In King’s view, the governing authorities simply ignored “the daily
violence done to human beings who live under inhuman, intolerable
circumstances from day to day: the slums, the rat-infested apartments, the rejections of ghetto-living, the poor schools, indifferent teachers and education officials, the doors slammed in employment and personnel offices.” These conditions comprised “a violence for all seasons,”
and one that political leaders should address if they wanted to avoid violence in the summer.25
Robinson agreed with King.
“How shall we profit by winning a war in Vietnam if we lose the
war for decency at home?” Robinson asked.26 The time had come for
a year-round effort to make the Johnson administration’s dream of the Great Society come alive for all the poor, black and white.
But politicians on both sides of the aisle largely failed to implement plans for the Great Society, and another long, hot summer was in full boil in 1966.
As the summer riots continued across the country, Robinson rightly
acknowledged that the Old Guard of the civil rights movement held
“no power of persuasion over these youngsters.”27 The frustrated ghettos looked up to Malcolm X, who had been assassinated in 1965; Stokely
Carmichael, the forceful new chairman of the Student Nonviolent
“Good lord Has sHowered BlessInGs on Me and tHIs country” 151
Coordinating Committee (SNCC); and others who were now shouting
for “black power.”
Although the phrase “black power” had appeared as the title of a
1954 book by Richard Wright, the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. pop-
ularized the term, even claiming to coin it, in 1965 and 1966. One of the first times he used the phrase was in a March 1965 talk in which he “urged black people to mobilize their political, economic, financial, and educational power to build their communities into neighborhoods
of excellence.”28
Powell popularized the term even more when he used it in a series of sermons he later delivered and especially in a baccalaureate address he gave at Howard University on May 29, 1966. As Powell himself recalled his comments, “I urged my people to pursue excellence and to purpose our lives to the fulfillment of divine-souled human rights instead of narrow-souled civil rights. I declared on that day: ‘To demand these God-given rights is to seek black power, audacious power—the power
to build black institutions of splendid achievement.’ ”
Stokely Carmichael was in the Howard audience, listening intently
and appreciatively. Less than a month later Carmichael would carry the phrase “black power” deep into the state of Mississippi.
On June 1, 1966, James Meredith, who had gained national fame
when he attempted to matriculate at the University of Mississippi in 1961 and then became the school’s first black student in 1962, began a one-man march through Mississippi. His purpose was to draw attention to voting rights and to encourage blacks to register to vote.
Meredith was shot on the second day of his march, and Martin
Luther King Jr. and Carmichael decided to complete the trek on the
wounded Meredith’s behalf. King and Carmichael debated the future
of the civil rights movement as they marched together, and at a rally in Greenwood, Mississippi, Carmichael sought to steer the nonviolent movement in a different direction by encouraging the crowd to shout
out its support for black power. As the crowd repeated the phrase in reply to Carmichael’s urging, their anger seemed to mount to a degree not felt in prior marches led by King.
Shortly after the Greenwood rally, SNCC, under Carmichael’s
leadership, called for an all-black civil rights struggle that would be open to employing force to accomplish its goals. This appeal resulted in a drop in membership and funds for SNCC, and it also served to
fracture the movement. On one side were the Old Guard leaders who
favored achieving integration through nonviolence: King, A. Philip
152
JACKIE ROBINSON
Randolph, Roy Wilkins, and Whitney Young. On the other were those
who embraced racial separatism and the threat of violence to achieve their ends: Carmichael and all the other young militants of the emerging black power movement.
Robinson belonged to the Old Guard, and in the fall of 1966 he
demonstrated his fierce opposition to Carmichael by enthusiastically applauding a new sermon by Powell titled “Black Power: A Form of
Godly Power.” It was one of the rare times when Robinson lauded the
Harlem congressman.
Clad in his minister’s robe at Abyssinian Baptist, Powell used his
sermon to plot a middle course between King and black power advo-
cates who embraced racial separatism and the use of violence.
“First of all, black power is not anti-white,” Powell preached. “Black power incorporates everybody who wishes to work together, vote
together and worship together.”
The minister fittingly turned to Scripture as his moral authority for opposing separatism as a final goal. “If white people can accept black leadership in any given political, business or educational situation—
which is, in a sense a kind of black power—then I, Adam Clayton
Powell, welcome them, because, as Paul said: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.’ ”
Separatism as an end goal was wrong, Powell said, because faithful
followers of Jesus were ultimately bound together by the inclusive identity of the one they followed.
Powell also forcefully criticized black power advocates who
believed in the use of “any means necessary” in the fight for racial justice. “Black power is a constructive approach to the new life of freedom for black people in the Great Society,” he explained. “Violence
must play no part in its fulfillment.” Using “any means necessary”
was destructive, not constructive. “Instead of ‘Burn, baby, burn,’
we should be shouting, ‘Learn, baby, learn’ and ‘Earn, baby, earn,’ ”
Powell preached, to the delight of his rapt congregation. “Instead of lighting up the sky with Molotov cocktails, we should be brightening the skies with the stars of millions of registered voters,” he continued. “Instead of throwing fire bombs, we should fire up our energies to build more black-owned businesses in our communities.” Powell
backed his call for nonviolence by drawing from Jesus’ demand that
his disciples put away their swords.
“Good lord Has sHowered BlessInGs on Me and tHIs country” 153
But having excluded racial separatism and violence as ingredients
of black power, Powell also made sure to separate black power from
the civil rights movement led by King. “We have indulged ourselves
in the past five years in a magnificent exercise of near futility with our marches, our sit-ins, our demonstrations, our picketing and now our
rebellions,” he argued, still to the pleasure of his congregation.
Powell also implored his listeners to stop expecting that civil
rights legislation would be the answer to their problems and to start practicing self-help. “Black people themselves must exercise a massive responsibility for their fate. Black people themselves must assume
control and direction for their destiny.”
With this call for self-help, Powell then defined “black power” as
he understood it. “Black power is, first and foremost, Godly power,” a power that ultimately embraces equality of and unity among the races.
“Without the hand of God in man’s hand, there can be no coming
together of black and white in
this world. Unless man is committed to the belief that all of mankind are his brothers, then he labors in vain and hypocritically in the vineyards of equality.”
Black power is also “black pride,” a “belief in self and in the dig-
nity of the black man’s soul.” It’s also “black initiative” and “black productivity—the increase of black jobs for black men and women, the contribution of black people to the gross national product, the beautifi-cation of black neighborhoods, and the expansion of black businesses.”
And, finally, black power is “black responsibility—the recognition by black people that they must demand and have a proportionate share of the responsibilities of running the communities, the cities and the states in which they live.”
Robinson could barely contain his excitement about Powell’s ser-
mon, calling it nothing less than “a blessing.”29
Although he could not accept the minister’s dismissal of the significance of the civil rights movement and governmental action, Robinson did agree that the time had come to move beyond marches and to begin exercising black power exactly as Powell, not Carmichael, had described it.
“There is real strength among us,” Robinson added. “I salute Adam
Powell for his latest version and suggest when we use our ballot and our dollars wisely, we are exercising black power without having to
define it.”30
Robinson also added that he liked Powell’s understanding of black
power as “our sincere faith and trust in God.”31
154
JACKIE ROBINSON
Black power, for Robinson, was spiritual in its core.
In early 1967, Robinson defended heavyweight boxing champion
Muhammad Ali, who found himself ridiculed by the white press for his name change, his faith, and his brashness.
Robinson hearkened back to his own experiences in Major League
Baseball. “I know what he is going through,” he said. “For, during my own career in sports, I came to learn that there are many writers who like tame Negroes who ‘stay in their place.’ ” The place for Ali was not prostrate before the public, according to Jackie. “Of course, by backing up his words with deeds, Clay or Ali has clearly demonstrated where his
‘place’ is—right up there at the top.”32
Robinson even defended Ali following his conviction for refusing to
submit to the draft during the Vietnam War. “It is in the light of my consciousness as a Muslim minister and my own personal convictions
that I take my stand in rejecting the call to be inducted into the armed services,” Ali explained.33
When someone asked him why he did not just leave the country, he
added: “You serious? I got to stay right here and lead my people to the right man—Elijah Muhammad.”34
Ali interpreted the war through the lens of his faith, seeing it as yet another assault by “the white man” on people of color. “You want me
to do what the white man says and go fight a war against some people I don’t know nothing about—get some freedom for some other people
when my own people can’t get theirs here?” he asked. No, he would
never do that, no matter how much criticism came his way, no matter
how many fines he would have to pay, no matter how much time he
would have to serve in jail. “Allah okays the adversary to try us,” Ali stated. “That’s how he sees if you’re a true believer.”35
Robinson considered Ali a true believer. “In my view, the deposed
champion has demonstrated that he is fighting for a principle. While I cannot agree with it, I respect him sincerely.”36
Robinson disagreed with Ali’s religious interpretation of the war as well as the broader opposition to the war by Black Muslims, but he
applauded Ali’s willingness to accept the penalties resulting from his refusal to be drafted. “He fully understood the penalty and price he would have to pay for taking his stand. He was willing and prepared
to make the challenge out of his deeply rooted convictions. And he is ready to accept the consequences. This is his heroism—and I believe it to be genuine.”37
“Good lord Has sHowered BlessInGs on Me and tHIs country” 155
Robinson was libertarian in the sense that he strongly believed that US citizens were free to believe whatever they wanted to about God
and faith, even if those beliefs flew in the face of his own religious convictions, and he was careful not to call on Ali to leave the Black Muslims.
One month after Ali announced his refusal to be inducted into the
armed forces, Robinson also opposed, though for different reasons,
demands that Governor George Romney of Michigan, a racially
progressive Republican, leave the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because of its racially restrictive practices.
At this point, the Mormon Church allowed blacks to become mem-
bers but prohibited them from attaining the status of lay ministers, a barrier that prevented them from exercising any management or leadership roles in the church. The Mormons maintained this restriction because of their religious conviction that blackness was a divine curse that began when Noah punished one of his sons for seeing his father naked.
Romney disagreed with the consignment of blacks to second-class
membership, and he publicly called on the church to change its prac-
tices. But that did not satisfy everyone, and African American clergy-men and politicians in his home state demanded that he either resign from the church or forgo his run for the Republican nomination for
the US presidency.
Robinson disagreed with those demands, citing the governor’s
strong record on civil rights, as well as the “courage and personal conviction” he demonstrated when criticizing Mormon practices before a
group of Mormons.38
Less than a month later, Martin Luther King Jr. walked into Riv-
erside Church in Manhattan and, to Robinson’s disappointment,
publicly took the side of anti–Vietnam War activists. More than three thousand people, gathered together by a religious group called Clergy and Laity Concerned about Vietnam, gave King a standing ovation as
he rose to share his own concerns about the war.
Speaking in somber tones, King wasted no time in depicting the
war as an enemy of the American poor, who saw money move from
the War on Poverty to the war in southeast Asia; as an enemy of young black men, who were serving in combat in massively disproportionate
numbers; as an enemy of Vietnamese peasants, whose cries for land
reform were met with US bombs that destroyed their land and their
lives; and as an enemy of disciples of Jesus, who were called to love their enemies.
156
JACKIE ROBINSON
The Baptist preacher said that he had to break his silence about the war partly because of his “commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ.”
His antiwar stance was simply part and parcel of his identity as a Christian minister. “To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me
why I am speaking against the war,” King stated. “Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the one who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the ‘Vietcong’ or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister to this one? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life?”39
King emphasized spiritual themes, claiming that his calling, his vocation, was not to be a good citizen whose loyalties were bound to a nation, even the United States, but rather to be “a son of the living God,” a God concerned especially for the suffering, the helpless, and the outcast.40
Called by God to speak for all the victims of war, King decried the
encouraged draftable men to become conscientious objectors, and sug-
gested that the government extricate itself from Vietnam by, among
other things, ending all bombing and declaring a unilateral cease-fire.
He also called on all nations to join a worldwide fellowship of neighborly concern for all, to practice “an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men.”41
Robinson resisted his friend’s admonitions, and he did so by
using his newspaper column to send King an open letter addressed
to “Dear Martin.”42
Robinson criticized King for being “unfair” in placing all blame for the conflict on the United States alone. “Why is it, Martin, that you seem to ignore the blood which is upon their [Vietcong’s] hands and to speak only of the ‘guilt’ of the United States?”43
As he criticized King, Robinson lauded President Johnson’s efforts
to establish peace talks with the Vietcong. “I am firmly convinced that President Johnson wants an end to this war as much as anyone else,”
Jackie wrote.44
Robinson was concerned that King’s stance on Vietnam would neg-
atively affect Johnson’s support for the civil rights movement, and he expressed this concern in an April 18 letter to the president: “While I am certain your faith has been shaken by demonstrations against the
Viet Nam war, I hope the actions of any one individual does not make you feel as Vice President Humphrey does, that Dr. King’s stand will hurt the Civil Rights movement.”45
“Good lord Has sHowered BlessInGs on Me and tHIs country” 157
Missing from Robinson’s critique was any commentary on King’s
Christian beliefs.
Nowhere did Robinson address King’s spiritual conviction that
Americans and Vietnamese together were children of God, that sons
and daughters of God had a special obligation to side with the oppressed (including Vietnamese peasants), that followers of Jesus must not kill those he gave his life for (anyone and everyone), and that those who believe in the Bible should love not only their friends and family but also their enemies. Robinson ignored all these points, once again allowing his patriotic convictions to trump spiritual convictions about the Prince of Peace and his demand that his followers put up the sword.
Jackie Robinson: A Spiritual Biography Page 21