Presidents and Celebrities: Richard Nixon and Jackie Robinson
Jack Roosevelt Robinson, better known as Jackie, was an professional baseball player who became the first African American to play Major League Baseball in the modern era. Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball when the Brooklyn Dodgers put him in the lineup at first base on April 15, 1947. When the Dodgers signed Robinson, it was the beginning of the end of racial segregation in professional baseball that had previously only allowed African American players to play in the Negro Leagues since the 1880s. Progress in integrating major league baseball would be slow and painful, but it all began with Jackie Robinson.
Robinson had an exceptional 10-year career as a Major League ball player. He was the recipient of the first MLB Rookie of the Year Award in 1947. He was an All-Star for six consecutive seasons from 1949 through 1954, and won the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1949. Robinson played in six World Series and was a member of the Dodgers' 1955 World Series championship team. Robinson's character, especially his belief in nonviolence, and his exceptional ability as a baseball player contributed to his success in changing the status quo of segregation in baseball.
The worlds of baseball and politics intersected in 1949, when Robinson was called to testify before the Congressional House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The hearings concerned African-American entertainer and international civil rights activist Paul Robeson. That year, at an international student peace conference held in Paris on April 20, 1949, Robeson made a speech in which he suggested that African-Americans would not support the United States in a war with the Soviet Union, because of their status as second-class citizens in the eyes of United States law. This led to a HUAC investigation of Robeson. Robinson, in his capacity as a famous African-American sports figure, was called on to testify before the committee on the subject of whether or not there was in fact the anti-American sentiments in the African-American community that Robeson claimed. Robeson had been under investigation by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, due to his vocal support for the Soviet Union. Robeson had spoke about the absence of negative racial attitudes shown towards him during his visits to the Soviet Union. During the Cold War years, McCarthyism and the Red Scare were prominent and many artists, scientists or academics with leftist affiliations who failed to denounce communism were blacklisted.
Robinson did not want to testify before HUAC on this subject, in part because of Robeson's previous advocacy calling for integration in professional baseball. At the annual winter meeting of baseball owners in December 1943, Robeson had addressed baseball owners on the subject of integration. He had told them that baseball, as a national game, had an obligation to end segregation. The owners applauded Robeson's speech, but after the meeting, Baseball Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis said that there was no rule on the books denying African Americans the opportunity to play major league baseball, failing to see the problem.
Robinson struggled with his decision to testify against Robeson before HUAC, but he believed there would be repercussions if he did not. In July 1949, Robinson eventually agreed to testify before the committee. He was afraid that refusing to do so might damage his career and impede the future integration of professional sports.
Robinson's testimony was a major media event. He began with a carefully worded statement, which was reproduced on the front page of The New York Times the following day. The statement was prepared with the help of Dodgers' General Manager Branch Rickey, who had to released Robinson from a prior agreement not to make any political statements during his baseball career. In his statement, Robinson said that Robeson “has a right to his personal views, and if he wants to sound silly when he expresses them in public, that is his business and not mine. He’s still a famous ex-athlete and a great singer and actor. The fact that it is a Communist who denounces injustice in the courts, police brutality, and lynching when it happens doesn't change the truth of his charges." He said that racial discrimination is not "a creation of Communist imagination." Robinson left the capital immediately after his testimony.
In general, Robinson's testimony was positively received in the media. In an article by Eleanor Roosevelt, the former first lady wrote, "Mr. Robeson does his people great harm in trying to line them up on the Communist side of political picture. Jackie Robinson helped them greatly by his forthright statements." Reaction in African-American newspapers was mixed. The New York Amsterdam News was supportive, saying that "Jackie Robinson had batted 1,000 percent in this game." However the newspaper Afro-American ran a disparaging cartoon depicting Jackie Robinson as a frightened little boy with a gun attempting to "hunt" Robeson.
Robeson called Robinson's testimony a "disservice" to the black community, but declined to criticize Robinson personally. He said, "I am not going to permit the issue to boil down to a personal feud between me and Jackie. To do that, would be to do exactly what the other group wants us to do."
Near the end of his life, Robinson wrote in his autobiography about the incident:
"However, in those days I had much more faith in the ultimate justice of the American white man than I have today. I would reject such an invitation if offered now. I have grown wiser and closer to the painful truths about America’s destructiveness. And I do have increased respect for Paul Robeson who, over the span of twenty years, sacrificed himself, his career, and the wealth and comfort he once enjoyed because, I believe, he was sincerely trying to help his people."
Robinson's anti-communist stance attracted the friendship of California Senator Richard Nixon, who met Robinson in Yankee Stadium’s locker room after Game 5 of the 1952 World Series. At the time Nixon was the Republican nominee for vice president. In 1960, Robinson endorsed Nixon for president. By this time, Jackson had been retired from baseball for almost four years, but he was still nationally admired. Robinson called the civil rights commitment of Nixon’s Democratic rival, John F. Kennedy, “insincere.” In the previous election of 1956, about 39 percent of African-American voters had supported the re-election of President Dwight Eisenhower and Vice-President Nixon.
In October 1960, Martin Luther King Jr. was jailed in Georgia. John F. Kennedy made a famous telephone call to King’s wife, Coretta, which helped to get King released. Nixon had declined Robinson’s calls for Nixon to intervene in the case. Nixon said to Robinson that Kennedy had acted opportunistically. He told Robinson, Kennedy had made "a grandstand play." Robinson remained loyal to his friend Nixon, despite strong pressure (including from his wife, Rachel) to switch allegiance from Nixon to Kennedy, as Dr. King's father had done. Robinson later attributed his decision to "stubbornness." He was called a “sellout” and an “Uncle Tom” by those in the African-American community that were critical of him. In the election that November, Nixon won only a third of the African-American vote according to exit polling.
Robinson remained loyal to the Republican Party, even after Presidents Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson adopted a civil rights policy that resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the spring of 1964, Robinson quit his executive job at Chock Full o’ Nuts to campaign for New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, a Republican. He said, “we must work for a two-party system, as far as the Negro is concerned.”
When the Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater that summer, a man who had opposed the 1964 civil rights legislation as unconstitutional, Robinson felt considerable discomfort within the party. His candidate Rockefeller denounced political extremism at the party’s San Francisco convention. A conflict between the two wings of the party developed and Robinson almost got into a fist fight with an Alabama delegate on the convention floor. He later wrote that when he left the convention, “I had a better understanding of how it must have felt to be a Jew in Hitler’s Germany.” That fall, Robinson changed parties and joined the 94 percent of the African-American voters that backed President Johnson.
In 1968, Robinson was furious about Nixon's invitation for the support of Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Thurmond had once led the segregationist “Dixiecrats” in the 1948 election. Instead Robinson backed the Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey.
Jackie Robinson died of a heart attack at age 53, two weeks before the 1972 election. Despite Nixon’s civil rights record which was actually somewhat liberal on things like public schools desegregation, Robinson was still unimpressed with Nixon's effort to carry the five Southern states that had supported George Wallace’s third-party candidacy in 1968. Nixon knew he had little chance to win much of the African-American vote. In March of 1972, Robinson complained in a letter to Nixon by letter that the president was “polarizing this country.” He added in the letter, “I want so much to be a part of and to love this country as I once did.”
In 1997, MLB retired his uniform number 42 across all major league teams. Robinson was the first pro athlete in any sport to be honored in this way. On April 15, 2004, MLB began a new annual tradition, "Jackie Robinson Day", a day on which every player on every team wears No. 42. After his death in 1972, Robinson was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon.
Robinson had an exceptional 10-year career as a Major League ball player. He was the recipient of the first MLB Rookie of the Year Award in 1947. He was an All-Star for six consecutive seasons from 1949 through 1954, and won the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1949. Robinson played in six World Series and was a member of the Dodgers' 1955 World Series championship team. Robinson's character, especially his belief in nonviolence, and his exceptional ability as a baseball player contributed to his success in changing the status quo of segregation in baseball.
The worlds of baseball and politics intersected in 1949, when Robinson was called to testify before the Congressional House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The hearings concerned African-American entertainer and international civil rights activist Paul Robeson. That year, at an international student peace conference held in Paris on April 20, 1949, Robeson made a speech in which he suggested that African-Americans would not support the United States in a war with the Soviet Union, because of their status as second-class citizens in the eyes of United States law. This led to a HUAC investigation of Robeson. Robinson, in his capacity as a famous African-American sports figure, was called on to testify before the committee on the subject of whether or not there was in fact the anti-American sentiments in the African-American community that Robeson claimed. Robeson had been under investigation by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, due to his vocal support for the Soviet Union. Robeson had spoke about the absence of negative racial attitudes shown towards him during his visits to the Soviet Union. During the Cold War years, McCarthyism and the Red Scare were prominent and many artists, scientists or academics with leftist affiliations who failed to denounce communism were blacklisted.
Robinson did not want to testify before HUAC on this subject, in part because of Robeson's previous advocacy calling for integration in professional baseball. At the annual winter meeting of baseball owners in December 1943, Robeson had addressed baseball owners on the subject of integration. He had told them that baseball, as a national game, had an obligation to end segregation. The owners applauded Robeson's speech, but after the meeting, Baseball Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis said that there was no rule on the books denying African Americans the opportunity to play major league baseball, failing to see the problem.
Robinson struggled with his decision to testify against Robeson before HUAC, but he believed there would be repercussions if he did not. In July 1949, Robinson eventually agreed to testify before the committee. He was afraid that refusing to do so might damage his career and impede the future integration of professional sports.
Robinson's testimony was a major media event. He began with a carefully worded statement, which was reproduced on the front page of The New York Times the following day. The statement was prepared with the help of Dodgers' General Manager Branch Rickey, who had to released Robinson from a prior agreement not to make any political statements during his baseball career. In his statement, Robinson said that Robeson “has a right to his personal views, and if he wants to sound silly when he expresses them in public, that is his business and not mine. He’s still a famous ex-athlete and a great singer and actor. The fact that it is a Communist who denounces injustice in the courts, police brutality, and lynching when it happens doesn't change the truth of his charges." He said that racial discrimination is not "a creation of Communist imagination." Robinson left the capital immediately after his testimony.
In general, Robinson's testimony was positively received in the media. In an article by Eleanor Roosevelt, the former first lady wrote, "Mr. Robeson does his people great harm in trying to line them up on the Communist side of political picture. Jackie Robinson helped them greatly by his forthright statements." Reaction in African-American newspapers was mixed. The New York Amsterdam News was supportive, saying that "Jackie Robinson had batted 1,000 percent in this game." However the newspaper Afro-American ran a disparaging cartoon depicting Jackie Robinson as a frightened little boy with a gun attempting to "hunt" Robeson.
Robeson called Robinson's testimony a "disservice" to the black community, but declined to criticize Robinson personally. He said, "I am not going to permit the issue to boil down to a personal feud between me and Jackie. To do that, would be to do exactly what the other group wants us to do."
Near the end of his life, Robinson wrote in his autobiography about the incident:
"However, in those days I had much more faith in the ultimate justice of the American white man than I have today. I would reject such an invitation if offered now. I have grown wiser and closer to the painful truths about America’s destructiveness. And I do have increased respect for Paul Robeson who, over the span of twenty years, sacrificed himself, his career, and the wealth and comfort he once enjoyed because, I believe, he was sincerely trying to help his people."
Robinson's anti-communist stance attracted the friendship of California Senator Richard Nixon, who met Robinson in Yankee Stadium’s locker room after Game 5 of the 1952 World Series. At the time Nixon was the Republican nominee for vice president. In 1960, Robinson endorsed Nixon for president. By this time, Jackson had been retired from baseball for almost four years, but he was still nationally admired. Robinson called the civil rights commitment of Nixon’s Democratic rival, John F. Kennedy, “insincere.” In the previous election of 1956, about 39 percent of African-American voters had supported the re-election of President Dwight Eisenhower and Vice-President Nixon.
In October 1960, Martin Luther King Jr. was jailed in Georgia. John F. Kennedy made a famous telephone call to King’s wife, Coretta, which helped to get King released. Nixon had declined Robinson’s calls for Nixon to intervene in the case. Nixon said to Robinson that Kennedy had acted opportunistically. He told Robinson, Kennedy had made "a grandstand play." Robinson remained loyal to his friend Nixon, despite strong pressure (including from his wife, Rachel) to switch allegiance from Nixon to Kennedy, as Dr. King's father had done. Robinson later attributed his decision to "stubbornness." He was called a “sellout” and an “Uncle Tom” by those in the African-American community that were critical of him. In the election that November, Nixon won only a third of the African-American vote according to exit polling.
Robinson remained loyal to the Republican Party, even after Presidents Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson adopted a civil rights policy that resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the spring of 1964, Robinson quit his executive job at Chock Full o’ Nuts to campaign for New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, a Republican. He said, “we must work for a two-party system, as far as the Negro is concerned.”
When the Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater that summer, a man who had opposed the 1964 civil rights legislation as unconstitutional, Robinson felt considerable discomfort within the party. His candidate Rockefeller denounced political extremism at the party’s San Francisco convention. A conflict between the two wings of the party developed and Robinson almost got into a fist fight with an Alabama delegate on the convention floor. He later wrote that when he left the convention, “I had a better understanding of how it must have felt to be a Jew in Hitler’s Germany.” That fall, Robinson changed parties and joined the 94 percent of the African-American voters that backed President Johnson.
In 1968, Robinson was furious about Nixon's invitation for the support of Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Thurmond had once led the segregationist “Dixiecrats” in the 1948 election. Instead Robinson backed the Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey.
Jackie Robinson died of a heart attack at age 53, two weeks before the 1972 election. Despite Nixon’s civil rights record which was actually somewhat liberal on things like public schools desegregation, Robinson was still unimpressed with Nixon's effort to carry the five Southern states that had supported George Wallace’s third-party candidacy in 1968. Nixon knew he had little chance to win much of the African-American vote. In March of 1972, Robinson complained in a letter to Nixon by letter that the president was “polarizing this country.” He added in the letter, “I want so much to be a part of and to love this country as I once did.”
In 1997, MLB retired his uniform number 42 across all major league teams. Robinson was the first pro athlete in any sport to be honored in this way. On April 15, 2004, MLB began a new annual tradition, "Jackie Robinson Day", a day on which every player on every team wears No. 42. After his death in 1972, Robinson was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Richard Nixon.