Category Archives: Black history

Jimmie Lee Jackson Murdered

Jimmie Lee Jackson Murdered

December 16, 1938 – February 26, 1965
 on February 18, 1965…
Jimmie Lee Jackson Murdered
Jimmie Lee Jackson

Jimmie Lee Jackson was born in Marion, Alabama, a small town near Selma. He fought in the Vietnam war and eventually returned to Marion where he worked as a laborer.

He became a church deacon. He tried to register to vote several times, but Alabama’s legal roadblocks prevented him.

James Orange was a field secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In February 1965, authorities arrested and jailed Orange on charges of disorderly conduct and contributing to the delinquency of minors for enlisting students to aid in voting rights drives.

Fearful that Orange would be lynched, a group of civil rights activists gathered marched in support of him the evening of February 18, 1965. Shortly after the peaceful march began, Alabama State Troopers ordered the protesters to disperse and simultaneously attacked them. Authorities had also turned off street lights.

Jimmie Lee Jackson, his mother, Viola Jackson, and his eighty-two-year-old grandfather, Cager Lee, were among those who tried to get away. The three escaped into a nearby cafe, but police followed them into the cafe and physically assaulted them. When Jimmie Lee Jackson came to the aid of his mother and grandfather, he was shot twice in the abdomen by trooper James Fowler.

Jackson managed to escape before collapsing. He died eight days later at a local hospital.

Jimmie Lee Jackson Murdered
John Lewis, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Dr. Martin Luther King, and the Rev. Andrew Young marched in the funeral of Jimmie Lee Jackson, whose shooting death inspired the first of the Selma marches in Alabama in 1965. Credit Associated Press

In his eulogy, Martin Luther King, Jr. described Jimmie Lee Jackson as a “martyred hero.” The murder was the seed that began the famous March on Selma because when civil rights organizer, James Bevel, heard of Jackson’s death he called for a march from Selma to Montgomery to talk to Governor George Wallace about the attack in which Jackson was shot.

Jimmie Lee Jackson murdered

Jimmie Lee Jackson Murdered
Jimmie Lee Jackson plaque

James Fowler was the trooper who shot Jackson. That September 29, a grand jury declined to indict Fowler

42 years later, on May 10, 2007 an Alabama grand jury indicted Fowler for the Jackson’s murder. Fowler pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree manslaughter on November 15,  2010. He apologized for the shooting but insisted that he had acted in self-defense, believing that Mr. Jackson was trying to grab his gun. (NYT article)

Fowler was sentenced to six months in prison and was released early after serving 5 months due to health problems. (NYT article)

Fowler died on July 5, 2015. (Washington Post story)

Jimmie Lee Jackson murdered

Activist Jackie Robinson

Activist Jackie Robinson

Activist Jackie Robinson

Major league baseball has begun and today marks an important date in its history.  On April 15, 1947 Jackie Robinson became the first African-American in the major leagues when he played his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

The common date for major league baseball’s beginning is April 22, 1876, thus it had been 71 years that major league baseball was segregated.

Activist Jackie Robinson

Jack Roosevelt Robinson

Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born on January 31, 1919, in Cairo, Georgia.

Robinson’s older brother, Matthew won a silver medal in the 200-meter dash—just behind Jesse Owens—at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.

Activist Jackie Robinson

College

Jackie attended  Pasadena Junior College and played four sports: football, basketball, track, and baseball. In 1938 he was named the region’s Most Valuable Player in baseball.

From Pasadena, Robinson went to UCLA. He was the first student there to letter in four sports. (read about him scoring against Oregon in 1939 >>> Robinson scores for UCLA)

Financial difficulties forced him to leave UCLA in 1941.

Activist Jackie Robinson

World War II

He briefly played semi-professional football in Hawaii, but the US entry into World War II ended that stint.

In 1942, Robinson was drafted. He was qualified for and applied to Officer Candidate School (OCS). Technically OCS was race-neutral, but in reality few Black applicants were ever accepted.   There was a long delay and only after protests and outside help were Robinson and other qualified Black applicants accepted.

Robinson was commissioned as a second lieutenant in January 1943.

Activist Jackie Robinson

Military discrimination

On July 6, 1944, he boarded an Army bus. Technically it was not segregated, but like the OCS, in reality it was. The bus driver ordered Robinson to move to the back of the bus. Robinson refused and remained in his selected seat.

Military police took Robinson into custody. A court-martial was threatened, he was charged with drunkenness (Robinson didn’t drink), and was the subject of racist interrogation.

By the time of the court-martial in August 1944, the charges against Robinson had been reduced to two counts of insubordination during questioning and he was acquitted by an all-white panel of nine officers.

While serving out the rest of his time at Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky [as a coach for army athletics], Robinson met a former player for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League. The player encouraged Robinson to write the Monarchs and ask for a tryout. Robinson did and in early 1945 [after Robinson had received an honorable discharge in November 1944] the Monarchs sent a offer to Robinson.

Activist Jackie Robinson

Kansas City Monarchs

While with the Monarchs in April that season he attended a try-out for the Boston Red Sox, but even with only management in the stands he was the subject of racial epithets. (>>> 1945-04-17 try out)  [It wouldn’t be until July 1959 that the Red Sox integrated its roster–the last team to do so.]

Branch Rickey, club president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, began to scout the Negro leagues. On August 28, 1945, Rickey  and Robinson met. Rickey’s main concern was that Robinson would not take the bait when insulted by fan and, likely, by players. 

Activist Jackie Robinson

Montreal Royals

On April 18, 1946, Jackie Robinson debuted with the Montreal Royals. In five at-bats he hit a three-run homer and three singles, stole two bases, and scored four times, twice by forcing the pitcher to balk.

It still took the Dodgers a year before they brought him up to the majors.

Activist Jackie Robinson

Brooklyn Dodgers

That April 15, 1947, Robinson, already 28 years old, did not duplicate that first day with the Royals.  He failed to get a base hit, but walked once,  and scored a run in the Dodgers’ 5–3 victory.

Jackie Robinson faced challenges both from other teams and his own. At one point, manager Leo Durocher warned the team “I do not care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a fuckin’ zebra. I’m the manager of this team, and I say he plays. What’s more, I say he can make us all rich. And if any of you cannot use the money, I will see that you are all traded.”

The St. Louis Cardinals, threatened to strike if Robinson played. A high slide gave him a seven-inch gash in his leg. Philadelphia Phillies players and their manager Ben Chapman called Robinson a “nigger” from their dugout.

Activist Jackie Robinson

Rookie of the Year

Activist Jackie Robinson

Despite those experiences and others like them, Robinson’s year was a great one. He earned him the inaugural Major League Baseball Rookie of the Year Award. 

He played for 10 years and his career statistics earned him entrance into Baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1962 [Baseball Ref dot com]

  • He was an All-Star six times
  • He was the MVP in 1948
  • He had a career batting average of 311
Activist Jackie Robinson

Retirement , Hall of Fame, and Early Death

Activist Jackie Robinson

Robinson retired from baseball at age 37 on January 5, 1957 and continued to be a civil rights activist, albeit a conservative one at times, with the NAACP, a voice for black in politics both nationally and locally.

In 1962, his first year of eligibility, he was inducted in the Baseball Hall of Fame, the first black person to be inducted.

He was an analyst for ABC’s Baseball Game of the Week in 1965, and in 1966 he became the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, a Continental Football League team. 

In 1972 he was a part-time analyst for the Montreal Expos.

Complications from heart disease and diabetes weakened Robinson and made him almost blind by middle age.  He died on October 24, 1972 of a heart attack at his home on in North Stamford, Connecticut; he was 53 years old.

Activist Jackie Robinson

Continued Cultural Ignorance

On August 6, 1987, 40 years after Jackie Robinson was finally given the chance to play baseball, ABC network Nightline anchorman Ted Koppel asked Al Campanis, who had played alongside Robinson and was the general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers at the time, why  there had been few black managers and no black general managers in Major League Baseball.

Campanis’s reply was that blacks “may not have some of the necessities to be, let’s say, a field manager, or, perhaps, a general manager” for these positions. Elsewhere in the interview he said that blacks are often poor swimmers “because they don’t have the buoyancy.”

A protest erupted and he resigned two days later.

Activist Jackie Robinson

Legacy

In 1997, Major League Baseball retired his uniform number 42 across all major league teams; he was the first pro athlete in any sport to be so honored.  The MLB also adopted a new annual tradition, “Jackie Robinson Day”, for the first time on April 15, 2004, on which every player on every team wears No. 42.

The main aim of today’s blog entry is to point out the importance of today’s date for baseball, for Jackie Robinson, and for us as Americans.

Decades after Capanis’s ignorant remark, we are still too often surrounded by racist statements by those who should have learned their history better.

Activist Jackie Robinson

Greatest Muhammad Ali

Greatest Muhammad Ali

Greatest Muhammad Ali
Nov. 9, 2005, President Bush presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to boxer Muhammad Ali in the East Room of the White House. He is now so much a part of the nation’s social fabric that it’s hard to comprehend a time when Ali was more reviled than revered.
January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016
Remembering the “Greatest” on his birthday
Greatest Muhammad Ali

Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr

When Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr was born in Louisville, Kentucky no one would have predicted that one day he would be the most recognized person in the world.

Boxing was the skill that brought such fame.

The legend begins with a stolen bike. A young boy wanted to get even and a cop told him he’d better learn to fight first.

As Clay, he won six Kentucky Golden Gloves titles, two national Golden Gloves titles, an Amateur Athletic Union National Title, and the Light Heavyweight gold medal in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome.

After the Olympics, Ali went professional. Though not each of his consecutive victories was without criticism, but the end of 1963 he was next in line to fight Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship.

Because of his personality, some could still use the term uppity without recrimination, many looked forward to Clay being pummeled by Liston and getting a comeuppance.

On February 25, 1964 Ali defeated Liston.

In their May 25, 1965 re-match, Ali defeated Liston again and successfully retained his crown for 7 more bouts until 1967 when he refused to be drafted. His championship was taken away.

At this point Ali became more than a great boxer. He became a person who some admired and others decried. Listen below to David Suskind’s withering criticism of Ali.  (also see a PBS article on Ali from a broadcast called The Trials of Muhammad Ali)

I find nothing amusing or interesting or tolerable abut this man. He’s a disgrace to his country, his race, and what he laughingly describes as his profession. he is a convicted felon in the United States. He has been found guilty. He is out on bail. He will inevitably go to prison, as well he should. He is a simplistic fool and a pawn.
Greatest Muhammad Ali

June 28, 1971

On June 28, 1971 the US Supreme Court reversed Ali’s conviction for refusing induction by unanimous decision in Clay v. United States. The decision was not based on, nor did it address, the merits of Clay’s/Ali’s claims per se, rather, the Government prosecution’s procedural failure to specify which claims were rejected and which were sustained, constituted the grounds upon which the Court reversed the conviction.

Ali would go on to win back the heavyweight championship, lose it, and regain it again. The only boxer to hold the championship three different times.

Thank you Muhammad Ali

Greatest Muhammad Ali