Jackie Robinson

by Arnold Rampersad

  In November, Rockefeller swept to victory in New York by four hundred thousand votes. While his plurality was somewhat less than in 1962, his support among blacks had grown. For Jack and his team, this was a personal triumph, underscored when he and Rachel were among twenty-five guests who spent the evening awaiting the election results at the governor’s Fifth Avenue apartment. Writing before the results were known, Jack called his effort in the campaign, in which he had served, he said, as “a day to day, sometimes almost around the clock worker,” one of the “most rewarding experiences of my life.” He was “proud to have made whatever contribution I made because, in my book, the Governor is tops.”

  Although Jack could not have known it, this would be the crowning moment of his career as a political operative. Other election victories also encouraged him. In Massachusetts, Edward Brooke, a Republican, became the first black elected to the United States Senate since Reconstruction. To Jack, this was “the most resounding reply which could have been given” to those who wanted or expected a white backlash. In Alabama, a black ex-paratrooper was elected sheriff of Macon County over two white opponents, to become the first black sheriff in the South since Reconstruction. In California, on the other hand, Ronald Reagan was elected. “In my book,” Robinson wrote, “Ronald Reagan is as bad news for minority people as Governor Rockefeller is good news.”

  IN JUNE, JACK AND RACHEL were overjoyed when Jackie Junior finally returned from Vietnam. However, they soon saw that he was in bad shape. The racism of the white military and the horrors of warfare had left him a demoralized version of the sweet, confused young man who had gone into the Army more than two years before, looking for a place to grow up. He returned to a nation where many young people, and even many older people, black and white, had grown sick of the American effort. This disapproval of the military left Jackie, as it did countless other returning soldiers, baffled and hurt. In addition, if Jackie now seemed almost out from under his father’s shadow, he had also lost the umbrella of protection Jack had provided all his life. But his father’s fame was still a problem, as when Rockefeller, with the best of intentions, wrote to praise Jackie for a job well done in Vietnam, which had added “a lustre of your own to the famous name you bear.”

  Not long after his return, when Rachel and Jackie accompanied Jack on a visit to Montreal, Rachel saw that something was not right with him. “Jackie was behaving just a little strangely,” Rachel recalled. “Almost by instinct he would drift away from me as we walked, and he seemed to want to walk as close to the buildings as possible, almost hugging them. He told me that this was Vietnam taking over; he was keeping close to cover. I began to get a better sense of what he had gone through and how it was affecting him.” Soon Jackie was living in Colorado, where the Army had released him, as his parents puzzled over what he was doing there. While he was in Vietnam, a girlfriend of his from Connecticut, Penny Pankey, gave birth to their child, Sonya. She was Jack and Rachel’s first grandchild. “I know I have a large responsibility to Penny and the Baby,” Jackie had written his father; but he was also sure that marriage was out of the question, given his state of mind.

  The gap between father and son grew wider. In his column, Jack wrote about the grave troubles that youths faced—and his own sense of powerlessness to help them: “As I look around today and observe how lost and frustrated and bitter our youngsters are, I find myself wishing that there was some way to reach out to them and let them know that we want to try to understand their problems; that we want to help. I confess I don’t know the way.”

  In most other ways, he seemed to know what he was doing and where he was going. A reporter trailing him to Freedom National one morning described a man of energy and verve, although his eyes were failing. “His step was brisk, his calendar was crowded, he had no time for philosophic pause,” the reporter noted. Entering the bank’s conference room, which he used as an office, Jack flung his overcoat on a swivel chair and pointed toward a corner. “That telephone,” he declared, “is going to be humming today.” In three hours, Robinson made or took twenty-one calls, with many of them ending in new tasks for him. “As his obligations pyramid,” the reporter noted, “he will complain that someday he’ll have to learn to say no, but he will continue to say yes. He will swivel in his chair, swing his legs left, pluck hard at his cheek. Then, at a moment of intense exasperation, he will abruptly smile.”

  To Evelyn Cunningham, he was a man of some complexity. “Jackie was not too close to many people,” she observed. “He was embarrassed by adulation. On the other hand, he wanted desperately to be liked. And he knew not everyone liked him. Some people would say, ‘Oh, he’s a cold turkey. I don’t like Jackie Robinson. He’s cold.’ ” They respected him but they didn’t like him. “I was never sure he liked me,” she said. “To this day, I don’t know for sure. But I admired him. He had great respect for women. I don’t think he was a real feminist but he respected women and he worshiped Rachel. He was also a little shy about us. I remember once he brought back a big box of clothes and started to show me what he had bought for her—gorgeous underwear, bras, panties. And then, all of a sudden he got embarrassed. He covered up the box and turned away. Another time, a black man, a stranger, came in with a sculpture he had carved to give to Jackie. It was a nude torso of a woman. Jackie took it, but once the man left he said, ‘You want it?’ I said yes. He seemed embarrassed, with me looking at the nude with my eyes, and he’s standing there. I took it before he changed his mind. I still have it.”

  “There must have been something way back in his life,” she decided, “that had frightened him about people. I was one of the people who absolutely worshiped him, but I knew that I could only show it to him by making a joke about it. He was a very good man, but in many ways he was a sort of mystery.”

  ONCE THE GUBERNATORIAL election of 1966 was over, Jack and Rachel headed for a much-needed vacation in the Bahamas, where Jack was quickly caught up in local election fever. The British-ruled, traditionally white-dominated Bahamas seemed about to elect its first black government, and Jack met the most prominent of the rising local politicians, Lynden O. Pindling, of the Progressive Liberal Party. Both as Jackie Robinson the race hero and as a special assistant to Governor Rockefeller, he was warmly received by the younger politicians. The rise of blacks to power in the Caribbean was linked to the growing freedom of blacks in the United States. In addition, the Bahamas could be fertile ground for an American with Robinson’s background and connections.

  Over the New Year holiday, Jack and Rachel were back in the Bahamas, just in time for the elections that swept Pindling and his party into power. Soon Jack was holding discussions with a senior official of the powerful Grand Bahama Port Authority about its interest in “a small personalized hotel project” to be run by Robinson or Sidney Poitier or “in partnership together.” He was still in the Bahamas a few days later when fifty leaders of the black American press arrived as guests of the Ministry of Tourism. In addition to bracing rounds of golf (including at least one round with Joe DiMaggio, another celebrity visitor), Jack met Pindling and discussed with him ways in which Robinson might assist the Bahamas in pursuing its interests in the United States. The men agreed that Jack would pave the way for Pindling’s first official visit to the United States.

  Returning home, Jack officially registered under Section 2 of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 as an agent for the Bahamas in the United States. On February 26, when Pindling reached New York, Jack supervised his news conference and also saw to it that he met both Mayor Lindsay and Governor Rockefeller. However, this turned out to be just about all that Robinson did for Pindling, who eventually would be accused of corruption. “Jack discovered he had backed the wrong candidate,” according to Rachel.

  About this time, Jack had another disappointment as he came close to realizing one of his persisting dreams: organizing a golf and country club where his family and other black families, and their white friends, could feel at home. “I c
an hardly describe,” Rachel said, “what golf meant to Jack and his buddies. Since he didn’t drink or run around, it was really the one time when he could socialize fully with other men, and he loved golf with a passion.”

  “Jack absolutely loved golf,” according to his friend Warren Jackson, who was part of a group of black men who organized an annual golf tournament—with Robinson as official host—that drew hundreds of players to courses across the United States and overseas. “He was a terrific competitor, pretty fierce once he got out there on the course. At the sponsored golf tournaments he was an excellent host. He used all the old Robinson charm—but he could become real testy if you approached him the wrong way once he started playing. His mind was on his game and he wanted to win, and that was that.”

  Despite his solid citizenship, the private High Ridge Country Club in Stamford, where he played often as a guest, refused him as a member. (According to one report, a member had complained to another that he was having Robinson as a guest too often. “Too often? I’ll bring Ralph Bunche next week, maybe he’s O.K.” “Yeah,” came the reply. “You bring Ralph Bunche and I’ll bring my maid.”) According to another report, the male members relented but their wives stopped them. The women did not want blacks, any blacks, as members. Jack was left to wake up as early as 4:30 a.m. some Saturdays to stake out a good starting time on the overcrowded municipal course.

  As far back as 1963, Jack and Bill Hudgins had been hunting for a piece of suitable property; the Amsterdam News reported then that the two men “were looking over an upstate site for a golf course.” Two years later, in 1965, they found their spot: the 136-acre Putnam Country Club in Mahopac, New York, some fifty miles from New York City. The club, predominantly Jewish in its membership, had fallen into financial trouble and was on sale for $1.4 million. A real estate broker arranged for a visit by Robinson, Hudgins, and a few of their friends to play the course. But when the group showed up on November 21, officials of the club at first denied that any appointment had been made, then reluctantly allowed Jack’s party to tee off. However, before their round was over a miracle occurred: the club’s finances were in much better shape than previously thought. The club was definitely not for sale. In January 1966, alleging racial discrimination, the NAACP filed charges on behalf of Robinson and his friends with the State Commission on Human Rights; but the club prevailed.

  That summer, Robinson and Hudgins tried again, this time bidding for a 216-acre parcel of land in Lewisboro, New York, on the Connecticut border. Acting on behalf of several dozen prospective club members, Jack headed a small group that presented plans to the Lewisboro Zoning Board for the Pheasant Valley Golf and Country Club, complete with an eighteen-hole golf course. Membership would be limited to 250 persons, including local residents; the actress Colleen Dewhurst, who lived nearby, and her husband, the actor George C. Scott, would be members. After hearing a variety of complaints from local residents about the effect of the course on water supply, drainage, errant golf shots, traffic flow, and the like, the zoning board finally gave permission for the project, but with strict conditions. For example, members had to be American citizens but politically neither to the far right nor the far left of the spectrum; they could not build homes or live on the club property, or even stay there overnight.

  Jack and his partners were preparing to move forward when two owners of adjoining land took the case to the State Supreme Court. Early in January 1967, the court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. Once again, Robinson and Hudgins found themselves appealing to the State Commission on Human Rights. Once again, they lost. The NAACP promised to continue the fight, but by this time—to Jack’s dismay—many of the black investors had lost heart. In a column months later in the Amsterdam News, Jack wrote off his dream of an integrated country club. He blamed his fellow blacks, mainly. “They told me in effect,” he said, “ ‘We’re not ready for this.’ They didn’t say it in so many words, but the defeatism was there.… I must confess that I became disgusted.… I don’t want to give up. But it gets to be like bumping your head against a brick wall. You bump and bump and all you get is a headache.”

  At least Freedom National Bank was flourishing. On January 9, 1967, it opened its first branch office, in the predominantly black Bedford-Stuyvesant district of Brooklyn. In ceremonies to mark the opening, Jack made much of what he called his return to the borough that had embraced him in 1947. “Coming back as a banker,” Jack said, “will give me an opportunity to attempt to repay some of the people of that Borough for all the good which has come my way.” In fact, this was Jack’s second major attempt to “return” to Brooklyn. The previous May, he had taken on yet another job, albeit one that proved more illusory than real. At a press conference, he accepted the post of general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers football team of the fledgling Continental Football League. Although the team, sponsored by a group of Brooklyn-based investors, had neither players nor an arena, Robinson spoke aggressively about its plans. “We want to build a stadium in Brooklyn for both football and baseball,” he announced, “and we hope to bring back major league baseball. Brooklyn is starving for a sports team.”

  (With yet another job title to his name, Robinson found himself lampooned by a cartoonist in the Amsterdam News. Jackie Robinson “oughta be tired of firsts,” one character comments; “what does he need all those jobs for?” Another quips: “Baby, I dig that completely! If he hangs around the house, his wife’ll really put him to work!!”)

  THE GALA OPENING of the Brooklyn branch of the bank was overshadowed by upsetting news: the House of Representatives had stripped Adam Clayton Powell Jr. of his chairmanship of the Labor and Education Committee. The next step would be to oust him from Congress altogether. Like many other leading blacks, Jack had severe misgivings about Powell’s ways. “I am not an Adam Powell fan,” he admitted. Powell had said and done many things “absolutely distasteful” and had been “offensively arrogant” to both blacks and whites and “made a joke out of his office.” But Jack stood solidly behind him in this fight—especially because Powell had been an effective committee chairman, praised by President Johnson for expediting legislation. Robinson saw Jim Crow at work against a black man with power. “It’s the same kind of conspiracy,” he wrote, “used to defranchise the Negro during Reconstruction.” Meanwhile, he pointed out, perhaps irrelevantly, whites in Georgia had just elected the demagogue Lester Maddox, who was infamous for wielding an ax handle to bar blacks from his restaurant, as governor of the state.

  On March 1, the House voted to expel Powell and call a special election to replace him. When Powell indicated that he would contest the election—although he would not actually return from the Bahamas to campaign for himself—Robinson continued to defend him. Jack reacted with outrage when white Republican Party leaders tried to push forward the candidacy of James Meredith, the black man who had briefly integrated the University of Mississippi, against Powell. This plan was quickly dropped. In the special election on April 11, Harlem spoke: Powell won eighty-six percent of the vote. But some people speculated, not for the first time, that Jackie Robinson was about to run for public office. In the Amsterdam News, the columnist James Booker observed: “Jackie Robinson and his wife have purchased a cooperative apartment on 96th Street and will move back to Manhattan later this year. Any special political plans, Jackie?”

  In fact, Jack and Rachel had bought two apartments, not one, and both were in a building on Ninety-third Street. They had bought them for pleasure and convenience and as a financial investment—not with any possible political office in mind. (Rachel and a friend had found the building and negotiated the financial structure for a takeover by a group of owners. The building was in a “redeveloped” section of the Upper West Side, and she was able to purchase the two apartments on very favorable terms.)

  Robinson had no interest in running for office. He supported Powell now because of principle, just as he also defended Muhammad Ali, arrested for refusing to enter the military because of h
is religious convictions. When Ali was finally convicted, Jack drew attention to “the heroism and the tragedy” of Ali’s case. “He, in my view, has won a battle by standing up for his principle. But will he lose the war in terms of the greater contribution he could have made, based on his splendid career and prospects?”

  Principle also led to another troubling feud, this time with the sixty-six-year-old Roy Wilkins. Once again, Wilkins had beaten back a challenge to his leadership of the NAACP and overseen the reelection of ancients to the board of directors. Robinson had seen enough. Now, threatening to quit the board, on which he had served for almost a decade, he fired two broadsides. First came a speech that asked, “Is NAACP Contracting Infantile Paralysis?” Next, in a column, Jack published the attack: “I am forced to say sadly that I am terribly disappointed in the NAACP and deeply concerned about its future.” He had watched “the brave but unsuccessful efforts of younger, more vibrant, more aggressive, well-prepared insurgents to inject new blood and new life into the Association. But Mr. Wilkins and his Old Guard always seem to stomp these efforts down.” In addition, Jack accused the NAACP of being too dependent financially on white organizations like the Ford Foundation.

  But Wilkins, a masterful debater, seemed to demolish Jack’s arguments. The column, he said, came from either “gross misinformation or deliberate distortion.” The NAACP was structurally far more democratic than any other major black civil rights group; only the NAACP elected its board in a democratic process. The previous year, moreover, it had raised eighty-two percent of its income from its almost five hundred thousand members while all other civil rights groups had depended upon “the general public (which means white people) for their funds.” Wilkins ended with a blast of his own: “One of these days before you are seventy, some down-to-earth wisdom will find its way into your life.… If you had played ball with a hot head instead of a cool brain, you would have remained in the minors.”