DOCUMENT RESUME ED 423 570 CS 509 914 TITLE Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (81st, Baltimore, Maryland, August 5-8, 1998). Minorities and Communication. INSTITUTION Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. PUB DATE 1998-08-00 NOTE 318p.; For other sections of these Proceedings, see CS 509 905-922. PUB TYPE Collected Works Proceedings (021) Reports Research (143) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC13 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Baseball; *Cultural Context; *Cultural Differences; *Ethnic Groups; Journalism; Laws; Mass Media Effects; *Mass Media Role; Mass Media Use; Media Research; *Minority Groups; *Newspapers; Television IDENTIFIERS Disney (Walt); Journalists; Media Coverage ABSTRACT The Minorities and Communication section of these Proceedings contains the following 10 papers: "L'affaire Jake Powell: The Minority Press Goes to Bat against Segregated Baseball" (Chris Lamb); "Strategies for Surveying Small, Urban Publications on Patterns of Writing Staff Racial Diversity" (Yvonne Laurenty); "Sensing, Valuation, and the Portrayal of African American TV Newsmakers" (Camilla Gant and John Dimmick); "The Influence of Television Use and Parental Communication on-Educational Aspirations of Hispanic Children" (Alexis Tan and others); "Hire and Higher: An Analysis of the Relationship between Numbers of Asian-American Editors and Coverage of Local Chinese by 'The Oregonian' in Portland, Oregon" (Herman B. Chiu); "Tuskegee Airmen, Censorship, and the Black Press in World War II" (Michael S. Sweeney); "Policy and Press Coverage: Changing Coverage of Native Americans and Native American Issues in the Press, 1963-1983" (Jennifer Bowie); "The Invisible 'Model Minority': Images of Koreans on American TV" (Hoon Shim); "A Bumpy Carpet Ride: Disney and Cultural Controversy" (Keri Helene Bartok); and "More Sex Than Consequence: The Sexual Health Content of Latino Magazines" (Melissa A. Johnson). (CR) ******************************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * ******************************************************************************** PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR EDUCATION IN JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION .(81st, Baltimore, MD, August 5-8, 1998).MINORITIES AND COMMUNICATION. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND ECOU ATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION DISSEMINATE MATERIAL HAS CENTER (ERIC) BEEN GRANTED BY This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. 0 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this docu- ment do not necessarily represent official TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES OERI position or policy. INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 1 BEST COPY AVM,ABLE 2 L'affaire Jake Powell: The Minority Press Goes to Bat Against Segregated Baseball Chris Lamb, Ph.D. Assistant professor, Communication College of Charleston 66 George St. Charleston, SC 29424 (803) 953-9615 Top Paper Minorities and Communication Division Presented to the Minorities and Communication Division, AEJMC national conference, Baltimore, Maryland, 1998 3 L'affaire Jake Powell: The Minority Press Goesto Bat Against Segregated Baseball ABSTRACT During a radio interviewon July 29, 1938, New York Yankee outfielder JakePowell said he workedas a policeman in the off-seasonand keptin shape by cracking "niggers"over the head with his nightstick. Powell was immediatelysuspended for 10 days. The "Jake Powell Incident"provided the catalyst to challenge segregation inbaseball mobilizing pressure from black activists,journalists, and others whowanted to integrate baseball. Thisarticle examines how this story was covered by mainstreamdailies, black weeklies, and the Daily Worker,a Communist daily published inNew York City. 1 L'affaire Jake Powell: The Minority Press Goes to Bat Against Segregated Baseball During a pre-game interview at Comiskey Park in Chicago on July 29, 1938, WGN radio announcer Bob Elson asked New York Yankee outfielder Jake Powell what he did during the off-season. Powell replied that he was a policeman in Dayton, Ohio, where he kept in shape, he said, by cracking "niggers" over the head with his nightstick. Before the next day's game, a delegation of blacks presented a petition to umpires demanding that Powell be banned from baseball for life. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis suspended the ballplayer for 10 days. The Sporting News reported that it was the first time that a major league ballplayer was suspended for a racist remark.' "L'affaire Jake Powell," as The Nation referred to it, captured the hypocrisy of segregated baseball. Landis punished a ballplayer for making a racist remark, yet he and team owners had prohibited blacks from the game since the 19th century. While baseball had thus far turned a deafear to critidism of its color ban, it could neither dismiss nor deny the outcry over Powell's remark, made live on radio and heard by thousands of listeners. Author William Donn Rogosin 5 2 suggested that not only did the incident solidify the sense of outrage against baseball's color line, it illustrated the instability of segregated baseball, where a single intemperate remark embroiled the sport in controversy.2 Both Commissioner Landis and the New York Yankees, the best team in baseball, were forced to take action to mollify the outrage in the black community. It's doubtful whether Landis, known derisively in the black press as "The Great White Father" for blocking all attempts at integration, would have suspended Powell without outside pressure.' Furthermore, the Yankees' management, responding to the threat of a boycott of their games, met with black journalists and activists, asking what could be done to improve relations with the black community. The team also ordered Powell on an apology tour of black newspapers and black-owned bars in Harlem. And finally, L'affaire Powell provided a single incident to unify segregation critics in the press black, communist and liberal who had become increasingly impatient and vociferous in their criticism. Powell's intemperate joke left no one laughing. But it shook baseball at its seams, publicizing the existence of the color ban, putting the game's establishment on the defensive, and unifying critics who would use the remark as a metaphor for the unfairness of segregation. 3 Throughout the 1930s, the black press had grown increasingly frustrated over segregated baseball. Sportswriters such as Rollo Wilson and then Wendell Smith of the Pittsburgh Courier, Frank "Fay" Young of the Chicago Defender, Joe Bostic of the People's Voice, Dan Burley of the Amsterdam News, and Ed Harris of the Philadelphia Tribune let their readers know that segregation denied black players an opportunity to play in the major leagues and white spectators the opportunity to watch some of the best ballplayers in the country.' In 1934, Rollo Wilson wrote that racism precluded the possibility of blacks playing in the white leagues.' Two- years later, Ed Harris criticized baseball's ban on blacks as unfair, unreasonable, and unprofitable. He said that the addition of black players would weaken racial stereotypes, improve the game, and put more fans in major league ballparks.6 In May 1938, less than three months before the Powell interview, Wendell Smith questioned why blacks should continue to patronize major league baseball games, though they were not allowed to play in games.' Black newspapers would be supported in their campaign to integrate baseball by the Daily Worker, a Communist daily published in New York City. The newspaper espoused the beliefs and philosophies.of the U.S. Communist Party, which found it propitious to champion the cause of ending 7 4 segregation in baseball, as part of an overall campaign to end discrimination against blacks in all phases of American life.' Daily Worker journalists understood that ending discrimination in baseball could make a truly revolutionary change in American society.9 On Sunday, August 16, 1936, the Worker published a page- one story with a headline that said, "Fans Ask End of Jim Crow Baseball," which became the beginning of its campaign to end discrimination in baseball.' Over the next decade, the newspaper's sportswriters brashly challenged baseball's establishment to permit black players; condemned white owners for perpetuating the color ban; organized petition drives and distributed anti-discrimination pamphlets; publicized the exploits of Negro League stars; and let their readers know of successes in the campaign to end segregation in the national pastime." In addition, during this period, a few progressive- minded sports columnists working for mainstream dailies, such as Hugh Bradley of the New York Post, Jimmy Powers of the New York Daily News, and Westbrook Pegler of the Chicago Daily News, also would take up the issue. The issue had been ignored until the early 1930s, but, during that decade, sportswriters, such as Pegler, said that the exclusion of blacks made it difficult for the sport to claim to be the national pastime. He also expressed his amazement that other 8 5 journalists had not criticized the color line.'As Jules Tygiel wrote in Baseball Great Experiment, the campaign waged by the black press, the communists, and a number of other white sportswriters helped weaken the apathy that nourished segregated