El Profe: Rachel Robinson standing tall and proud
By Adrian Burgos
In the glow of orange sunlight, while warm ocean waves lapped onto the shore, a woman walked along the beach one March morning. Such a scene is an everyday occurrence at Daytona Beach during spring break. Except in this case, I instantly recognized the woman enjoying her morning stroll.
Who that woman was and why she relished that particular walk along the seashore in March 1996 reveals how much had changed in the 50 years since the first time she and her husband visited this town along the Atlantic seaboard.
Rachel Robinson has always stood tall, with a regal bearing. You always know when you are in her presence. That aura permeates every room she enters and seems to even transmit through the airwaves in television or radio interviews.
Taking notice of her that morning was no different.
An Alternative Spring Training
Academic history conferences don’t normally meet at beachfront hotels. This conference did so, and for a legitimate reason. We had convened in Daytona Beach to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s first spring training with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Spring training did not go exactly as planned in 1946 for the Dodgers. Local officials in multiple Florida cities prohibited the team from playing exhibition games in their towns because of Brooklyn’s newest addition — Jackie Robinson. Citing Jim Crow laws, several officials refused to permit a black player to join his teammates on the baseball diamond.
But this was part of the first step of breaking down a system that had prevented black players from openly participating in the major leagues and its affiliated minor leagues.
Robinson and the Dodgers were troubling the waters. Testing the resolve of avid segregationists who defended racial exclusion. Challenging those who stood idly by when blacks were sent to “colored” facilities or were denied access to the same restaurants, lunch counters or bathrooms.
The status quo had to be upset. Directly.
Successfully implementing integration took not just excellent performance on the field, but also mental fortitude to deal with both racial animus and indifference, inside and outside the ballpark.
The isolation was nearly total. Jim Crow laws ensured Robinson could not stay with his teammates at the oceanfront hotel where the team was housed. Rather, Jackie had to live with local members of Daytona’s black community. Each day, the aspiring Dodger had to travel to meet his white teammates at the practice fields or catch the team bus and take a trip to another town where he might be permitted to play.
Remembering Jack
Fifty years had passed since the days the Dodgers initiated their effort to desegregate Major League Baseball. Pioneering integration was no easy task. It was taxing on the soul and spirit of Jackie Robinson and his then-fiancée, Rachel Isum.
Our group of historians had gathered in Daytona Beach to mark the passage of time and discuss the profound change that had occurred due to the courage of this African-American couple.
During our lunch break at the conference, I approached Rachel Robinson, who was one of the honored guests. I asked whether she enjoyed her early morning stroll along the beach.
She smiled and assured me she had. And then she shared why.
Speaking with her signature dignified eloquence, she told me that as she was taking in the entire scene while walking along the seashore, she couldn’t help but reflect on how much had changed since that first spring training in 1946.
Her words remain with me to this day.
“I was thinking about how, 50 years ago, they wouldn’t let Jack and I even come over the bridge onto the island,” she said. “And this morning, I walked along the beach thinking of Jack and all that we had been through.”
So complete was the segregation in 1946 that neither Jack nor Rachel was welcome onto any part of the island that is Daytona Beach. Yet their courage in the face of racial hostility and the legalized system of discrimination that was Jim Crow, in having to prove their worth on and away from the baseball diamond, ended up making a difference not just in their own lives, but the lives of so many others.
It opened the doors for all black players, whether from the United States, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Venezuela or anywhere else to participate openly as black men in organized baseball. It inspired a generation of Civil Rights protesters and activists in their quest to overturn the racial status quo.
For some, a morning stroll along the seashore awakens them to a new day. That morning, it reminded me of the past and how far we had come.
Featured Image: Andrew Burton / Getty Images News