Posted on 10/24/2010 7:51:46 AM PDT by Michael Zak
One of the reasons that Branch Rickey, a Republican activist, selected Jackie Robinson to break the color barrier in major league baseball was their compatible political beliefs. It is beyond dispute that Robinson was a Republican.
Jackie Robinson campaigned for Richard Nixon against John Kennedy in 1960. After Nixon was defeated for governor of California in 1962, Robinson wrote to console the future Republican president:
“The only regret I have in supporting you twice is that I was unfortunate not to have been able to help more than I did. I am sorry also that most Negroes were unwilling to believe the promises you made. I personally was, and still am, convinced that you were the best candidate for the presidency in 1960 and a man we need very much in Government Service...”
(Excerpt) Read more at grandoldpartisan.typepad.com ...
Wasn’t Martin Luther King, Jr. also a Republican?
No big deal, he was from the Teddy Roosevelt-Tom Dewey-Mike Castle wing of the Republican Party
Before leaving the GOP, Theodore Roosevelt was fine.
It was Thomas Dewey who put Richard Nixon on the Eisenhower ticket in 1952.
That was a preferable alternative to the Democratic Party of Theodore Bilbo and the Dixiecrats. And with its imperfections, the Tom Dewey Republican Party is a much better model than the big government Democratic Party of FDR, LBJ and Bilbo.
But the biggest one was Jimmy Carter, who ran for governor blasting Carl Sanders as a liberal, and then ran around talking about MLK’s father as “Daddy King.”
I believe Carter is a model for what a lot of Southern Democrats would have turned into had they lived long enough, Robert Byrd being another. But this relatively recent history is unknown to the younger productions of the educational establishment.
Not really. Under Eisenhower the top tax rate was over 90 percent.
The Ku Klux Klan was the terrorist arm of the Southern Democrat Party. The fact that MLK was a Republican is meaningless, as was Jackie Robinson’s membership.
Branch Rickey selected Jackie Robinson because Robinson could hit a baseball.
Any notion that Rickey cared whether Robinson was a Republican is baloney.
I never knew anything about Robinson’s politics, so that’s quite interesting. But what I’ve always found most compelling about him is what I’ve learned more generally about his character. Because it was known that the first black major league ballplayer would take tremendous abuse, Branch Rickey et al had to handpick somebody who could simply take that abuse, not someone who would try to shout it down or “get up in anyone’s face” about it. Wisely, they knew putting a hothead in that role would be disastrous for the ultimate integration of the sport.
I’ve read that although Robinson was enormously talented, there were other Negro Leagues players who were considered more talented - but lacked that singular strength of character. Robinson was able to go about his business with quiet dignity, come what may. In other words, he behaved in a manner that to some (vile) people would make him an Uncle Tom. Yet by not fighting back and simply letting his excellence speak for itself, he won the day for the black players who would follow him.
In other words, he demonstrated that it’s not enough to be a figurehead, to be “the first” at something (hint, hint, Mr. President). It was HOW he went about it that made all the difference.
Ike was a conservative of the old balance the budget, pay as you go school. But that was certainly better than the alternative of the FDR school of government. Afterwards Kennedy opened the White House to the Keynesians and over the years the leftists took to that like a dry alcoholic to a bottle of booze.
Truly this is a lie....especially the part that Democrats created the KKK and segregation.
Not true. There were several African-American baseball players who were at least as good as Jackie Robinson, but Branch Rickey selected Robinson in part because they had similar views and got along so well.
Bravo. Well stated.
bump
More Baloney from the foolish Grand Old Potty-son.
Robinson was no Republican. He was a Civil Rights activist and that came first. Do some research. Preach this BS to educated blacks in America and you will bring discredit to yourself and the right, looking like them just like the left does, trying to pander like them. Robinson was a serious and complicated man with no political affiliation, but dedication to civil rights;
“By the time of a March 1960 Howard University student press conference, Jackie was so disenchanted with Eisenhower that he was quoted as saying about the President: “He seems more interested in playing 18 holes of golf than in the rights of 18 million Negroes.”(8)
With Kennedy and Johnson, he was wary at the outset, believing both men cared more about political expediency than the correctness of a particular deed. Jackie came to change his mind and duly informed each President so. Still, there were times when he felt constrained to publicly express disagreement, as when he informed LBJ in a telegram addressed to the White House: “do you really think you can fool all the people all the time?”(9) The ex-baseballer earlier labeled presidential candidate Kennedy “the fair-haired boy of the Southern segregationists” and in an anti-Kennedy campaign flyer characterized the senator as reluctant “to look you straight in the eye, when talking about Civil Rights.”(10)
Initially he was high on Richard Nixon and campaigned for the Vice President in 1960 against John Kennedy after Hubert Humphrey, whom he originally supported, dropped out of the race for the Democratic Party’s nomination. Yet by 1968, Jackie grew disappointed with what he viewed as Nixon’s tepid stance on civil rights and chose to campaign actively against him. In April 1972 a now much-subdued Robinson wrote a Nixon White House deputy that in retrospect he believed that Presidents only engaged in “smoke screen” deceptions to trick blacks into believing that there was official support for obtaining legitimate racial aims.(11)
In conclusion, what do these documentary materials reveal or confirm about the non-baseball Robinson? Certainly that he lived life passionately and defiantly “out there” as a gladiator for what he believed in and gave his best effort in whichever arena he performed.
According to Jackie, one of America’s most notable strengths of America was its racial diversity, and if capable individuals were allowed to compete freely without false barriers, society as a whole would benefit. He counted himself as living proof of that premise.
Notes
1. Nontextual collections are housed in the National Archives at College Park, MD. Paramount, Movietone, and Universal films are found in the National Archives Collection of Donated Materials (formerly Record Group 200).
2. 200-U(niversal) N(ews)-6077-1, 200-UN-22-309, 200-P(aramount) N(ews)-8-50, 200-UN-22-267, and 200-PN-8-96, National Archives Collection of Donated Materials.
3. See “P,” “PS,” and “PSA” series in Records of the United States Information Agency, Record Group 306, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC (hereinafter, records in the National Archives will be cited as RG ___, NARA).
4. See records filed under War Department decimal number 291.2 (”race”), Records of the Office of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1917-, RG 407, NARA.
5. Civilian Aide to the Secretary of War, (”Truman Gibson”) Files, Records of the Office of the Secretary of War, RG 107, NARA.
6. Court-Martial Case Files, 1939-1953, Records of the Judge Advocate General (Army), RG 153, NARA. (Permission to use these records must be obtained from the Department of the Army.)
7. Robinson to Gibson, Sept. 30, 1944, and Gibson to Robinson, Oct. 11, 1944, Gibson Files, RG 107, NARA.
8. WNYC (Mutual Broadcasting System) Press Release, Mar. 25, 1960, p. 2, Richard Nixon Pre-Presidential Papers, National Archives and Records Administration-Pacific Region (Laguna Niguel), CA.
9. Telegram, Robinson to Lyndon Johnson, Aug. 21, 1968, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, TX.
10. Flyer, “Why Jackie Robinson Opposes Jack Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson,” n.d., Nixon Pre-Presidential Papers, NARA-Pacific Region (Laguna Niguel).
11. Jackie Robinson to Roland L. Elliot, Apr. 20, 1972, folder “Gen HU 2-1 1-1-12-12/31/72,” box 20, White House Central Files, Nixon Presidential Materials Staff, College Park, MD.
Selected Bibliography
Falkner, David. Great Time Coming: The Life of Jackie Robinson from Baseball to Birmingham (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995)
Frommer, Harvey. Rickey and Robinson: The Men Who Broke Baseball’s Color Barrier (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co, Inc., 1992)
Robinson, Jackie, with Alfred Duckett. I Never Had It Made (New York: G.P. Putnam, 1972)
Rowan, Carl, with Jackie Robinson. Wait Till Next Year: The Life Story of Jackie Robinson (New York: Random House, 1960)
Tygiel, Jules. Baseball’s Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983)
Bingo!
Makes the point of this story moot. Who cares what *party* he was alleged to have belonged to?
“Makes the point of this story moot. Who cares what *party* he was alleged to have belonged to?”
My point exactly. The determination to fabricate the party alliances makes R’s look stupid. A specialty of the author of the piece and the website that is constantly being pimped on FR. This kind of “New Southern Strategy” to win black votes makes the GOP look ridiculous at a time when they can not afford it.
One of the reasons that Branch Rickey, a Republican activist, selected Jackie Robinson to break the color barrier in major league baseball was their compatible political beliefs. It is beyond dispute that Robinson was a Republican. Jackie Robinson campaigned for Richard Nixon against John Kennedy in 1960. After Nixon was defeated for governor of California in 1962, Robinson wrote to console the future Republican president...
African american label came in during the 70's I believe...it has changed a couple of times over the years by the democrat blacks, but before the 70's the term negro was not considered an insult..naacp...THE CP STANDS FOR COLORED PEOPLE. Maybe not politically correct today, but certainly not an insult...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.