4
BLACK INK
November, 1972
The case of ‘‘The Phantom Racist^’'
by Angela Bryant
News Editor
Editor’s Note: The following is a
synopsis of an article, “The
Phantom Racist”, by Rita James
Simon and James W. Carey. The
article appears in Racial Conflict
by Gary T. Marx.
In 1963, at the University of
Illinois in Urbana, three Black
athletes complained about racial
discrimination towards them to
a Black graduate student. They
had been urged to stop dating or
being seen with white girls. The
graduate students arranged for
the athletes to sign affidavits
charging the Athletic
Association with discrimination.
“This was the precipating
incident in the search for what
we call the “phantom racist”. He
is a phantom because the
specific charges of
discrimination were never
proven, but neither were the
issues he raised ever resolved.
They underscore the continuing
problems of Negro students at
the white universities.”
Members of the campus
chapter of NAACP other Blacks
and graduate students formed an
ad hoc committee and brought
the grievances to the university
administration. After an
investigation, the administration
did not confirm the charges, but
issued a directive to the staff
warning against discrimination
practices and interference into
social life of Black students.
At the end of the football
season, the ad hoc committee
received evidence that the
directives had been ignored - an
athlete had been warned against
interracial dating and his choice
of courses was interfered with.
At this time, the NAACP took
the conflict to the public.
Three days later, a statement,
claiming to represent the
sentiments of all Negro athletes
on campus, was released to the
news media. It denounced the
NAACP and defended the
coaches and Athletic
Association. When the NAACP
took the issue to the media, the
case became part of the great
public drama of Civil Rights.
After charge and counter-charge
of fraud, unauthorization and
distrust, and without a formal
charge ever being made, without
identification of either the
racists or the athletes, without
resolution of the issues, without
adjudication of the charges, the
case dropped from public view.
In analyzing the situation,
one question comes to the
forefront. Was the NAACP
authorized to speak for the
athletes?
The NAACP did not feel they
needed endorsement: when
discrimination clearly violates
rules and official policy, one
case is sufficient cause for
complaint. They had listened to
athletes complain and believed
that they had the implicit
support of the Black athletes.
The athletes when questioned
about the situation stated that
the NAACP should have talked
to them before releasing the
story. “Everyonr should have a
chance to voice his own
opinion”; “Athletes, Negro or
white aren’t dumb. We can speak
for ourselves”.
“A strong majority of the
Negro athletes organized and led
by one of their Colleagues,
resented the NAACP’s intrusion
into their affairs, particularly
without consultation, advice, or
consent....
To take the case to the public
without securing the support of
the athletes was pohtically
foolish - in Lenin’s terms, it was
“political adventurism” -
leading a revolution with no
following. But this action did
not cause the rupture between
the NAACP and the athletes -
rather it was a manifestation of
other disorders, and a symptom
of the social distance that
separates Negroes from their
leadership...
But in spite of the fact that
Black athletes admitted to
discrimination from coaches and
students, if they had not been
organized, they would have
stayed out of the conflict.
Why?...
We think that the most
reasonable explanation lies in
the image that the athletes have
of themselves, and in their
goals...
Success in athletics depends
on individual achievement and
recognition by the coaches and
managers of the sport. The
crucial figures in the lives of the
athletes are the coaches and
trainers who work with them. If
they are to permanently escape
from their backgrounds, they
must have support. The NAACp
and other organizations cannot
write their ticket for social and
financial success...
Finally, the alleged
discrimination within the
Athletic Association was an issue
seized upon to express
symbolically an ineffable and
inchoate feeling of
mistreatment. There was much
more than a case of
discrimination at issue here. The
attack .on the Athletic
Association expressed a real
grievance, albeit not the
grievance specifically charged.
The Athletic Association served
as a symbol which coalesced and
expressed the Negroes’ general
alienation from, and
unhappiness with the university.
The NAACP was not out in this
case to save the athletes from
themselves or the Athletic
Association, but to galvanize
pubhc sentiment behind the
general plight of the Negro at
the University of lUinois and not
the specific plight of an athlete
warned about dating white girls.
The move backfired. First,
because the Negro athletes did
not share the same sense of
alienation - they were better
integrated into the structure of
the university because of their
involvement in athletics, and
expecially because they knew
that success in sports, and not
other Negroes, would determine
their futures. Second, because
the administration was too
near-sighted to be able to
distinguish between a demand
for sympathy and understanding
for the Negro student, with a
demand for the resolution of a
particular case.”
^^Gentleman’s agreement” broken
by Pamela Williamson
Staff Writer
As a consequence of the Civil
War, in 1867, America had 4.5
million new citizens-all Black.
In this same year, there were
over one hundred baseball clubs
in the North, and the nine-year
old National Association of Base
Ball Players was the game’s first
league. This organization was
formed primarily to make rules
for member clubs. At its annual
convention in 1867,
two-and-a-half years after the
Civil War, the NABBP addressed
“the Negro question.” The
answer was to bar Blacks and the
clubs they belonged to from
membership. The Association’s
nominating committee
unanimously called for the
rejection “of any club which
may be composed of one or
more colored players.”
The National Association of
Professional Base Ball Players,
the NABBP’s successor, had no
code against Black players. Its
“gentleman’s agreement”
excluding Blacks sufficed, and
passed on its discrimination to
the National League. As a result.
Blacks formed their own clubs.
In 1945, the color line in
professional baseball succumbed
to the planned strategy and
efforts of two men. Jack
Roosevelt Robinson was then
shortstop for the Kansas City
Monarchs, a Black baseball team.
Wesley Branch Rickey was a 62
year-old white man, then
The Black Ink staff, which
formerly shared an office in the
Student Union with Carolina
Talent Search, has acquired its
own office. The new office is in
Y-Building, Room 202. Office
hours still remain 1-3 on
Mondays, Wednesdays and
Fridays.
president and general manager of
the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Rickey began looking for
fresh talent in 1942 after the
second place finish of the
Dodgers in the National League.
It was time to fulfill a vow he
made forty years ago as baseball
coach at Ohio Weslyan
University. His Negro catcher,
Charles Thomas, was denied
entrance to a hotel in South
Bend, Indiana. Looking at his
Black hands, Thomas cried,
“Black skin! Oh, if only I could
make them white!” Rickey
promised, at the first
opportunity to do what was
necessary to see that a Black
player need never again deny his
race and culture because of
prejudice.
Backed by the Dodgers’
owners, Rickey searched for the
right Black player to be the test
case. The man had to be
talented, of course. But equally
important, was the requirement
of a strong will to stand the
ridicule and resist the
temptation to retaliate.
Camouflaging his efforts to
scout Negroes, Rickey
announced intentions to start a
Negro team, the Brooklyn
Brown Dodgers. After the
Brown Dodgers were sufficiently
organized, Rickey released his
best scouts, ostensibly to recruit
players for the club.
The name, Jackie Robinson,
of the Kansas City Monarchs,
was the most frequently and
favorably mentioned. To make
sure Robinson was a man able to
stand the inevitable abuse,
Rickey personally went to
Jackie’s hometown in California
to check his reputation. I he
only “blemish” in Robinson’s
character was his non-hesitation
to stand up for his rights on or
off the field. Rickey approved.
for his pioneer had to have
courage.
In late August, when the
Monarchs were playing in
Chicago, Robinson was
approached by Dodger scout,
Clyde Sukeforth. He wanted
Jackie to meet Branch Rickey in
Brooklyn. On August 28, 1945,
the young player arrived in
Brooklyn with Sukeforth. For
three hours, Rickey graphically
outlined the abuse and insults
Robinson would face, from
Negro-hating players, umpires,
and even hotel clerks and
restaurant managers.
Robinson said, “Mr. Rickey,
do you want a ballplayer who’s
afraid to fight back?”
“1 want a ballplayer with guts
enough not to fight back,”
Rickey thundered. “You’ve got
to do this job with base hits and
stolen bases and fielding ground
balls, Jackie. Nothing else
On October 23, 1945, Jackie
Robinson signed a contract to
play the 1946 season with the
Montreal Royals, Brooklyn’s top
farm team in the International
League. Later, Rickey began to
initiate Robinson’s transition to
the major leagues. He met with
leaders of Brooklyn’s Negro
community. He told them that
there must be no gloating by
Negroes when Robinson was
brought up from the Dodgers,
no “Jackie Robinson Days.”
Rickey also had to deal with a
possible mutiny among the
Southerners on the Dodgers
team. They were trying to get “a
general handshake agreement”
among the Dodgers to refuse to
play with a Negro.
Robinson’s debut with the
Dodgers in Brooklyn on August
15, I‘M7 was not earthshaking.
He got no hits, but the Dodgers
won, 5-3, with Robinson scoring
the fifth run for Brooklyn.
However, 1947 turned out a
good year for Robinson, the
player. He batted .297, led the
Dodgers in stolen bases with 29
and in runs scored with .125,
and was tied for the club
home-run leadership at 12 with
Pee Wee Reese. The Dodgers
won the National League
Pennant for the first time since
1941.
Nevertheless, for Jackie
Robinson, the man, 1947 was
very trying. In addition to the
usual pressures of a rookie trying
to prove himself, Robinson
endured indignant white
teammates, debasement from
players on other clubs and
threats on his life and famOy.
Tuesday, October 25, 1972,
Jackie Robinson died from a
heart attack at the age of 53.
Bom January 31, 1919, the
youngest of five children, he
overcame the desertion of his
father at the age of six months
and the poverty of his family,
living on welfare checks and his
mother’s salary as a domestic. In
high school, Pasadena Junior
College, and UCLA, he acquired
fame in football, basketball, and
track. By his senior year in
1941, he was an All-American
runner, he set a Pacific Coast
Conference broad jump record,
and led the league in basketball
scoring.
In professional baseball,
Robinson was the National
League Rookie of the Year in
1947, the most valuable player
in 1949, and five times selected
an all-star infielder. The ultimate
of his accomplishments opened
one more frontier. He became
the first Black enshrined in
baseball’s Hall of Fame at
Cooperstown, New York.
In 1967, {he Siiliirday Review
called Jackie Robinson’s
breakthrough into the major
leagues “one of the most
dramatic and fruitful steps the
American Negro had taken since
the Civil War toward social
integration.” He did not just
blunder into the formerly
all-white sport. His acceptance
was the result of a systematic,
step-by-step plan, similar to the
NAACP test case strategy in
outlawing school segregation in
1954. Both actions forced the
surrender of another American
institution to Black
participation. Yet one important
difference exists between them
in the manner of surrender.
Jackie Robinson won acceptance
for himself and every Black
baseball player since 1947. And
he did it without Supreme Court
decisions or Congressional
mandates.
Black Ink is the official
newspaper of the Black Student
Movement -- we too strive,
ideally, to reach every Black
student on campus. Naturally,
where there is an organization,
there are various opinions. Black
Ink strives to serve as a voice of
Black students opinion.
We want to help each student
as he or she searches for personal
and group ideology; we want to
keep each student aware of some
of the many things going on
around us on campus, in the
community, and in the world,
which affect Black lives.
The Black Ink staff would
like to solicit and encourage
responses from our readers.
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The Editor