The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – 42 Today: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy by Michael G. Long

Episode Date: April 13, 2021

42 Today: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy by Michael G. Long Explores Jackie Robinson’s compelling and complicated legacy Before the United States Supreme Court ruled against segregation in public schools, and before Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama, Jackie Robinson walked onto the diamond on April 15, 1947, as first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers, making history as the first African American to integrate Major League Baseball in the twentieth century. Today a national icon, Robinson was a complicated man who navigated an even more complicated world that both celebrated and despised him. Many are familiar with Robinson as a baseball hero. Few, however, know of the inner turmoil that came with his historic status. Featuring piercing essays from a range of distinguished sportswriters, cultural critics, and scholars, this book explores Robinson’s perspectives and legacies on civil rights, sports, faith, youth, and nonviolence, while providing rare glimpses into the struggles and strength of one of the nation’s most athletically gifted and politically significant citizens. Featuring a foreword by celebrated directors and producers Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon, this volume recasts Jackie Robinson’s legacy and establishes how he set a precedent for future civil rights activism, from Black Lives Matter to Colin Kaepernick.

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He's a returning author. It sounds like I'm doing a fight thing. Like, let's get ready to rumble with a returning author. He's the author of 42 and Today, Jackie Robinson as Legacy. I've been really excited to interview him about this book. And his name is Michael G. Long. He is the author and editor of several books on Jackie Robinson and civil rights history. They include First Class Citizenship, The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson, Beyond Home Plate, Jackie Robinson After Baseball, and 42 Today, The life and legacy of jackie robinson uh first class citizen uh was

another of his books i was selected as a best book of the year by publishers weekly and received critical acclaim in the new york times and other major outlets uh mr long served as an expert historian for ken burns documentary on jackie rob Robinson in his op-ed pieces about Robinson have appeared in ESPN's The Undefeated, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and New York Daily News. Welcome to the show again Michael. How are thou? Chris it's great to be back. You made me want to hit that bell notification just for the thrill. i we're always after you know seeing those youtube videos because you know i for me i'm a visual person so like the youtube videos but uh you know most of the podcast is audio but you you know it's sometimes it's good to watch the i have people

though they'll like listen to the audio version they're like i want to see what this all looks like and they come see the video version and they can see the beautiful background that hopefully you'll be winning some awards with that room reader twitter account so welcome to the show michael congratulations on the book uh give us your plugs where people can find you on the interwebs and order up the book sure you can find the book at all booksellers online uh 42 today jackie robinson and his legacy and you can find me on twitter at michael g long 2 and on facebook and on instagram and even on tiktok these days tiktok you're doing the old tiktok aruni you're getting i just signed up like a couple days ago i haven't done anything

on it but i've just signed up you're gonna be hip like the kids. You should get a clubhouse, too. A clubhouse is a great thing that I've been using for the Chris Voss show. And what else? Instagram. Instagram is really – so one of my authors came on. They're like, Chris, you really need to be doing author stuff on Instagram. I'm like, really? And, yeah, there's a lot of popular people there. So give us – you know, you've written so many books on Jackie Robinson.

Maybe my first question should be, like, why do you hate all the other baseball players and not write about them yeah that's a loaded question man i can't tell you why i chose robinson yeah actually i was going to flip that around the other way with a better question that's less funny. But, like, why has your life's focus been about Jackie Robinson? Yeah, that's safer ground, isn't it? There you go. So about a decade or so ago, I was writing about religion and politics, believe it or not. And I was looking at Richard Nixon and his unholy alliance with the Reverend Billy Graham. And I was at the National Archives in Laguna Niguel, California.

And the archivist there came up to my desk and asked me if I'd seen the Jackie Robinson file. And I hadn't. So he brought over this thick file of correspondence between Robinson and Nixon. And I think the correspondence, I think the letters started running from 1952 to 1972. It was about 20 years. Holy crap. Correspondence.

Did Nixon write back, or was it just Jackie writing to Nixon? Both, yeah. Okay. Yeah, they had letters from Nixon and letters from Robinson as well. And a lot of the letters, Chris, had to do with politics and civil rights and economics and so forth. And I really got hooked. So this was the hook into Robinson for me, his letters to Nixon, believe it or not, about politics and civil rights. So I'm not a huge baseball fan. I follow it here and there.

And I wasn't a huge Jackie Robinson disciple at that point either. But these letters were just so fascinating. I wasn't quite sure what to do with them. So I went back to my hotel and I turned on the TV and I saw another show at that point about athletes gone bad. And I thought, I really should do something with these exemplary letters. So I contacted Rachel Robinson and asked her for permission to do a book of her late husband's civil rights letters. And she agreed to that. And really the projects have just taken off since then. That's awesome. Hang on.

I've got someone on hold here. Hey, Steve Garvey, the Dodgers. Yeah. Sorry. Michael's just not that into you, buddy. Sorry's awesome. Hang on. I've got someone on hold here. Hey, Steve Garvey, the Dodgers. Yeah. Sorry. Michael's just not that into you, buddy. Sorry, man. Okay. Yeah. Just, you know, I don't know. I don't know what to do. Anyway, I just said, I'm a big Steve Garvey fan, Dodgers fan from being a kid. So I had to pull that reference out right now. Millennials are going like, what the hell is he talking about what is baseball what is this steve garvey is this steve garvey did i get the name right i'm getting old all right yeah don't make me call tom of the sorter on you uh the uh so you've written this

beautiful book and i i'm really excited to interview you about this because you know this is about some really important seminal things in our history. Of course, we're dealing with the continual fallout of 450 years of racism and the ugliness of everything that has gone before. You know, we've got we're in the midst of the trial right now of the officer on George Floyd. So give us an overview of the book. And I don't know if you mentioned it before, but did you tell us why this one was important to you to add to your collection of books you've written about Jackie? Well, since you mentioned George Floyd, I could sort of segue into that by saying that I really wanted to focus on Robinson's legacy and his legacy for today

and sort of to show that Robinson mattered not only in 1947, but he matters still today. I mean, even if we were to look, Chris, just at the George Floyd protests, we can see that Robinson's legacy matters in the sense that he was a victim of police brutality several times in his life. Growing up, he was arrested by police officers unjustly. Even near the end of his life, he was sort of thugged around by a white police officer. This would have been, I believe, in 1970. A police officer pulled a gun on Robinson. And Robinson spoke out against police brutality quite a bit throughout his life.

And in 1970, believe it or not, he also stood with Black Panthers. He aligned himself with the Black Panthers when they were facing the issue of police brutality. And he said that it made sense for them to be violent in the face of violent police officers. It made sense for them to stand up for themselves when white police officers failed them. So Robinson had a lot to say about police brutality, and I can't imagine that he would be, not disappointed, I'm sorry, I can't imagine that he wouldn't be disappointed with what's going on, especially in relationship with George Floyd and

all the issues of police brutality going on right now. So the book, I wanted to make sure that the way we address Robinson in the book had an effect on what we're experiencing today so that we can see his legacy

in light of contemporary politics. The other thing I really wanted to do in the book is to make sure that we didn't freeze Robinson in 1947. So most of the time we freeze Robinson on April 15th, 1947. This is the day he shatters a color barrier in Major League Baseball. And in 1947, he's turning the other cheek. He's soldiering on nonviolently. He appears to be a very polite, smiling baseball player. He's non-threatening. He's safe to white America.

And I wanted the authors, the contributors to the book, to get beyond that Jackie Robinson. Yeah, I think people just think of him as, you know, he broke the barriers in baseball and then he was a great baseball player. End of story, hall of fame, you know, whatever. And then, so you go into more in depth of how that works and everything else and how he really used his, his position for power and, and, try and empowerment, try and change the world and do something.

He didn't just take his paychecks and go be like, Oh, I'll go golfing. See you. I'm out. Yeah. Robinson was no Michael Jordan, at least Jordan early on, you know, we just lost the Michael Jordan crowd. Sorry, Michael. Sorry, Michael. And sorry, Michael Jordan's followers. He said the casino, I mean, he can't help Michael. And sorry, Michael Jordan's followers. He's at the casino. I mean, he can't help it. I'm just kidding.

That's a really bad Michael Jordan joke, I just realized. Robinson used his celebrity status early on to advance for civil rights and progressive politics. And he decided early on that he wasn't going to sit by and not speak out when he faced racial injustice, when he faced economic injustice and issues of war and peace. He was somebody who insisted on speaking out and speaking out no matter what the fallout would be. So he didn't weigh which Republicans or which Democrats might buy his products. He wasn't into that. He was into speaking his mind awesome did he go through this the sort of stuff that uh you know people like aretha franklin um and people used to go through where they had to go through the back of hotels um to you know to get into them

you know if they wanted even though they had money and success they would still have to play these stupid games that the white people would make like going into the back of a hotel instead of in the front and shit like that did he have to go through that he did i even after he succeeded which i think is what your point's focusing on even after he succeeded even after he was in the baseball hall of fame chris robinson still had to face these things when he and rachel by the, were looking for a new property in Stanford, Connecticut, where they would raise their family and in the surrounding area, they had trouble. That area was redlined, redlined Black Americans out of that area. So they had trouble finding open properties. They eventually settled on an expansive area where they built

their own home. But even in Stanford, Connecticut, Robinson wasn't invited to join the local country club. So, yeah, he experienced racism long after he succeeded. That's crazy, man. Well, it's crazy and true, sadly. I remember, you know, Sammy Davis Jr. couldn't get into the casinos until Frank Sinatra said, you either let him in or you don't get me. And I love the story about Aretha Franklin I found out about out about after passing where she took cash from everybody up front you paid the queen to to play up front because she wasn't going to take any shit and she wasn't going to go looking for money you paid

you paid her that's that's that's awesome i mean that's awesome she's like i i take nothing but it is sad when i read the stories about how even successful people like nina simone and other some of my other really favorite singers uh you know how you just have to deal with that bullshit to hide um so uh give us some rundown of some of the stories that you really thought readers will like out of there uh or at least some tips or hints on some of the teasers that are out there sure so the book is i never really answered your earlier question. The book is divided into different sections. One section looks at the foundations of Robinson's life. And we look at his baseball years. We look at his years in civil rights and politics. And then finally, we look at his effects on the wider world of sports. I can give you a

couple of stories that I think are interesting. Jonathan Ige wrote about the number 42 in his chapter in the book. And he tells us that the number four was available in 1947. The number two was available in 1947. But Robinson got the number 42. In 1947, the number 42 was not something that one aspired to. It was a really high number that baseball players just didn't want to have on their back. Now they were 99 and 00 and so forth. But at this point, 42 was a really high number.

There was only one higher number on the Dodgers at that point. That was number 43, worn by a player whose names most of us don't remember. John Van Syke, I think was his name. I might be wrong about that. But Robinson made a number out of 42. So we know it today because Robinson wore that but in 1947 he shows up clubhouse Chris and there's no locker for him in the locker room his jersey is on a peg and it's number 42 so he's not being treated very well as soon as he arrives there you know the Dodgers weren't quite sure that the experiment uh would succeed and so he wasn't deeply ensconced in the locker room when he showed up on that first day.

So he didn't choose the number 42. They gave it to him and they gave him a high number because they're like, you know, if we have to forget this experiment, it's there it is. It's not number four and it's not number two. That's right. Actually, a low number was available and it went to a white rookie. Yeah. Yeah. Well, welcome to the 40s and well, everything. Yeah. In fact, I pulled up on the side here that Black Harmony officer held a gunpoint in Virginia.

I can't even watch the video. So a lot of stuff hasn't changed. So give us a give us a rundown from there, some of the other things that happened to him. Sure. Let me go back to the beginning, if I can, and give you some of the fuel, the foundations that sort of fueled his life. So Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia. His mother decided that she was going to put the five children on a train. And he was born in 1919. And when he was about one years old, his mother put him on the train and his siblings,

and they went to Pasadena, California. Robinson never knew his biological father. He had left the family during the growing season, no less. And Mallory Robinson was facing really hard times. So she went to California, where a lot of black Americans were landing. It was a promised land. It didn't turn out to be that promising, but it was a promised land at that point. And she taught him some really important lessons growing up.

She was a very religious person. She was very spiritually devoted. And she taught him the Adam and Eve story. She taught him. This and eve story she taught him this is really interesting chris she taught him that adam and eve were originally black and then they were scared white when god caught eve eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so she taught Jackie and his brothers and sisters that black was God's original design for skin color of humanity. So he grew up believing that the color of his skin was full of dignity and God ordained. That's a beautiful story.

Isn't it? I mean, I'm an atheist, so I don't. Yeah, me too. But that's a great story. I tell that to my kids. I love that story. The other thing she taught him is that freedom is something to be grasped right here and right now. So it wasn't like God would reward you in the by and by when you get to heaven, where there's a great pie in the sky.

She didn't teach him that. She taught him that freedom is God's will for his life, right here, right now, and that he had a responsibility to fight hard for it. So you can imagine that those two lessons provided a lot of fuel for Robinson as he faced racism in Pasadena growing up. And he did. You know, he went to movie theaters that were segregated. The local swimming pool was a public pool. And they had International Day every Wednesday. International Day was when they let the kids of color come in and swim in the local pool. One day a week.

Oh, wow. And then after they left, they drained the pool and scrubbed it so the white kids wouldn't get sick. Yeah, I remember these stories. They're horrific. And he grew up in segregated Pasadena, and it was tough. And, you know, he grew up with violence, seeing violence against black folks as well. So Pasadena wasn't a promised land. In fact, he got, and his mom got, and his family got hassled living on this almost all-white block in Pasadena. Somebody burned a cross on their lawn. They were often, the cops often showed up at their house because neighbors called the cops and so forth and so on.

So he had some tough days growing up. But his mother really gave him a lot of spiritual fuel as he prepared to go to Pasadena Junior College and then UCLA and beyond. Yeah, it's a tough road. When did he find his talent for baseball? Well, his first sport early on was softball. He really loved softball. And then he goes to Pasadena Junior College, and he's really a football star. This guy, when he runs, runs over 12 yards per carry.

So he's quite a star. And when he goes to UCLA, he letters in four sports. Letters in football. This is his best sport. He letters in basketball. He's a great basketball player. He letters in track. He was a statewide champion in track, and he letters in baseball as well. Baseball doesn't seem to be his best sport. In fact, he batted.097 in his first year at UCLA playing baseball. Not a great average 97 but but he becomes really good at baseball obviously and then after he leaves the army he joins the kansas city monarchs of the negro legs and there he bats i think it's like 380 or something like that and from there he gets picked up by the dodgers yeah and and so they is he really a great player at that point or is he still developing and they decide to do this experiment how does that how's that how's that yeah he wasn't the best player it seems in the nigger leagues there were other really strong players but robinson let's not you know i don't want to diminish this by any stretch of the imagination.

He was excellent in the Negro Leagues. And they chose him because of his excellence. So he was a great batter, a great fielder, a great runner. He didn't have the strongest arm, they said. I think that was probably his weak spot. He didn't have the strongest arm, but on all other indicators, he was excellent. But Branch Rickey, the general manager of the Dodgers, chose Robinson not just because of his excellence, but because he thought Robinson had a solid moral character.

And he knew that Robinson had a temper like a rattlesnake. And that's what one of his Negro Leagues colleagues said. Robinson had a temper just like a rattlesnake. And he did is one of his negro legs colleagues uh said robinson had a temper just like a rattlesnake uh and he did and a guy yeah and ricky knew that when he brought him on he knew that robinson was the type of guy who would fight back but he also knew that robinson had the smarts enough not to fight back early on to hold his temper in check. So Ricky was looking for somebody who was fiery on the diamond, who was excellent on the diamond, but also somebody who was strong enough to keep that temper in check. And he found that in Jack Robinson. You know, he also bought,

they also bonded over Methodism. They were both Methodists. And Ricky liked the fact that Robinson had a fiance at the time, Rachel. So he liked a lot of things about Robinson's character. Robinson scored excellent in terms of his character in the army and so forth and so on. There you go. There you go. And so he developed into a great player. And then he moves in. And I think, I don't know if you want to expand on what a great player he was, or if we want to move into the next step in his life after that where he gets into politics and starts doing some of the social justice sort of things well let's talk a little bit about how tough 47 was from him and then we'll move on if that's okay 1947 was a really tough year for Robinson again he has a fiery temper right so 1947 Branch Ricicky asks him to turn the other cheek when he faces all of this

racism when he faces the racist insults and all the uh racist gestures that are thrown his way turn the other cheeks as a branch ricky and this is this is a criterion that uh this is a demand that ricky makes of robinson and robinson agrees to it but it's really tough because he says i'm not non-violent he's not naturally pacifist nor is he passive by any stretch of the imagination either so 47 is really tough what he does in 47 is swallow all of those racist insults and turn them into muscle. That's the way Jonathan Ige puts it in the book 42 today. He turns them into muscle.

But there are a couple of times when it seems as if that great experiment in 1947 will come crashing down. And one of those times is when the Dodgers are playing the Philadelphia Phillies. They have a manager, and you saw this in 42 if you watched the movie. They have a manager, Ben Chapman, who was racist to the core and who hurled every racist and thinking to himself that he wishes or he feels as if he's just about ready to throw that bat down, march over to the dugout, and use what he calls his despised black fist to pummel those white sons of bitches into the ground. This is the way Robinson puts it. And that's who Robinson was. So it's no small feat to me that given who Robinson was, he succeeded in 1947. And then Ricky eventually releases him from that admonition to turn the other cheek. And you can see awesome footage of Robinson standing up and fighting for

calls and standing up and fighting with umpires and other players. But Robinson transformed the game. He transformed the complexion of the game, but he also transformed in many ways the way the game was played. And there's a contributor to the book named George Vesey, Chris. He wrote for many years for the New York Times. And he makes the case that when he sees a runner taking the wide turn at first base and dancing between the bases and stealing home plate or doing a high slide, that's Jackie Robinson ball. What Robinson did was to inject Negro Leagues ball into Major League Baseball. So in 47 and beyond robinson transforms the complexion of major league baseball but also the way it's played and it was a really difficult thing for him to do

there you go there you go i i think it's powerful i mean that that takes a level of of of uh of just being able to do through the pain because i i'm kind of a rattlesnake myself and I don't deal well with being poked at. I, you know, I'm a don't tread on me sort of person, but being able to have that level of character to be able to go rise and above. And then of course, you know, wait till he gets his power and then be able to use it in ways that you can make differences is like really important. And and uh yeah i mean did i did did he kind of feel like he had that yoke of of carrying the you know i'm on the pioneer here in breaking open uh this whole

breaking the glass uh you know getting into this in this business uh so we can change the like you say the complexity of it did he feel like he carried that yoke on his shoulders of like i've got a you know since i'm the pioneer here i've got to set forth the standard that will break this open for everyone he did feel that according to rachel i think they both had a sense that they were making history in 1947 and beyond. And she recounts that it weighed heavily on his shoulders. And he didn't have a lot of support in 47. His teammates didn't rally around him. They didn't pat him on the back and pal around with him.

And he kept to himself pretty much in 47. He was a lonely figure, a lonesome figure. And Rachel says that he would come home from the park late at night, and he would go into the bedroom and kneel next to the bed and ask God for strength and courage. And so that image alone shows you how lonely he was in 47. But he did have a sense that they were making history. And, you know, he didn't have that sense just internally. He had it from Black Americans who wrote him all the time about how he was their hero. You know, they would come in from the farm fields and gather at the local store around the radio and listen to Dodgers games. And he was their hope and joy in 1947.

He really was. I mean, he transformed black America, and Luther King Jr. says, Robinson was a freedom rider before the freedom rides. He was a sit-in-er before the sit-ins. And it's because of Jack Robinson that I can do what I'm doing today. And that's high praise from Dr. King. That's pretty amazing. I mean, you think of hero stories like this, but there's a human element, too, where, you know, the down times, the times you feel challenged, the times you're frustrated, the times, you know. Sometimes, I mean, sometimes it's fun to be the hero and you're carrying the world on your shoulders but in that in that uh like you mentioned in that time he's very alone and that loneliness can really be depressing can be heartbreaking uh you know i'm there may have been times where he had an awful day maybe he just wasn't hitting it like he expects himself to do

and you're just like i you know i really don't want to carry the world for everybody like fuck all this shit you know what i mean and uh it's it mean? And it takes a lot of moxie and character, I think. I would guess. And then complicating all that, Chris, is that Robinson faced a lot of death threats in his career. So, you know, he compiles Hall of Fame statistics from 1947 to his last year in 1956. Hall of Fame statistics, incredible in and of itself, right? But this is a guy who compiled those statistics under intense pressure.

Yeah. Excuse me, under intense racism. And that included death threats so he would go out to the field thinking possibly there's somebody in the stands who's going to take me out today can you imagine putting up statistics under that type of pressure it's hard enough just to hit a fastball right yeah exactly yeah or slow ball you've got you've got people you've got people screaming epitaphs that you you know you you don't know if somebody's got you scoped in the stands i mean jesus man that's that's like uh that's a whole new level and uh to be able to keep your focus

and your game on um it's just extraordinary would you would you say he's maybe one of the greatest baseball players of all times I mean he doesn't have to have that asterisk that some of the newer players have for juicing and crap I would say that given the circumstances in which he played there's no doubt in my mind that he's one

of the greatest players in major league baseball history the other thing I want to point out here Chris is that while this is going on, Rachel is sitting in the stands watching her husband play. He's not there as a passive spectator in the sense that she, too, is hearing all of these insults being hurled at her husband. She, too, is feeling all that pain. She's taking in the suffering as well. And together in 47 and beyond, they're really a heavily bonded team. I mean,

they're together. It's a story. It's truly a love story between those two. And so Jack would often say, she called him Jack, by the way, it was a term of endearment for her. Jack would often say that he could never have done what he did without Rachel. And I think there's no doubt about that either. She's as much a hero in the story as he is. Oh, really? So we get to know his wife better and stuff. I mean, that you'd have to have some sort of rock to hold onto or somebody to balance you. And, you know, for the times that you go, screw all this crap, you know, somebody who can help you out and focus you.

And I'm sure she was under threat too, as well. I'm sure the death threats applied to his whole family, which is tough as a man to have your family under death threats. Indeed. And I think that they both wore that. Well, I can't imagine going through something like that, but there they were at the park every day, you know, whether it was from fans, not fans, because fans would, of course, love him, but just people in the stands? Or did he ever get more respect, finally, from people in the game, whether it was fellow players or coaches or any stories about that? You know, Robinson's popularity on the Dodgers increased as he succeeded and as the Dodgers succeeded. So as he helped them move toward the pen and then eventually the World Series, it's amazing how the characters, the moral characters on the team changed.

But yeah, you know, the more he succeeded, the more popular he became. So they came to see him as a great baseball player, as his fans did as well. You know, some of the, he always faced racism throughout his career. So I don't want to diminish that as well. But I think it was more intense earlier on than it was later. Yeah, yeah. It's good that they finally went, you know, that some of it abated. It's a sad thing, though, because they're clearly using him for whatever he is.

So how did this lay a foundation for people like Colin Kaepernick and other people with his legacy that came onward. And, of course, Colin Kaepernick is, I think, still technically in the news because, you know, the knee and everything we're doing right now with George Floyd and, you know, I mean, the whole legacy that we had of four years of people complaining about knees. But I guess it's okay to to break into the capital and bring the confederate flag in there that's just fine throw over trying to overthrow the government but god forbid you know uh colin kaepernick should put

a knee down so robinson was cited quite a bit when colin kaepernick started to take his knee because in his last autobiography he had a couple in his last autobiography Robinson wrote that he could no longer stand for the national anthem he knew that he was a black man in a white world and near the end of his life Robinson was really frustrated I don't want to get to the end of his life too fast, but near the end of his life, Robinson was really frustrated with the way that there was a white backlash in America at that point, and the civil rights movement had sort of ground to a halt after the assassination of Dr. King and the failure of the Poor People's Campaign, or at least some of the failures of the Poor People's Campaign. And Robinson was feeling frustrated, and so he made those really controversial comments

about not standing for the national anthem. But he said something similar in 1969 as well. The New York Times was doing an article on July 4th about the American flag, and they had the peace of mind, the brilliance, to interview Jackie Robinson for this story. And Robinson says for this July 4th, 1969 story, that he wouldn't fly the flag on July 4th or any other day. And he said, if I see a flag decal on somebody's car, I just figure that guy isn't

my friend. At this point, and I remember this, I was just a really little kid. But Gulf Oil and some other places were handing out free decals of American flags. And my parents put one on their car. And lots of other folks put the decals on the cars across the country. And that's what Robinson is referring to. And he says this because in 1969, Nixon had just assumed power as the new president. And he wrote a white backlash into the office focusing on law and order, right, against riots and uprisings. And Robinson was also by this point concerned about the uncritical support for Nixon's execution or eventual execution of the Vietnam War as well. He just detested the backlash of the civil rights movement that was going on primarily in 1969 when he was making these comments. So yeah, Robinson was really relevant,

continues to be relevant in Colin Kaepernick's story. Kaepernick stood on the shoulders of Robinson, even if he didn't know that. He was the shoulders of jackie robinson that's amazing i mean it's it's uh i i was just sitting here getting wide wide-eyed on you because i was just thinking of how much shit uh colin got yeah and then and then i'm thinking about the time he references jackie robinson i'm like oh man but it is interesting how both the times with Colin Kaepernick and Jackie Robinson, they both were in time periods where we were having this drawback or pullback or clawback of white nationalism, you know, I mean, the Johnson era

gave civil rights and a lot of different things that it was trying to do, and, you know, I mean, the Johnson era gave civil rights and a lot of different things that it was trying to do. And, you know, Nixon was that clawback, rip back and say, nope, white hierarchy is keeping power. Same thing with Donald Trump. So it's interesting, the parallels of those. And sadly, we haven't learned anything in 30 or 40 years. And, you know, sadly, partly because Robinson tried so hard. If I can go back, way back to Robinson and Nixon. Is that okay, Chris?

Yeah. Let me throw one thing in real quick, though, to the flag thing, because I don't want to lose the point in time. But what was interesting about that flag story you were telling about the decals, it had gotten to the point the end of last year, before the election, that i saw like giant flags on your you if you were a democrat you couldn't fly a flag you couldn't put flags on your social media if i saw flags on your social media i knew who you were uh supporting racist wise and and so many people after the election was won are like like normal people that aren't racist, where like, I can finally put my flag out and not be thought of as a racist. Yeah, Robinson really believed that Nixon's movement had hijacked the flag.

And you're right about that clawback of white nationalism. Now, in 1960, Robinson supported Nixon. In fact, he took a sabbatical from his job at Chalk Full of Nuts, where he was a vice president of personnel, and campaigned full time for Richard Nixon in 1960 in the presidential election. This was against John F. Kennedy. Rachel Robinson supported Kennedy, but Nixon, but I'm sorry, but Robinson believed that Nixon was a stronger candidate on civil rights. Nixon had steered the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act through Congress. He had visited Africa and spoken about civil rights while he was there. He promised Robinson that he would

move faster on civil rights than Eisenhower ever did. And Robinson also met Kennedy one-on-one in a Georgetown parlor. And he said, he told Rachel that Kennedy never once looked him in the eye. And for Robinson, that was a huge thing. Kennedy also made the mistake of telling him that he wasn't too familiar with Black concerns, which is not something you really want to tell somebody you're trying to get support from. So he backs Nixon in 1960, but he eventually sours on him because Nixon takes that turn and becomes a leader in the white backlash movement. But Robinson, for the rest of his life, argued for a two-party system where Black voters would suspend their votes and then choose whichever candidate and whichever party would best advance civil rights.

And it was an interesting time back then because, you know, the Democrats used to be the Republicans and then they flipped under Johnson. And then Nixon, I'm forgetting the exact stories, but Nixon basically took the mantle. You know, that's when Nixon said, well, we won't we don't union run money we'll take big corporate money and and and they basically identified it wasn't the southern strategy at the time too um southern strategy began in 1961 with bolt barry goldwater yeah he said we need he said we need to go hunting where the ducks are and by that he meant uh we shouldn't pursue black voters what we should do is go to the south and get the disaffected by that he meant uh we shouldn't pursue black voters what we should do is go to the south and get the disaffected and disenchanted uh white voters who were part of

the democrats yeah yeah and that whole flip takes place in that time but yeah it's that it's the famous clawback of of white nationalism white supremacy uh white entitlement, all that sort of stuff. And it's really, I mean, it's almost like a mirror image of Donald Trump. And what's really interesting about it is, too, is you see the corruption both at the same time as well. So there's that on the impeachments. So there you go. What have we missed about what's in the book? Or what would you like to tease out to our readers to get them to sign up? One of the things that we missed is what do we do about Jackie Robinson Day?

So every April 15th is Jackie Robinson Day at Major League Baseball, and everybody in Major League Baseball wears number 42. I love Jackie Robinson Day. One of the contributors to the book makes the sense that, well, maybe we should un-retire the number, pull it from the rafters, and let people wear it throughout the season again, so that we talk about Robinson more than we have up to this point. It's an interesting, it's an interesting suggestion. I'm not quite sure whether I have a race in the,

whether I have a horse in that race, but there's always a question of, what do we do with Robinson's legacy throughout the major league baseball season? I always think it's the more we can talk about Robinson, the better. I'm not sure that I'm retiring his number would do it. But that's one of the things that the contributor, one of the contributors makes the case for. Robinson, the better. I'm not sure that un-retiring his number would do it. But that's one of the things that one of the contributors makes the case for. What do you think, Chris? Un-retire the number or keep it?

I'm not that familiar with that process in the baseball thing. I feel bad because I grew up loving the Dodgers and then somehow I went to football. So if that's appropriate, I'm all for it. Making a day for him is there is there an active uh some sort of process i think i had a friend who made a day for a certain thing

internationally and i think she did that um so is there a process right now going on to maybe pick a day and what day would it be of the year well april 15th is jackie robinson day in major league baseball okay so that's just coming up this week this thursday uh wow we're taking this in early i better publish this by that date that's okay but yeah april 15th is jackie robinson day and it'll be interesting to see what major league baseball does this year. Last year was really the first time they unfroze him from 1947. And they put his legacy in conversation with the Black Lives Matter movement and black protests for racial justice. That was really the first time they did it. So it'll be really fascinating to see what Major League Baseball does this April 15th and see whether they do the same thing and and see the relevance of robinson for today i'm i'm all for it man let's make a day

for him in fact i've got to make a show note to take and promote this i'll probably you know the next 24 48 hours we'll be promoting it so i gotta make a point in the in the little promo we're like hey man it's almost the date but yeah i mean let's make a day for this. I I'm all for it. You know, we need, we need more days for everybody and inclusivity and all that sort of stuff. And I'm kind of tired of some of the days, like, do we really need to George Washington? Do we really need to keep doing that thing? Like, I don't know, maybe too soon. I don't know.

I mean, he's a nice guy and all but seriously i mean he's kind of has run you know what i'm saying maybe it's that is run yeah it's time for some new people yeah yeah let's get some let's get some fresher faces on there i mean blood in there yeah yeah i'm all for that you know it's just i don't know i i'm old so the fact that we're still doing it is probably is just old for me but anyway i've clearly lost the George Washington fan crowd. My apologies, people. Too soon. Too soon.

I get it. So some make the case, Chris, that maybe we should just allow the jersey to be retired. To keep in retirement, that is. To stay in retirement. But pull it out for one person. Maybe the most valuable player every year gets to wear 42 throughout the entire season.

And then on April 15th, everybody joins him. There are a lot of different options out there for honoring Robinson. Here's what Rachel Robinson says. If you want to honor my late husband, the best way you can advance his legacy is by joining the fight for racial justice. Don't you love that? Is his wife still alive? She is, yeah. I think she's

93 or 94. Good for her, man. Good for her. For many years, she headed the Jackie Robinson Foundation in New York City that provides scholarships for students of color, and they've done a lot of good work through the years. Now, I'm really, I'm clearly ignorant of this sort of rule in baseball.

So when you say no one can wear it when they've got it retired or up on the stands, so that means like they can't sell shirts for it? Or how does that work? Major League Baseball sells a lot of jackie robinson merchandise but when major league baseball retired number 42 that meant that nobody else could wear it oh yeah well okay now i get it when you were saying where okay yeah i'm just i'm clearly not a baseball fan my bad that's right there was a grandfather class so those who were wearing it at the time could wear it would that would that be bad though if like someone else was to wear it because i mean that's kind of his it's his now yeah it's

his now i mean to me that's like no one should touch that it's kind of like it's kind of like doing uh it's kind of like doing a cover of uh stairway to heaven man you just no one should go like that's just that's theirs i don't think i've ever heard that analogy yeah well i it's true no one should touch uh anything by jimmy hendrix and try and remake it uh no one should do that to so you know there's just certain things you just have to leave alone that's theirs and you know okay so now so let me revisit this that a contributor to the book makes the case that if you allow people to wear 42, what you'll see is that a lot more people will be talking about Robinson throughout the course of the Major League Baseball season.

I see. How about if we let Colin Kaepernick have 42? That would be awesome. I think that would be sweet. He can wear it all the time, do whatever he wants with it. It's Colin Kaepernick. I mean, that dude's awesome, man. And the way he's handled it and dealt with it and stuff,

I really think I'm a football fan. I think they should just gift him for all the BS they put him through a team. But that's, you know, good luck with that with those guys. He hasn't been picked up. Yeah. Yeah, it's such a shame that that took place. In fact, I don't watch much football. That's when I walked off the football field. Part of it is because I'm a Raiders fan and we know how those games go. I got tired of calling suicide hotlines every Sunday. It's hard to be a Raiders fan, man. I could be a Browns fan, so I guess I don't have too bad. I just lost the Bills fan crowd now, or the Browns fan.

Don't write in, people. Don't write in. Anyway. So there you go. So anything more as we go out that you want to plug on the book or plugs you want to tell people to find you on the interwebs? Well, I suppose there's one topic that I'd like to visit, and that is the racial makeup of Major League Baseball. You know, when Robinson left Major League Baseball in 1956, 1957, 5.6% of all players on Major League Baseball rosters were black Americans.

That figure today has jumped to about 8%. So it's only 8%. Only 8%. Are you kidding me? No, I'm not. No. And Robinson would be disappointed by that. I think he'd be disappointed by the absence of black faces in the front offices and among the coaching and management staff. So I think major league baseball continues to try to work on that. They're building some pipelines to urban communities with urban academies.

They just hired Ken Griffey Jr. to do some work on issues of diversity. I think that's all good. There are some factors, there are social factors that have prevented Black Americans from becoming part of the baseball culture, I think, as well as the game itself. You know, the game isn't as sexy as basketball and football. No doubt about that. And a lot of the heroes these days come from basketball and football. But it does have to do with bigger social forces.

And I hope major like baseball will take those up. Well, it sounds like, like you say, they may not have the right camps in place there might be still well i'm sure there's still a lot of racism that's there um but yeah it's i i grew up with you know baseball being the national pastime um you know uh and everything else but yeah it's kind of a loss but definitely i mean more people have gone into the NBA and football and stuff. But yeah, that's interesting. That's shocking to me. I didn't know that because I don't watch baseball.

They really need to speed up the game a little bit for me. But, you know, I mean, what can I say? My brain's broken. But yeah, I mean, beautiful game, beautiful legacy. It's something we need to champion more. And are we going to see a lot of ads and stuff, a lot of promotions that the Major League Baseball puts behind April 15th? Or is it kind of just like they just kind of go,

eh, it's a Jackie Robinson day? No, I think we'll see a blitz. I think we'll see a media blitz surrounding April 15th to celebrate Robinson and to honor his legacy and to revisit Rachel and her legacy as well. I think it's going to be a beautiful celebration. I'm certainly looking forward to it. I'll wear 42 that day. Me too. As long as baseball doesn't sue me or give me a C&D.

You know what? That's really surprising to me. As long as baseball doesn't sue me or give me a CND. That's really surprising to me. That really head-whips me, that 8% figure. Anyway, Michael, it was wonderful to have you on and share your beautiful book with us. Give us your plugs as we go out. So you can find the book, 42 Today, Jackie Robinson and His Legacy at all booksellers online. I encourage you to visit Indie Books especially. You can also find him in Indie Bookstores across the country and major booksellers as well.

You can find me on Twitter, Michael Long, Michael G. Long, too. You can also find me on Facebook. Drop me an email, longmg4242 at gmail.com, and I'll answer it. There you go, guys. Thank you, Chris. Thank you very much. I love your show. Thank you, Chris. Thank you very much. I love your show. Thank you.

And thanks for coming on a second time. Thanks for tuning in. Be sure to celebrate Jackie Robinson day, April 15th. You know, go buy the memorabilia by the book, of course, and support the, all that good stuff. And thanks for tuning in everyone. We'll see you guys next time. All right.