to secure.”9

  Robinson was displeased that the administration would not respond

  more urgently to the danger posed by the John Birch Society. As impatient as he had been with Eisenhower, Jackie demanded presidential

  action now.

  But that did not happen.

  By now the president was busily plotting the war in Vietnam, a

  quickly escalating war that visited the Robinson home in the fall of 1965 in a way that Jackie and Rachel had often feared since they had learned, in June, that the army had shipped their eldest child to Vietnam. “The transfer evoked my worst fears,” Rachel recalled. “We

  prayed endlessly for his safety.”10

  146

  JACKIE ROBINSON

  On November 19, Jackie Jr. and his platoon came under fierce

  assault, leaving him wounded in the shoulder. Two friends who were

  next to him also came under heavy fire, and while Jackie managed to

  drag one of them out of the heat of battle, neither of those injured men survived. Still suffering from his shrapnel wounds, Jackie returned to active duty about a week after the ambush, a decision that did nothing to calm his parents’ fears or quiet their prayers.

  Less than a month later, the Robinsons experienced more troubling

  times when they learned that Branch Rickey had died at the age of

  eighty-six after suffering a heart attack while speaking at his induction into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame on November 13.

  “Now I’m going to tell you a story from the Bible about spiritual

  courage,” Rickey said just before collapsing and falling into a coma from which he never recovered. He died a few weeks later.11

  The Rev. Ralph Sockman of Christ Church in Manhattan, one

  of the country’s most prominent Protestant ministers, delivered the

  eulogy at Grace Methodist Church in St. Louis.

  Sockman, who had been friends with Rickey since he was an under-

  graduate student at Ohio Wesleyan, told his audience that while he did not know what, in particular, Rickey was going to say about spiritual courage, the baseball executive certainly demonstrated courage in his career by confronting and changing racism in baseball and society. “He was adventurous enough to explore new trails,” Sockman said, “and he was brotherly enough to bring others along with him.”12

  Jackie and Rachel attended the funeral, as did Major League Baseball commissioner William Eckert and National League president Warren

  Giles. Jackie was disappointed that only two other African American

  baseball players were in the pews.

  Robinson gave his own eulogy for Rickey in a column for the Asso-

  ciated Negro Press. “With the passing of Branch Rickey, I feel it can be truly said that God has called one of the greatest men of our time,” he wrote. Robinson drew some attention to their yea
rs together with the Dodgers, but he focused primarily on their postbaseball relationship.

  “It is that relationship which makes me feel almost as if I had lost my own father. For, Branch Rickey, even after I was no longer in the sports spotlight, treated me like a son.”13

  Robinson recalled how proud Rickey seemed when the two stood

  close to each other during Jackie’s induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and he remembered Rickey visiting him in the hospital when he

  had the surgery that left him struggling for his life. “Very few people

  “Good lord Has sHowered BlessInGs on Me and tHIs country” 147

  know it, but I faced the possibility of death at that time,” he said.

  “Branch Rickey was sick himself. But he traveled to New York just to come to see me. He talked with me and treated me like a son. That’s

  the way I feel now—like a father is gone.”14

  For all Rickey accomplished in baseball, he found his greatest

  glory by signing Jackie Robinson. He often spoke about how he had

  been motivated to do so by his Christian principles. He believed that progress toward real racial equality would come slowly but that the

  time would come when Americans would look back and see what

  had been achieved. “All of us will soon look back upon this day with wonder and incredulity,” Rickey said, “for we shall surely face the

  brotherhood of man as surely as we recognize the common brother-

  hood of God.”15

  Robinson’s faith had been shaped by Branch Rickey, the Rev. Karl

  Downs, and his mother, Mallie, and now only his mother survived.

  But Robinson, as he always did, persevered.

  By the end of the year he was delivering a speech that touched on the Vietnam War. “My son was wounded in Vietnam,” he told a crowd in

  Washington, DC. “He suffered shrapnel wounds, but the two boys on

  either side of him were killed. I sometimes wonder why my boy is fighting in Vietnam when right here I see . . .” Unfortunately, the reporter who covered the speech could not hear the rest of the sentence; the

  crowd’s cheers drowned out Jackie’s voice.16

  Although Robinson had struck a chord on Vietnam, the main

  purpose of his comments was to address home rule in the District of

  Columbia, an effort to gain full representation in the US Congress. As one whose theology centered on self-help, Jackie embraced the cause

  with enthusiasm. “You’ll get it if you really want it and show that you want it,” he told the rally. “You must unite; you must go out and fight for it. You must sacrifice a little more, and let the people know how you feel. God helps those who get out and help themselves.”17 The crowd

  roared its approval.

  In early 1966, Robinson turned his attention once again to poli-

  tics, this time by writing a pointed letter criticizing his favorite politician, Nelson Rockefeller, for having no blacks on his staff. Rockefeller responded by hiring Robinson as a special assistant for community

  affairs, a full-time position paid out of the governor’s own wallet.

  Robinson’s interest in racial equality took him far from New York,

  though, and in January he traveled to North Carolina A&T College in Greensboro, home to the four students who had birthed the sit-in

  148

  JACKIE ROBINSON

  movement in 1960. Robinson awarded the young activists a special

  plaque of commendation from Freedom National Bank.

  He later used his column to praise the students and lambaste the

  “tremendous opposition” that came not only from whites but also from

  “ ‘let’s not push too hard’ Negroes and from Negroes who feared the

  possibility of stirring up the wrath of the white community and from others who were afraid that violence would result.”18

  In mid-February, Robinson again took on the issue of bigotry within

  the African American community. He had in mind a black Congress

  of Racial Equality (CORE) leader in Westchester County who had

  declared during a recent public meeting, attended by a number of local Jews, that Hitler had not killed enough Jewish people. The CORE

  leader later apologized, but Robinson declared that apologies at this point were “inadequate,” and that the man should be forced out of his office. “Bigotry has no color,” he said. “There are black bigots as well as white bigots.”19

  At the same time, Robinson also scolded James Farmer, the head of

  CORE, for apparently diminishing the gravity of the staffer’s remark.

  Robinson was dumbfounded. “This man did not attack the Jews, he

  attacked God,” he said. “He attacked man, the Son of God, he attacked you and me.”20

  There was one social issue prominent at this time that Robinson said little about—women’s rights.

  Demands for equality for women were pervasive in US society and cul-

  ture in the early to mid-1960s. In 1963, Betty Friedan had penned The Feminine Mystique, an early feminist manifesto, and in 1965 feminists had successfully demanded that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 include a provision prohibiting sex discrimination in employment, a provision that became part of Title VII of the act. And when the Equal Employment

  Opportunity Commission, formed in 1965 to implement Title VII,

  failed to take sufficient steps to curb discrimination against women in employment, feminists erupted in frustration at a June 1966 conference on women and employment. Gathering in Friedan’s hotel room, fifteen

  to twenty women talked about the urgent need for their own political organization. During the enlivening conversation, Friedan wrote the

  acronym “NOW” on a paper napkin, giving a name, the National Orga-

  nization for Women, to a new organization focused on ending discrimination against women and advancing their rights and equality.

  Less than one month before Friedan wrote on her napkin, Robinson

  had devoted a column to society’s treatment of women. He began by

  “Good lord Has sHowered BlessInGs on Me and tHIs country” 149

  lamenting the times he had witnessed men grabbing taxis that women

  had been waiting for, lunging for subway seats that left women standing, or manhandling women with “unbelievable roughness” during the

  subway rush hour. “Maybe I am a little square,” Robinson stated. “I

  grew up in a home where we loved and respected our mother and a

  home in which we were taught that due deference must be given to the ladies.” Jackie also referred to Rachel, his “partner and helper,” saying that he shuddered “to think of how I would feel or react if someone

  showed open disrespect to her.”21

  Robinson pointed to the strong women of the civil rights move-

  ment, too, although without naming any of them. “Let us face it:

  Negro women have been the backbone of our freedom movement,”

  he declared. “They have carried more than their share of load.” African American women had certainly carried more than their share during

  his own efforts to advance freedom. “For myself, I know that I never would have been able to make it without the support, devotion, and

  love of my Rachel,” he stated. “To my mother I owe the realization at an early age that no one individual is better than another.”22

  But Robinson chose not to focus on women’s rights in this column.

  Instead, his main suggestion was that men should begin to demonstrate gratitude to women by showing them respect in everyday matters like

  offering them seats on public transportation and not shoving them during rush hour. It was the type of chivalrous stance that typically led to loud groans and vigorous protests within the feminist community. Feminists wanted rights, not seats, but Robinson remained
silent on those demands.

  That might not have come as a surprise to Rachel, who recalled

  that Jackie was not too pleased when she first told him, in 1958, when their youngest child, David, was in school full-time, that she wanted to work outside the home. As she recalled it, “Mallie, his mother, had been overworked, and since his youth he had savored the thought that he would be the sole supporter of his family.”23 Rachel understood she would be disappointing Jackie, but she applied to New York University’s Graduate School of Nursing.

  Jackie conceded because he knew he could not stop her. After she

  was accepted into the program, he showed his support for her by waiting for her in a Chuck full o’Nuts shop while she finished her classes for the day. Rachel deeply appreciated his thoughtfulness, and they grew closer as they rode home together.

  Rachel graduated in 1959 and happily took her first job with

  the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Department of Social and

  150

  JACKIE ROBINSON

  Community Psychiatry, where she helped to create the first day hospital for acutely ill psychiatric patients. In 1960, she took a long-lasting position as director of a psychiatric nursing program at Yale, where she also served as an assistant professor of nursing. She felt some guilt about being absent from home so much, but her own mother, Zellee

  Isum, who lived with the Robinsons, helped considerably around the

  house while Jackie continued to offer his own quiet support in the

  years ahead.

  He did not remain quiet, though, when Ronald Reagan was elected

  governor of California in the same month that NOW came into being.

  “If I read Reagan correctly, he is another Goldwater—with what the

  kids call ‘smarts,’ ” Robinson stated.24

  There was worse news in the summer of 1966, though: the eruption

  of violence in cities across the country.

  Robinson had addressed the possibility of a violent summer in the

  prior spring, and in doing so he drew directly from Martin Luther King Jr., who had long embraced a comprehensive view of societal violence, one far larger than that which focused narrowly on violent uprisings in inner-city ghettos during the summer months.