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OLLECTORS CAFE PRESENTS

Jackie Robinson’s Original 1945 Royals and Original 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers Contracts

Founding Documents of the Civil Rights Movement OLLECTORS CAFE

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A Civil Rights Pioneer

One of the most important events in the fight for Civil Rights was not a protest march or sit in, not a public act of defiance or a soaring speech. Instead, it was a private event that took place in a Brooklyn office on April 11, 1947, when Jack Roosevelt Robinson signed his contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers, thereby integrating Major League .

This was a year before President Harry Truman’s Executive Order 9981 desegregated the Army (1948), nearly a decade before the landmark school-desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education (1954), and almost two decades before the rise of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the signing of the Civil Rights Act (1964).

The great talk-show host Larry King once introduced the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as “the founder of the Civil Rights movement,” but the Reverend refused to be called that. “I am not the founder of the Civil Rights movement,” he said. “The founder of the Civil Rights movement is .”

Decades later, when Robinson became the first African-American player inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, Dr. King called Robinson “a pilgrim who walked the lonesome byways toward the high road of freedom. He was a sit-inner before sit-ins, a freedom rider before freedom rides.”

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Documents of Freedom

Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration proclaimed the Enlightenment ideals “That all men are created equal,” and that legitimate governments must support the natural rights of the people to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” In 1776, the Declaration succeeded in breaking the old colonial order, but it took another 11 years for the Constitution to establish a workable system of government to which certain enforceable guarantees of rights were added by the first ten Amendments. Despite the perfect rhetoric of freedom, African Americans were living in circumstances as unfree, unjust, and unequal as those anywhere in the world.

The assertion that the Robinson contracts are Documents of Freedom is not hard to justify. Ira Glasser, for many years Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, explained:

“Seven years before the Supreme Court’s [Brown v. Board of Education] decision and nearly nine before Rosa Parks sat down on that Alabama bus, ordinary people all over this country, including small children black and white, participated in and learned from Jackie Robinson’s struggle in a way that was direct, powerful, and enduring. . . . we learned from Robinson himself, from his extraordinary performance under what certainly was, and remains, the most sustained pressure any athlete has ever endured.”

Jackie Robinson’s contracts with the Montreal Royals and the Brooklyn Dodgers are not the foundational documents of baseball. Instead, they are more like the Emancipation Proclamation—a chance to return to the founding ideals that had never been realized. Rights and privileg- es that had been fatally restricted by color lines were, with the signing of a paper, finally opened up. It is no surprise that the meritocracy of competitive sports helped pave the way for American acceptance of a greater civil rights movement. Robinson’s contracts pushed the efforts forward. His play forced fans to come to terms with the fact that a black man could compete with, and be accepted by, the greatest white ball players. As he performed heroic feats of sport, many who witnessed the taunts and abuse quickly began to question claims of “racial superiority” made by those who were jeering and threatening Robinson.

Ira Glasser’s words again crystallize Robinson’s profound accomplishments: “It is quite possible that for many of us, these were the first images of black humanity we as white children had ever been allowed to see. . . . By the time . . . Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous ‘I Have A Dream’ speech, those nine-year-olds were twenty-five. Standing there in that huge crowd, we felt we had borne wit- ness to this before. In fact, the March on Washington took place on August 28, 1963, eighteen years to the day of that first meeting between Rickey and Robinson.”

Special Consultant to Collectors Cafe For Documents of Freedom Seth Kaller is a leading rare documents expert known for acquiring museum-quality pieces for institutions and building legacy collections for philanthropists. He has handled unique documents relating to the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution, Washington’s Thanksgiving Proc- lamation, and Lincoln’s Thirteenth Amendment and Emancipation Proclamation. Seth Kaller, Inc. • www.sethkaller.com 3

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Jackie Robinson’s Biography

Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia, in 1919, the youngest of five children. His mother, Mallie, was abandoned by her husband and moved her family to Pasadena, California, where she raised her children by herself. Jack’s older brothers, Mack (who became an Olympic silver medalist in 1936) and Frank, encouraged Jackie to pursue sports.

At John Muir High School, Jackie lettered in four varsity sports— football, , baseball, and track—and also played on the tennis team, winning the junior boys singles championship in the 1936 Pacific Coast Negro Tennis Tournament.

After high school, Robinson attended Pasadena Junior College and began what would become a lifelong commitment to civil rights advocacy. Upon graduating in 1939, Robinson attended UCLA. He was one of four African Americans on the football team, making the Bruins the most integrated college team in the country at the time. He won the long jump competition in the 1940 NCAA track and field championships, played basketball and baseball—considered his “worst” sport statistically—and became UCLA’s first student-athlete to letter in four sports. While at UCLA, he met his future wife, Rachel Isum.

Robinson left UCLA just short of graduation in 1941 to take a job as athletic director for the National Youth Administration, a New Deal project. He then traveled to Hawaii to play semi- pro football for the integrated Honolulu Bears. He returned to California in December 1941, just before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and was drafted and served in a segregated unit at Fort Riley, Kansas, where he and several other qualified black candidates applied to Officer Candidate School. Months of foot-dragging by the Army ended only after protests by fellow soldier and 4

646-833-7066 • www.collectorscafe.com Collectors Cafe • 9 East 8th Street • Suite 118 • New York, NY 10003 heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis “The Brown Bomber” and intervention by lawyer Truman Gibson, a member of FDR’s unofficial “Black Cabinet” and civilian aide to Secretary of War Henry Stimpson. Robinson earned a commission of second lieutenant after completing OCS. In 1944, though transportation was not segregated, he was asked to move to the back of an Army bus. He refused and was court martialed. Robinson prevailed, but the experience kept him out of combat. He ended his military career as an army athletic coach in Kentucky and was honorably discharged in late 1944.

Robinson started his professional baseball career like all black players of that time, in the Negro Leagues. He joined the in 1945. Meanwhile, Brooklyn Dodgers President had been secretly scouting the Negro Leagues, looking for talent to help integrate baseball. Rickey wasn’t just seeking on-the-field ability; he wanted a man of character, education, eloquence, and sobriety, who was used to playing on mixed-race teams, and had the temperament to withstand brutal criticism and even open hostility.

Robinson met all the criteria, but Rickey was still unsure of his ability to tolerate the onslaught of racial taunts. He met with the ballplayer on August 28, 1945, and spent most of the three-hour meeting hurling racial epithets at him. Exasperated and confused, Robinson finally shot back, “Are you looking for a Negro who is afraid to fight back?” “No,” came Rickey’s now-famous reply. “I’m looking for a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back.”

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He made Robinson an offer. The arrangement was kept secret until the public signing two months later, on October 23, 1945, when Rickey announced that Robinson would join the minor league Montreal Royals in the 1946 season. Montreal Herald reporter Al Parsley covered Robinson’s first press conference in Montreal, calling it “a daring experiment to flout all the traditions and fetishes of baseball.” Parsley said Robinson impressed him. “He spoke with that easy fluency of an educated man... [and] has great realization of his responsibilities.” Parsley reported that Robinson expected to be the “target of abuse, especially from fans in hostile quarters,” but that he was “ready to take the chance.”

Despite a deck stacked against him and the eyes of the world upon him, Jim Crow laws preventing him from lodging with the team, and local officials canceling games to prevent his playing, on March 17, 1945, Robinson made his Montreal debut in an exhibition game against the Dodgers. He played his first regular season Minor League game on April 18, against the . By the end of the season, he had silenced many of the naysayers. He performed brilliantly at second base, hitting .349, the highest in the . He earned accolades for fielding, base running, and bunting.

“He can run faster than 75 percent of the players in the majors today…and can bunt better than 90 percent of them,” asserted Montreal general Mel Jones. “He has good hands, a trigger quick, instinctive baseball mind and an accurate and ample arm. And what makes him look like a big timer is that he never makes any play around second base look hard, not even the difficult ones.” In his enthusiasm, Jones inadvertently pointed out the one issue that might keep Robinson out of the Major Leagues: “What can’t he do except eat in the dining room at the Waldorf?”

At the end of the 1946 season, The Sporting News reported Robinson had a “burning desire” to make the Majors. “All season I have been under terrific pressure. It required all my stamina and determination to justify the faith Mr. Rickey and others had in my ability,” Robinson said. “I don’t know if I would like to go through it again, but if I can make a place in the majors I know the reward will be well worth the try.” And displaying the grace that would later win over the whole country, he added, “The kindness of the fans everywhere has helped me immeasurably.” Clearly Jackie was ready for the Big Leagues. But were the Big Leagues ready for him?

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The Major Leagues In preparation for the 1947 season, both the Brooklyn Dodgers and Montreal Royals held the Spring Training in Havana, Cuba. Rickey chose Havana to try to avoid the lockouts and racial antagonism Robinson faced the previous year. On April 10, 1947, the Dodgers announced that they had purchased Robinson’s contract. He donned a Major League uniform in three exhibition games against the Yankees, and then, on April 15, 1947, made his Major League debut in the Dodgers’ season opener at against the Boston Braves.

The New York Times reported that Robinson “was thrilled” and optimistically expected no trouble, but the truth was far from that. Though Robinson’s arrival received mostly positive reactions from the sports media, it also drew severe criticism and racial hatemongering, even in the Dodgers. Herbert Goren of the New York Sun reportedly canvassed the team and found their reactions “mainly antagonistic” towards their newest player. “Robinson will have to undo an undercurrent of resentment,” Goren wrote, “Not all the Dodgers feel that way, but a great many do.”

During Spring Training, some of the Southern players circulated a petition against Robinson. When Rickey found out, he and Dodgers manager immediately threatened to trade anyone unwilling to play with Robinson. Jackie remained both humble and confident that ultimately he would be judged based on ability, not skin color.

Robinson’s first official, regular season game with Brooklyn was anticlimactic. He went 0 for 3 hitting into a double play, yet still managed to score the winning run on a walk. After the game, New York Times sports reporter Arthur Daley quoted one of the players describing the new situation: “Having

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Jackie on the team is still a little strange, just like anything else that’s new. We just don’t know how to act with him. But he’ll be accepted in time. You can be sure of that. Other sports have had Negroes. Why not baseball? I’m for him if he can win games. That’s the only test I ask.” Others were not so accommodating. Robinson received death threats if he dared play in . According to lore, this is what prompted teammate , from neighboring Kentucky, to put his arm around a nervous Robinson on the field during the game. Jackie’s biggest test would come in Philadelphia, where manager taunted Robinson incessantly. Though Robinson later admitted he was “nearer to cracking up than I ever had been,” Chapman’s move backfired, uniting Robinson’s teammates and galvanizing public opinion against Chapman. When the St. Louis Cardinals threatened to strike, President Ford Frick and Baseball Commissioner warned that they would suspend any player refusing to take the field.

Robinson also suffered physical abuse by opposing teams, once receiving a seven-inch gash in his leg when spiked. Throughout the season, though, Robinson honored his pledge to Rickey to turn the other cheek. By the postseason, he silenced his critics the most effective way possible—he delivered on the field. Robinson’s performance earned him the first-ever Rookie of the Year Award and even teammate , who reputedly started the clubhouse petition to block Robinson from the Dodgers, had to admit “he is everything Branch Rickey said he was when he came up from Montreal.”

The experiment succeeded off the field as well. Robinson electrified and shattered attendance records nearly everywhere he played that year. For nine more seasons, Robinson was a fierce competitor before he retired with a career batting average of .311, 1,518 hits, 137 home runs, 734 RBIs, and 197 stolen bases. His lifetime statistics don’t even tell the entire story, as he entered the Major Leagues at the relatively advanced age of 28. Robinson’s career highlights speak to his baseball skills and include six pennants, a Rookie of the Year award (1947),

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a batting title, National League MVP award, trip to six All-Star games, and a victory (1955). But his real contribution went far beyond on-field heroics. By breaking the color barrier, Robinson opened up the “national pastime” to other African American players. (in 1947) and the legendary (in 1948) both signed with the . By 1953, half the teams of Major League baseball had integrated. Within a year of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, the majority of teams were desegregated. When Robinson retired after the ’56 season the only holdouts were the (integrated 1957), the (1958), and the (1959).

Robinson’s pioneering efforts and his successful first season in Brooklyn not only demonstrated to Americans that integrated baseball could work, but that an integrated society could work as well.

Life and Legacy After Baseball For Jackie Robinson, baseball was secondary. “If I had to choose tomorrow between the Baseball Hall of Fame and full citizenship for my people,” Robinson told a packed Oakland, California, audience in 1957.

Robinson remained in the public eye as an outspoken advocate for civil rights. “I believe in the goodness of a free society,” he said. “And I believe that society can remain good only as long as we are willing to fight for it— and to fight against whatever imperfections may exist.”

His quest for African American advancement would be a cornerstone of all his business and political ventures. He served as a corporate vice president, NAACP spokesman, Major League Baseball announcer, bank and business leader, and political activist, all with the goal of advancing “the right of every American to first-class citizenship,” which he considered “the most important issue of his time. “Negroes aren’t seeking anything which is not good for the nation as well as ourselves,” he once commented. “In order for America to be 100 per cent strong-economically, defensively, and morally-we can-not afford the waste of having second- and-third class citizens.” He even criticized Major League baseball in 1972 for having no African Americans in managerial positions.

Robinson’s speed and agility changed baseball from a quest for hits and home runs to more offensive plays such as stealing bases. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot in his first year of eligibility (1962). Other honors followed. His , 42, was retired by the Dodgers in 1971 and league-wide in 1997, a first in any major American professional sport. In 1987, the Rookie of the Year Award was renamed in his honor. In 2007, MLB declared April 15 Jackie Robinson Day, allowing any player to wear the number 42. In 2009, the league went even further, declaring that all uniformed personnel would wear 42 on April 15. 9

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OLLECTORS CAFE PRESENTS

Jackie Robinson’s CONTRACTS

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