Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 165

Here are a few excerpts from a book I recently read, "I Never Had It Made: An Autobiography," by Jackie Robinson:

Some things counterbalanced this ugliness. Black people supported me with total loyalty. They supported me morally; they came to sit in a hostile audience in unprecedented numbers to make the turnstiles hum as they never had before at ball parks all over the nation. Money is America’s God, and business people can dig black power if it coincides with green power, so these fans were important to the success of Mr. Rickey’s “Noble Experiment.” 

Some of the Dodgers who swore they would never play with a black man had a change of mind, when they realized I was a good ballplayer who could be helpful in their earning a few thousand more dollars in world series money. After the initial resistance to me had been crushed, my teammates started to give me tips on how to improve my game. They hadn’t changed because they liked me any better; they had changed because I could help fill their wallets.

I was twenty-six years old, and all my life back to the age of eight when a little neighbor girl called me a ni**er—I had believed in payback, retaliation. The most luxurious possession, the richest treasure anybody has, is his personal dignity. I looked at Mr. Rickey guardedly, and in that second I was looking at him not as a partner in a great experiment, but as the enemy—a white man. I had a question and it was the age-old one about whether or not you sell your birthright. 

“Mr. Rickey,” I asked, “are you looking for a Negro who is afraid to fight back?” 

I never will forget the way he exploded. 

“Robinson,” he said, “I’m looking for a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back.”

Very soon after my talk with Mr. Rickey, I learned that as long as I appeared to ignore insult and injury, I was a martyred hero to a lot of people who seemed to have sympathy for the underdog. But the minute I began to answer, to argue, to protest—the minute I began to sound off—I became a swellhead, a wise guy, an “uppity” ni**er. When a white player did it, he had spirit. When a black player did it, he was “ungrateful,” an upstart, a sorehead. It was hard to believe the prejudice I saw emerging among people who had seemed friendly toward me before I began to speak my mind. I became, in their minds and in their columns, a “pop-off,” a “troublemaker,” a “rabble-rouser.” It was apparent that I was a fine guy until “Success went to his head,” until I began to “change.” 

It is true that I had stored up a lot of hostility. I had been going home nights to Rachel and young Jackie, tense and irritable, keyed up because I hadn’t been able to speak out when I wanted to. In 1949 I wouldn’t have to do this. I could fight back when I wanted. That sounds as though I wanted to get even, and I’m sure that is partly true. I wouldn’t have been human otherwise. But, more than revenge, I wanted to be Jackie Robinson, and for the first time I would be justified because by 1949 the principle had been established: the major victory won. There were enough blacks on other teams to ensure that American baseball could never again turn its back on minority competitors.