Monday Milestone: Breaking the Barrier
“I do not care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a f#cking zebra. I’m manager of this team, and I say he plays”
– Brooklyn Dodgers manager
This Week in History
1947, April 15,
In a landmark moment for Civil Rights, across America, Jackie Robinson breaks through the colour barrier, debuting for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the Major League.
Throughout American history, two themes that emerge are Civil Rights and the national love of baseball. Baseball holds such a storied narration of the American culture and infuses the national identity.
During the 1920s as America fell in love with the sport, segregation was rife; in restaurants, at drinking fountains, and inevitably in baseball. African Americans had set up Negro Leagues across the country and operated them in parallel with the Major League.
For a generation it worked. Conservative white America was content to let the Negros have their own league, smug in the knowledge that theirs was ‘better’. African-Americans were also content as they got to play. But as Civil Rights began swelling in the 1940s it became clear that this was not sustainable.
WWII fuelled African-American patriotism as they fought and died for their country whilst those on the home front had more money than ever from full employment, and could now afford to attend Negro League games, push income into baseball, and wonder about the Major League.
But the racial segregation still stood in the way. Baseball remained divided until the death of Judge Kenesaw M. Landis, the first Commissioner of the Major League Baseball and a fierce opponent of integration in 1944. Suddenly with a new commissioner, the door was open to the possibility of merging the leagues.
Breaking the coloured line would also be a hugely symbolic landmark in the Civil Rights movement. For an African-American to break into the Major League successfully, it would require a player who would not simply play a handful of games, a player with talent enough to endorse their selection.
A player like Jackie Robinson.
Robinson was a progressive African American, often pushing a Civil Rights agenda. After joining the Negro League in 1945, where he enjoyed great success, his ambitions grew loftier. The Major League awaited, he just needed the right team. The Brooklyn Dodgers were that team. They too were interested in overcoming the colour line, recognising the previously untapped talents that lay in the Negro Leagues. It was a meeting of the minds.
So in 1947, Jackie Robinson was selected for the Brooklyn Dodgers and took to Ebberts Field in Brooklyn. Over half the crowd it is estimated were African-American, there to witness the landmark moment, the first in a season, which would see Robinson win Rookie of the Year. Over the next decade, he would go on to become a six time All Star, win a World Series and bat with an average of .311 imploring America to focus on his talents, not his skin colour.
Years later Jackie Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and his jersey was retired. But his true legacy was opening the doors of tolerance for players of any colour across wider American professional sport.
So for a pioneer, an activist, and the man that successfully broke the coloured line, here’s to you, Mr Robinson.
Milestone Five: Pivotal Moments in American Baseball
5. Hank Aaron hits his 714thhome run surpassing Babe Ruth’s record in 1974.
4. Joe DiMaggio sets a 56 game hitting streak in 1941
3. The 1919 Chicago WhiteSox fix the World Series
2. Babe Ruth is sold to the Yankees in 1919 sparking the ’Curse of the Bambino’
1. Jackie Robinson breaks the colour barrier for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947
