Advertisement

'I am proud': Jackie Robinson's heartfelt letter of hope to a Black child | Opinion

Jackie Robinson received a letter during the winter of 1954 from a man who volunteered at an orphanage in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The man told Robinson that during one of his visits, he saw a kid named Jimmie who was sitting by himself brooding.

The man asked Jimmie what was wrong.

“I wish I was white,” Jimmie said.

Jimmie’s answer troubled the man, who wrote Robinson and asked the ballplayer if he would write the kid.

SPORTS NEWSLETTER: Sign up now for daily updates sent to your inbox

'YOU'RE AN INSPIRATION': Brett Phillips homers for young cancer patient, a reminder of baseball's joy

Robinson’s letter to Jimmie reflects the ballplayer’s sense of optimism about racial equality that he later abandoned when he realized the intransigence of racism in America.

Seventy-five years have passed since Robinson broke the color barrier when he played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. Major League Baseball will commemorate Jackie Robinson Day on April 15 in ballparks and stadiums.

If baseball really wants to honor Robinson it will acknowledge that both the game and the country have failed to live up to what he represented. Robinson represented the hopes for racial equality for millions of Black Americans. If there could be equality in baseball, there could be equality in education, housing, jobs, politics, and in the judicial system.

The desegregation of baseball was the most important story involving race relations in the years between the end of World War II and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education ending school segregation on May 17, 1954.

In Robinson’s letter, which was published in newspapers in March 1954, he told Jimmie it was understandable for him to want to be white, given the racial prejudice in the country. But, Robinson added, he should be proud of being Black despite the “problems before us.”

“I guess that is understandable for a boy your age, but not to me because I am proud to be a Negro,” Robinson wrote. “I am proud because God put us here on earth and gave us a color that is distinctive, and then put problems before us to see what would happen.

“Things were improving for black Americans,” Robinson wrote, and for this to continue it was necessary for Black children and adults to remain hopeful and keep their faith in God.

“We have gone a long way, Jimmie, and I am sure that God is proud as I am. And I also am sure you must realize that we have a long way to go, and boys and girls like yourself will have to help. One of these days you will realize that you, too, have a lot to be proud of, so it would be nice to start now.

“Just remember that because of some handicaps we are better off,” Robinson said, “and look in the mirror at yourself and be proud of what God gave you. I, too, have felt the pains you must feel, but I never have been ashamed of what God has given me.

“Good luck to you.”

Robinson’s letter might seem pollyannish until one realizes that it was written before the Brown decision; before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man; before anyone had heard of Martin Luther King Jr.; and before the Civil Rights Movement had a name.

King said that Robinson’s example of confronting racial bigotry without regard for his own safety compelled the minister to confront racial bigotry himself. “Back in the day when integration wasn’t fashionable,” King said of Robinson, “he underwent the trauma and humiliation of and the loneliness that comes with being a pilgrim walking the lonesome byways toward the high road of Freedom. He was sit-inner before sit-ins, a freedom rider before freedom rides.”

This sense of sacrifice did not come easily to Robinson – and having to drag a country toward the promised land by stoically and steadfastly walking into 50-mile-an-hour winds of hatred, prejudice, and white supremacy took its toll on Robinson. When Robinson died in 1972, he looked far older than his 53 years.

It was not his nature to turn the other cheek when white pitchers threw fastballs into his back or baserunners spiked him on the bases or spectators called him the vilest of names, and death threats came in the daily mail.

Robinson who wore crisp white shirts to call attention to his black skin; who once felt the cold steel of a white cop’s pistol against his gut; who was court-martialed in the Army for refusing to go the back of a bus; who ordered his Negro League team not to buy gas from white service station owners who wouldn’t let them use the restrooms; and who marched with King for racial equality.

Robinson never let go of his pride in being Black. He ultimately abandoned his optimism after realizing most white Americans saw freedom and equality as their birthright but that no such privilege belonged to those who were not white. To racial minorities, freedom and equality were a gift that could be given, but they also could be taken away.

He wrote in his 1972 autobiography, "I Never Had It Made," that he did not stand for the National Anthem or salute the American flag because he was denied the same rights and privileges as white people. “I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag,” he said. “I know that I am a Black man in a white world.”

Chris Lamb, chairman of the journalism and public relations department at Indiana University-Indianapolis, is author of the new book, Stolen Dreams: The 1955 Cannon Street All-Stars and Little League Baseball’s Civil War. He can be reached at lambch@iupui.edu.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jackie Robinson's heartfelt letter to a Black child: 'I am proud'