Jackie Robinson

by Arnold Rampersad

  For the presidency, the likely candidates included, among the Republicans, Richard Nixon and Nelson Rockefeller, the newly elected governor of New York. Among the Democrats were Rockefeller’s predecessor as governor, Averell Harriman; Adlai Stevenson, twice defeated for the presidency; the liberal Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota; and John F. Kennedy, the handsome, wealthy young senator from Massachusetts.

  In his column, Jack positioned himself as belonging to neither party. “I guess you’d call me an independent, since I’ve never identified myself with one party or another in politics.” He was, in fact, a registered independent. But already Robinson had shown a clear disposition to support the Republicans, and in particular Vice-President Nixon. His major motive for doing so was not personal gain. “I have no political ambitions,” he would declare, “and want no job other than the excellent non-political one I already have. There are no rewards or payoffs that could ever make me sell out in my determination to fight for equal rights for all.” Even with Eisenhower and Nixon, he was quick to strike when either man deviated from a firm commitment to civil rights. “How long, Mr. President,” Jack asked after reading about the latest salute to democracy by Eisenhower, “must we continue to wait before you back up those fine and singing words with definite, positive action?”

  But Robinson was a Republican at heart, albeit a liberal Republican on the key matter of civil rights. Flattered at their first meeting, he genuinely liked Nixon insofar as he knew him; perhaps Jack made a great deal of their common Californian roots. But he also had a good feeling about the Republican Party in general. He liked its toughness on communism, its image of moral austerity that was unsullied, unlike the Democratic Party’s, by Southern bigotry or by the seedy corruption of some urban Democratic machines; he liked the Republicans’ association with capitalism and business, an area Robinson was determined to learn and even conquer. Nevertheless, quite consciously, he also set out to achieve a difficult, perhaps impossible goal. Seeking to make his voice influential in both parties on the matter of civil rights, he aimed to influence both nominations for the presidential election. Each candidate would be measured by his ongoing record on civil rights legislation and his willingness to enforce laws to protect blacks. This refusal to pick a party and stick with his choice would be the defining factor in Robinson’s politics for almost the rest of his life. It would make him often appear noble in his loyalty to principle, especially on civil rights; but it would also make him seem to some people self-righteous and even undependable.

  In 1959, after Senator Hubert Humphrey addressed a formal dinner at the Harlem branch YMCA, Jack was sure that he had found his man among the Democrats. Humphrey’s record as a liberal on race went back at least to 1946, when, as mayor of Minneapolis, he secured enactment of the first municipal Fair Employment Practices Act in the United States. In 1948, at the Democratic National Convention, in support of an uncompromising civil rights plank, he had called the delegates to action against Jim Crow. “Now is the time,” Humphrey had urged, “for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadows of states’ rights and walk in the sunshine of human rights.” In July 1959, addressing the 50th Annual Convention of the NAACP in Minneapolis, he linked his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to the matter of civil rights. With civil rights, “more than a question of law enforcement is involved,” Humphrey argued; “at stake is a basic moral issue which underlies our very conception of democracy.” Impressed by the breadth of Humphrey’s vision, Robinson endorsed him. “This man and his principles must be supported,” he told his Post readers. “For Humphrey’s is the kind of leadership that brings pride and inspiration to people in all walks of life.”

  Jack’s will to emphasize civil rights was only reinforced on October 25, when for perhaps the first time since his early days in baseball he came face to face with Jim Crow as enforced by armed white policemen in the South. Arriving at the airport in Greenville, South Carolina, for an NAACP event, he discovered that several people awaiting him had been forced out of the main or “white” waiting room by authorities. Returning to the airport for his flight home after a lively speech to some seventeen hundred people in Greenville, he decided to test the Jim Crow regulations there. Accompanied by Gloster Current, national director of NAACP branches, and a local supporter, Jack entered the main waiting room. Suddenly, “a disheveled, unshaven man in a jacket approached us. He was wearing a gun and told us he was a policeman. In halting, seemingly uneducated speech, he told us either to move on or be moved.” No one moved. The airport manager then ordered the three blacks out of the main lounge. When they again refused, he summoned a uniformed policeman. “If they sit down,” he told the policeman, “put them in jail.” Jack and his friends, still refusing to budge, argued that the airport was a federally subsidized facility, operating under federal authority. Uncertain how to proceed, the officer quit the airport. Shortly afterward, Robinson boarded his plane without further incident.

  This episode, mild compared to what blacks routinely faced in the South, only stiffened Jack’s resolve to hold officials accountable about civil rights. Among the Republicans, he congratulated William Rogers, the attorney general, for deploring the miscarriage of justice in the Mack Charles Parker case; he strongly criticized Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York for agreeing to return a black fugitive to the South. (It was perhaps significant that Rogers was known to be a Nixon man, and Rockefeller a Nixon adversary.) Robinson was increasingly harsh on President Eisenhower, who in his travels overseas mouthed “words of great hope and encouragement concerning freedom and independence” to emerging nations such as India and Afghanistan but preached patience to blacks at home. “If there had been vigorous and uncompromising leadership from the White House,” he insisted, “America would never have had the shame of a Little Rock or a Poplarville.” “Could it be,” he asked of Eisenhower, “that his frequent trips for golf and hunting in Georgia bring him in contact with people whose rigid opposition to equal rights he is affected by? Or has he all along adhered to the position he took before a Congressional committee in 1948 opposing the elimination of racial segregation in the armed forces?”

  When, at the close of 1959, Rockefeller announced his decision not to seek the nomination for the presidency in 1960, Robinson showed the rest of his hand. Nixon, he argued with studied nonchalance, was not nearly as weak a candidate as many Democrats supposed. “I’ve been following Nixon’s career for some time now,” Jack wrote, “and I don’t mind admitting that generally I’ve liked what I’ve seen and heard.” Acknowledging Nixon’s reputation for unscrupulousness, he argued that the Vice-President had grown much since his election in 1952—“grown more than any other person presently in political life.” His visit to Russia and his celebrated “kitchen” debate with Nikita Khrushchev showed this growth, but earlier trips, especially one to India and other “colored” nations in 1953, had deepened Nixon’s understanding of racism. Nixon, Jack suggested, might yet prove attractive to voters “the Democrats consider safely in their pockets. And if it should come to a choice between a weak and indecisive Democratic nominee and Vice-President Nixon, I, for one, would enthusiastically support Nixon.”

  The hostile response by many Post readers to the column surprised Jack, as he wrote to Herbert Klein, an assistant to Nixon. “I thought I was controversial,” Jack confessed, but he could see that Nixon “really has a battle to overcome some of his critics.” Robinson now felt free to press Nixon at crucial times with telegrams calling for action, as on February 25, when he warned that events in Biloxi, Mississippi, where a “wade-in” by blacks at a Jim Crow beach led to gunfire that left ten blacks wounded, could lead to a general explosion. “The Negro is in an inflammable state,” he wrote in pressing for a face-to-face meeting to discuss civil rights with the Vice-President. A major challenge for Nixon and all the other candidates, Jack knew, was the rising tempo of activism among blacks in the South. On February 1, in what would prove a historic step, four
college students from North Carolina A&T sat down at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and kept their places after being refused service. This single action, barely premeditated, set in motion a wave of similar protests, mounted by blacks and whites, which began to roll across the South as segregated churches, restaurants, beaches, libraries, and other facilities found themselves under siege.

  In March, in the middle of the Wisconsin primary, Robinson flew to Milwaukee to campaign for Humphrey. Earlier, through his friend Frank Reeves of Washington, D.C., a black lawyer active in NAACP and Democratic Party circles, he had startled Humphrey by offering to work for him as Humphrey wrestled with his main rival, John F. Kennedy, in a crucial stage of the race for the nomination; Robinson also helped to open the Humphrey for President office in Washington. These were significant steps for Jack; they marked his first direct involvement in a political campaign. Admiring Humphrey, he was perhaps even more eager to upset the candidacy of Kennedy, for whom he had taken a deep dislike. In particular, Kennedy’s publicized breakfast meeting at his home the previous June with the segregationist governor of Alabama, John Patterson, and the president of the Alabama White Citizens Councils, Sam Englehardt, had led Jack to brand Kennedy an enemy of blacks. Robinson also knew of Kennedy’s obstructionist role in the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Bill, when only a concerted effort had saved the bill from death in the Judiciary Committee. In Milwaukee, when Robinson heard from a reporter that Robert Kennedy, who was managing his brother’s campaign, had claimed that Humphrey had paid Robinson for the visit, he was livid. “I want right here to emphasize what I told that reporter,” he wrote on March 16 in the Post. “Whoever originated such a story is a liar.”

  Despite Jack’s efforts, Kennedy defeated Humphrey in Wisconsin. Early in June, his nomination practically assured, Kennedy finally responded to Robinson’s attacks with a letter to the New York Post defending his civil rights record. In the same issue, however, Robinson accused the senator of making only token campaign appearances before blacks and only guarded statements of support for the sit-in demonstrations in the South. “I could go on,” Robinson wrote, following a laundry list of Kennedy’s errors and unfortunate associations. “When and if Kennedy firmly and vigorously repudiates the actions and policies of this crowd,” he went on, “I will be happy to reevaluate my position. But as long as he continues to play politics at the expense of 18,000,000 Negro Americans, then I repeat: Sen. Kennedy is not fit to be the President of the U.S.”

  Meanwhile, Robinson and Nixon’s relationship was strengthened by a luncheon meeting in Washington also attended by Attorney General Rogers. Later, Jack published the text of a cozy letter to him (“Dear Jackie”) in which Nixon asserted the integrity of the American Negro vote and the “strength” of his position on civil rights, and offered two key reasons for supporting civil rights. The first had to do with foreign policy and the international reputation of the United States versus “atheistic communism.” The second was economic; any denial of “the full talent and energies” of black America was an example of “stupidity of the greatest magnitude.” Mentioning their luncheon meeting, the letter offered a sense of an easy intimacy between the men. Still, Jack took pains to appear independent. “Contrary to some published reports,” his column concluded, “this corner thus far is still uncommitted to any candidate for the Presidency, now that Sen. Humphrey has withdrawn. I repeat, however, that I see no reason why Nixon should not be considered as seriously as anyone else.” Because his “actual record and position” on important issues deserved support, “many of Nixon’s critics will find themselves taking a second look, before making up their minds.”

  Deciding finally to do something about Robinson’s opposition, Kennedy then invited him to Washington. Early in July they met at the home of Chester Bowles, the former governor of Connecticut, who, as chairman of the Platform Committee at the forthcoming Democratic convention, would help shape campaign policy on civil rights. Arriving at this meeting skeptical about Kennedy, Robinson left even less of an admirer. As he later complained, Kennedy was courteous but would not look him in the eye, which Jack considered a sure sign of insincerity; and the senator’s candid admission that he did not know many Negroes, or “the Negro,” angered Jack. “Although I appreciated his truthfulness in the matter, I was appalled that he could be so ignorant of our situation and be bidding for the highest office in the land.” When Kennedy asked what it would take to get Robinson’s support, Jack hurried to take offense. “Look, Senator,” he recalled telling Kennedy, “I don’t want any of your money. I’m just interested in helping the candidate who I think will be best for the black American.”

  On this antagonistic note, the meeting ended. A few days later, at Robinson’s request, Kennedy sent him a written statement about civil rights. In it, the senator defended his meeting with Governor Patterson as an obligation of his office, and affirmed his desire to see “an end to all discrimination—in voting, in education, in housing, in employment, in the administration of justice, and in public facilities including lunch counters.” As with Nixon’s letter, Jack published this statement in full. However, he did not hide his doubts about Kennedy, “an impressive man” who admitted his “limited experience” with blacks but was “sincere” and “willing to learn.” Making it clear that “this corner does not endorse his candidacy,” Jack vowed to continue to scrutinize his record. “Sen. Kennedy is a little late in seeking to make himself clear, after 14 years in Congress. But if he is sincere, there is still time to catch up.”

  Soon after the meeting, Robinson received an invitation to join Chester Bowles on the Platform Committee but declined it. He then turned the senator’s admission of ignorance against him by pointing to voting-rights abuses in Tennessee from which Kennedy might learn—if indeed he wished to learn. Later, when Jack congratulated the Democratic convention meeting in Los Angeles for adopting a bold program on civil rights, he barely mentioned Kennedy in giving “the lion’s share of credit” to Bowles for “sticking to his guns” in the face of segregationists. When Kennedy chose as his running mate Lyndon Johnson, Jack struck again. Kennedy’s choice was “a bid for the appeasement of Southern bigots.” Asked to choose between a fence-sitting presidential nominee who had tied himself to “a proven segregationist,” and a probable nominee (Nixon) with a “better-than-average” civil rights record who was unlikely to make such a choice, “I know how I, for one, shall cast my vote in November. I do not pretend to speak for anyone else. But I have a hunch I’m going to have plenty of company.”

  Robinson’s picture of Johnson was in no way farfetched; Johnson, who later would provide the most radical leadership on civil rights by a President since Abraham Lincoln, was widely perceived in 1960 as a segregationist. But many liberals were prepared to accept him and the support he would bring from the South, in order to aid Kennedy’s election. Jack pounced again when the news broke that Kennedy had invited Governor Faubus of Arkansas to sit on the platform as he made his acceptance speech at the convention. Ignoring the senator’s protest that he had invited every Democratic governor to attend, Jack denounced him. “It is now clearer than ever,” he wrote in the Post, “that John Kennedy is first and foremost a cold, calculating political machine.”

  Robinson’s condemnation of the Kennedy-Johnson ticket brought many protests from a wide cross-section of Post readers, including those who pointed out that the coming election was about more than civil rights. Dismissing most of these objections as patronizing, Robinson vowed to keep up his opposition even as he looked at other candidates—to wit, Nixon. However, Nixon’s choice of a running mate (Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, the United States ambassador to the United Nations), in addition to his vigorous fight at the convention against conservative elements in his party, notably Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, settled the matter once and for all for Robinson: “The battle lines are now clearly drawn.” The following month, when the Democrat-dominated Senate voted to tabl
e civil rights proposals advanced by Senator Jacob Javits of New York, Robinson laid the blame at Kennedy’s feet: “Faced with this kind of continued fence-hopping from the Democratic nominee, is it any wonder that millions of American voters are wondering just where Kennedy—and under his leadership the Democratic party—really stands?”

  The feeling between Robinson and the Kennedys, already sour, took a turn for the worse. At the center was an organization, the African-American Students Foundation, of which Robinson was a trustee, which sought to bring a group of about 240 African students to study at colleges and universities in the United States. The organization had grown out of the response by Robinson, Belafonte, and Poitier to a plea by Tom Mboya of Kenya for help in allowing young Africans to travel to the U.S.A. to attend school. In 1959, when Jack devoted a column to Project Airlift Africa, more than eighty students were able to come after Robinson, Belafonte, and Poitier wrote to a number of their friends and acquaintances. Now, in 1960, Robinson and others asked the State Department for assistance, which was denied. John Kennedy, on behalf of the Kennedy Foundation, controlled by his family, then offered the project a gift of $5,000. At this point, Robinson moved to use his connections to Nixon to make the State Department reconsider its decision; clearly, he hoped to use the project to burnish Nixon’s image among blacks. But Jack’s attempt backfired.

  On August 17, his Post column announced brightly that “an aide to Vice President Nixon” had just called with great news: the State Department would pay for the transportation of the students from Africa, at a cost of about $100,000. “Incidentally,” Robinson went on, “it is no accident that an aide of the Vice President was the one to call me about this.” Nixon, who had visited Africa “not long ago,” had expressed “immediate and deep interest” in the project. The column made no mention of the initial response of the State Department, or of Nixon’s pressure on State at Robinson’s urgent request. But in his next column, Jack made a baleful admission: “I don’t mind admitting it: I was wrong.” The State Department would not be supporting the students. As Jack explained, Sargent Shriver, Senator Kennedy’s brother-in-law, had boldly offered the African-American Students Foundation more than $400,000 from the Kennedy Foundation, enough to support the project for three years. The student organization had then accepted the offer, and without consulting Robinson. “Disappointed at not being kept abreast of events,” Jack was left to apologize to his readers for having misinformed them.