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President George W. Bash presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to
baseball legend Frank Robinson in the East Room Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2005.
Winning the Most Valuable Player awards in the National and American Leagues,
he achieved the American League Triple Grown in 1966. Mr. Robinson became
basebalbs first African-American manager. (Source: White House News & Policies
/ Wikimedia Commons)
IN MEMORIAM: Baseball
Trailblazer, Civil Rights Icon
Frank Robinson Dead at 83
By Stacy M. Brown,NNPA Newswire Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia
Frank Robinson, a trailblazing figure who was Major League Baseball’s first Afri
can American manager and one of its greatest players during a career that spanned 21
seasons, died Thursday after a prolonged illness, according to pro baseball’s premiere
website, MLB.com.
Robinson was 83.
The Hall of Famer hit 586 home runs and appeared in 14 All-Star games over the
course of his illustrious career, starring with the Cincinnati Reds and the Baltimore
Orioles.
Robinson is the only player to win MVP honors in both the National and American
league - in 1961 with the Reds and five years later with the Orioles. When he earned
those honors in 1966 with the Orioles, Robinson won the Triple Crown when he hit 49
home runs, drove in 122 runs and had a .316 batting average.
Despite the so-called Steroid-era of the late 1990s and 2000s where statistics were
greatly inflated, Robinson’s 1966 campaign remains widely viewed as one of the great
est in the history of the sport.
Even as a star in a sport that was still struggling with integration years after Jackie
Robinson (no relation) broke the color line, Robinson often spoke out for civil rights
even publicly aligning himself with leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In 1975, Robinson made history before nearly 57,000 fans at Cleveland’s Municipal
Stadium when he began managing the Indians making him baseball’s first ever Black
manager.
MLB.com noted that, just as Jackie Robinson’s breaking of baseball’s color barrier
in 1947 had opened doors for Frank Robinson, Hank Aaron and Willie Mays and many
others to play in the Major Leagues, it was Frank Robinson who paved the way for
every minority manager who has followed.
“He changed the game, no doubt about it,” Orioles great Jim Palmer said in a state
ment about Robinson’s death.
“Very sad day here in Baltimore with the passing of Frank Robinson, the greatest
Oriole of all time in my estimation and a true baseball legend who dedicated his life to
the game,” said Jason La Canfora, who hosts a podcast in Charm City.
“He overcame the segregation of the 1950s to spend seven decades in the game as a
player, coach, and executive,” La Canfora said.
Robinson is survived by his wife of nearly 60 years, Barbara Ann Cole.
East Room Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2005. Winning the Most Valuable Player awards in
the National and American Leagues, he' achieved the American League Triple Crown in
1966. Mr. Robinson became baseball’s first African-American manager. (Source: White
House News & Policies / Wikimedia Commons)
The citation reads:
“Frank Robinson played the game of baseball with total integrity and steadfast de
termination. He won Most Valuable Player awards in both the National and American
Leagues. He achieved the American League Triple Crown in 1966. His teams won five
League titles and two World Series championships. In 1975, Frank Robinson broke the
color barrier as baseball’s first African-American manager, and he later won Manager
of the Year awards in both the National and American Leagues. The United States
honors Frank Robinson for his extraordinary achievements as a baseball player and
manager and for setting a lasting example of character in athletics.”
Catholic school cancels class over protest of lesbian guest
(AP) - A Catholic school in North Carolina invited a black lesbian alumna to speak at a Black History
Month event, but canceled the event and classes due to threats of protest.
The Herald-Sun reports Immaculata Catholic School canceled classes Feb. 8 after officials learned
“a number of groups” planned to protest the talk by Durham councilwoman Vernetta Alston. Alston said
Thursday that the school’s move sends the message that black voices can be canceled. Father Christopher
VanHaight told parents the cancellation prioritized student safety. He hasn’t specified what upset the
groups. Alston is one of six openly LGBTQ candidates elected to office in North Carolina in 2017. Coun
cilwoman Jillian Johnson, who was also scheduled to speak at the school, says she was told the Black
History Month program is now canceled.
Racist history of
blackface began
in the 1830s
By Jesse J. Holland
WASHINGTON (AP) - A racist photo
from a 1984 yearbook threatens to end
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s political
career. The photo shows two people: one
in blackface and one wearing a Ku Klux
Klan hood and robe. The image generated
intense pressure for Northam to resign and
offered the latest example of a prominent
white person facing harsh criticism for
wearing blackface. Here’s a look at the
practice and its history:
BLACKFACE ORIGINS
Blackface minstrelsy is considered by
some to be the first uniquely American
form of entertainment.
White men would darken their faces to
create caricatures of black people, includ
ing large mouths, lips and eyes, woolly
hair and coal-black skin. The performanc
es would stereotype black men and wom
en as ignorant, hypersexual, superstitious,
lazy people who were prone to thievery
and cowardice.
The practice took hold in New York
City in the 1830s and became immense
ly popular among post-Civil War whites.
In fact, the Jim Grow laws that enforced
racial segregation in the South took their
name from a character played by black-
face performer Thomas Dartmouth Rice.
He said his act “Jump, Jim Crow” (or
“Jumping Jim Crow”) was inspired by a
slave he saw.
CONTROVERIAL FROM THE
START
Blackface performances were con
demned as offensive from the beginning.
In 1848, after watching a blackface act,
abolitionist Fredrick Douglass called the
performers “the filthy scum of white soci
ety” in The North Star newspaper.
Blackface performers, he said, “have
stolen from us a complexion denied to
them by nature ... to make money and
pander to the corrupt taste of their white
fellow-citizens.”
Civil rights organizations have publicly
condemned blackface for decades, saying
it dehumanizes blacks by introducing and
reinforcing racial stereotypes.
A letter to the editor in the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette from 1946 called a blackface
performance “grotesque” and said it at
tacked “by ridicule and cheap buffoonery
the self-respect of every American Ne
gro.” The letter was written by a state law
maker, the Inter-Racial Action Council,
the Inter-Denominational Ministers Alli
ance and the publisher of The Pittsburgh
Courier.
NORTHAM ISN’T THE FIRST
Other white politicians and celebrities
have faced criticism for blackface perfor
mances.
Comedian Billy Crystal was criticized
in 2012 for impersonating Sammy Davis
Jr. in blackface during his opening mon
tage at the Oscars, a repeat of his oft-per
formed skit from “Saturday Night Live”
from the 1980s.
Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan had to
apologize in 2000 for a picture of him and
his brothers singing in a blackface quartet
in 1960 that came up during his run for
U.S. Senate in 1999. He died in a plane
crash the next year, but won the Senate
seat anyway.
Actor Ted Danson was accused of being
racist and tasteless for performing a skit
in blackface, using the N-word and jok
ing about his sex life with then-girlfriend
Whoopi Goldberg, who is black, at Gold
berg’s Friars Club roast in 1993.
Dozens of other whites, including col
lege fraternities and sororities, public of
ficials and law enforcement officers, have
also been criticized for blackface inci
dents.
Florida Secretary of State Mike Ertel
resigned last month after a newspaper
obtained photos of him in blackface and
wearing earrings, a New Orleans Saints
bandanna and fake breasts under a purple
T-shirt that said “Katrina Victim.” The
photos were taken two months after the
deadly storm ravaged the Gulf Coast in
2005, killing more than a thousand people.
AFRICAN-AMERICANS IN BLACK-
FACE
Early black actors, singers and vaude-
villians were forced to don blackface as
well if they wished to perform for more
lucrative white audiences.
For example, William Henry “Mas
ter Juba” Lane is considered the single
most influential performer in 19th century
dance and is credited with inventing tap.
It was only after his fame reached interna
tional proportions that he was allowed to
tour with an all-white minstrel troupe and
to perform without blackface.
One of the more disastrous critiques of
blackface was from black actor Ben Ver
een at President Ronald Reagan’s inaugu
ration. Vereen’s intent was a tribute to leg
endary black vaudevillian Bert Williams,
who was forced to wear blackface to stay
employed.
Vereen first danced and sang “Waiting
for the Robert E. Lee” before a cheering
(Continued On Page 2)
Cindy McCain apology shows challenge
for mixed-race families
By Jonathan J. Cooper
PHOENIX (AP) - Cindy McCain has apologized after she claimed she stopped a case of human traf
ficking at the Phoenix airport when she reported a toddler with a woman of a different ethnicity and
“something didn’t click.” Police said they investigated but there was no evidence of a crime.
The incident draws attention to the suspicion that parents, relatives, nannies and others face when they
travel with children who don’t look like them. That it was McCain, who adopted a daughter from Bangla
desh and is recognized globally as an advocate for ending human trafficking, illustrates the challenge of
being vigilant without triggering concerns about racial bias.
“There’s a huge danger in trusting your gut when it comes to race and all kinds of identity dimensions,”
said Andrew Grant-Thomas, who Co-founded an organization called Embrace Race along with his wife.
“We make these split-second judgments. And often those split-second judgments ... are driven by bias.”
It reminded Grant-Thomas, who is African American, of the intimidating stares he would get while
babysitting his godson, who appears white.
When someone’s suspected of a crime while simply living their life, “there’s a cost,” and the person
has probably endured suspicion and questions many times before, Grant-Thomas said.
McCain has not said if other factors besides ethnicity led her to suspect wrongdoing.
“I came in from a trip I’d been on,” McCain said on Phoenix radio station KTAR. “I spotted - it looked
odd - it was a woman of a different ethnicity than the child, this little toddler she had. Something didn’t
click with me. I tell people ’trust your gut.’ I went over to the police and I told them what I thought, and
they went over and questioned her, and by God she was trafficking that kid.”
She went on to say the woman “was waiting for the guy who bought the child to get off an airplane.”
Phoenix Police Sgt. Armando Carbajal confirmed McCain requested a welfare check on a child at the
airport on Jan. 30, but said “officers determined there was no evidence of criminal conduct or child
endangerment.”