Final Tuesday ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported on X {that a} web page on the Division of Protection web site about Brooklyn Dodger nice Jackie Robinson’s military profession, headlined “Sports activities Heroes Who Served,” had been taken down and that “DEI” had been added to the web page’s URL. “The ghouls who did this must be ashamed,” wrote Passan. “Jackie Robinson was the embodiment of an American hero. Repair this now.”
The Pentagon’s transfer was in sync with different Trump administration efforts to roll again packages that commemorate the nation’s range, even together with the historical past of slavery and the civil rights motion.
However in lower than a day, the DOD had restored the web page to its web site in response to quite a few media tales and feedback by members of Congress, Robinson members of the family, the pinnacle of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, some main league gamers, and others.
Conspicuously absent have been any phrases from MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, whose workplace coordinates the annual Jackie Robinson Day celebration each April 15. It was on that day in 1947 that Robinson made his main league debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking baseball’s shade line that had been in place for the reason that late 1800s. In 1997, the fiftieth anniversary of his rookie season, MLB retired Robinson’s quantity—42. Since 2009, all gamers put on quantity 42 on Jackie Robinson Day to honor his achievements as each a Corridor of Fame ballplayer and a civil rights activist.
The Pentagon’s transient cancellation of Jackie Robinson comes within the wake of Trump’s campaign towards DEI, which the White Home has referred to as “immoral.” Secretary of Protection Pete Hegseth has totally embraced the campaign. Towards that purpose, the Pentagon additionally eliminated a web page about Ira Hayes, a Native American who was one of many marines pictured elevating the American flag at Iwo Jima throughout World Warfare II, in addition to articles about Native American code talkers. The DOD additionally deleted an article a few Tonawanda Seneca officer who drafted the phrases of the Confederacy’s give up at Appomattox. A DOD webpage a few Black Medal of Honor recipient, Maj. Gen. Charles Calvin Rogers, was additionally briefly taken down however later restored. A DOD web page about an all-Japanese-American unit that fought in WWII was additionally eliminated after which restored.
After the DOD scrubbed these web sites, Pentagon spokesperson John Ullyot defined, “As Secretary Hegseth has stated, DEI is useless on the Division of Protection.” When Robinson’s web site was restored, Ullyot ate his phrases: “Everybody on the Protection Division loves Jackie Robinson.”
Trump has battled with outspoken athletes earlier than, however he met his match with Robinson, who stays one of many nation’s most iconic figures, an emblem of America’s battle towards racism who was additionally a liberal Republican.
A four-sport athletic standout at UCLA, Robinson joined the Military throughout World Warfare II. At Ft. Riley in Kansas, Robinson needed to hitch its baseball staff. An officer instructed him, “It’s important to play for the coloured staff”—besides there was no Black staff. Robinson’s superiors sought to maintain him out of officer candidate faculty, however he persevered and have become a second lieutenant. In 1944, whereas assigned to Fort Hood in Texas, he refused to maneuver to the again of a military bus when the white driver ordered him to take action.
Robinson confronted trumped-up prices of insubordination, disturbing the peace, drunkenness, conduct unbecoming an officer, and refusing to obey the orders of a superior officer. Voting by secret poll, the 9 navy judges—solely considered one of them Black—discovered Robinson not responsible. That November, he was honorably discharged from the Military.
Describing the ordeal, Robinson later wrote, “It was a small victory, for I had realized that I used to be in two wars, one towards the overseas enemy, the opposite towards prejudice at dwelling.”
Three years later, Robinson would swimsuit up for the Dodgers.
His arrival marked the end result of greater than a decade of protests. Starting within the Thirties, a broad coalition of organizations—the Black press, civil rights teams, the Communist Occasion, progressive white activists, left-wing unions and radical politicians –waged a sustained marketing campaign to combine the nationwide pastime.
This protest motion set the stage for Dodgers govt Department Rickey to signal Robinson to a contract in 1945. Robinson promised Rickey that—at the least throughout his rookie 12 months—he wouldn’t reply to the verbal barbs from followers, managers, and different gamers he would face every day.
His first take a look at occurred every week after he joined the Dodgers, throughout a recreation towards the Philadelphia Phillies. Phillies supervisor Ben Chapman referred to as Robinson the n-word and shouted, “Return to the cotton subject the place you belong.”
Although Robinson seethed with anger, he stored his promise to Rickey, enduring the abuse with out retaliating. He gained the Nationwide League’s Rookie of the Yr award. After that, he more and more spoke out towards racial injustice in speeches, interviews and his common newspaper columns for The Pittsburgh Courier, the New York Publish and the New York Amsterdam Information.
Many sportswriters and different gamers thought he was too indignant and vocal about racism. A 1953 article in Sport journal titled “Why They Boo Jackie Robinson” described Robinson as “combative,” “emotional,” and “calculating,” in addition to a “pop-off,” a “whiner,” a “showboat,” and a “troublemaker.” A Cleveland paper referred to as Robinson a “rabble rouser” who was on a “cleaning soap field.” The Sporting Information headlined one story “Robinson Ought to Be a Participant, Not a Crusader.”
Nonetheless, Robinson’s relentless advocacy acquired the eye of the nation’s civil rights leaders.In 1956, the NAACP gave him its highest honor, the Spingarn Medal—the primary athlete to obtain that award. In his acceptance speech, Robinson defined that though many individuals had warned him “to not converse up each time I believed there was an injustice,” he would proceed to take action.
After Robinson hung up his cleats in 1957, he stayed true to his phrase, publicly urging President Dwight Eisenhower to ship troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to guard Black college students in search of to desegregate its public colleges. In 1960, impressed with the resilience and braveness of the school college students participating in sit-ins at Southern lunch counters, he agreed to boost bail cash for the scholars caught in jail cells.
Robinson initially supported the 1960 presidential marketing campaign of Senator. Hubert Humphrey, a Minnesota Democrat and staunch civil rights ally. However when John Kennedy gained the social gathering’s nomination, Robinson—nervous that JFK could be beholden to Southern Democrats who opposed integration—endorsed Republican Richard Nixon. He rapidly regretted that call after Nixon refused to marketing campaign in Harlem or converse out towards the arrest of Martin Luther King Jr. in rural Georgia. Three weeks earlier than Election Day, Robinson stated, “Nixon doesn’t need to win.”
Advert Coverage
In February 1962, Robinson traveled to Jackson, Mississippi, to talk at a rally organized by NAACP chief Medgar Evers. Later that 12 months, Robinson traveled to Albany, Georgia, to attract media consideration to a few Black church buildings that had been burned to the bottom by segregationists. He then led a fundraising marketing campaign that collected $50,000 to rebuild the church buildings.
In 1963 he devoted appreciable time and journey to assist King’s voter registration efforts within the South. He additionally traveled to Birmingham, Alabama, as a part of King’s marketing campaign to dismantle segregation in that metropolis. “His presence within the South was crucial to us,” recalled Wyatt Tee Walker, chief of workers of King’s Southern Christian Management Convention.
Robinson additionally persistently criticized police brutality. In August 1968, three Black Panthers in New York Metropolis have been arrested and charged with assaulting a white police officer. At their listening to two weeks later, about 150 white males, together with off-duty law enforcement officials, stormed the courthouse and attacked 10 Panthers and two white supporters. When he realized that the police had made no arrests of the white rioters, Robinson was outraged.
“The Black Panthers search self-determination, safety of the Black group, first rate housing and employment and categorical opposition to police abuse,” Robinson stated throughout a press convention on the Black Panthers’ headquarters.
Widespread
“swipe left under to view extra authors”Swipe →
He challenged banks for discriminating towards Black neighborhoods and condemned slumlords who preyed on Black households.
Robinson refused to take part in a 1969 Outdated Timers recreation as a result of he didn’t see “real curiosity in breaking the limitations that deny entry to managerial and entrance workplace positions.” At his remaining public look, throwing the ceremonial first pitch through the 1972 World Sequence, Robinson noticed. “I’m going to be tremendously extra happy and extra proud after I have a look at that third base teaching line at some point and see a black face managing in baseball.”
No main league staff had a Black supervisor till the Cleveland Indians employed Frank Robinson in 1975—three years after Jackie Robinson’s loss of life. This season, solely two of 30 MLB groups have African American managers: Ron Washington of the Angels and Dave Roberts of the Dodgers. There’s just one African American common supervisor: Dana Brown of the Astros.
Trump, after all, has mates amongst sports activities figures, however many professional athletes have objected to his views and insurance policies.
In 2016, after the media revealed that Trump had boasted that he might “seize” ladies’s genitals, he dismissed the remark as simply “locker-room discuss.” Washington Nationals pitcher Sean Doolittle was considered one of many athletes who denounced Trump, tweeting, “As an athlete, I’ve been in locker rooms my complete grownup life and uh, that’s not locker-room discuss.” That 12 months, Trump additionally attacked NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who refused to face through the nationwide anthem to protest US racism. “Possibly he ought to discover a nation that works higher for him,” Trump instructed an interviewer. After he was first elected, Trump challenged NFL house owners to launch any participant who kneeled in protest throughout “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
“Get that son of a bitch off the sphere proper now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!” Trump bellowed at a rally in Alabama in September 2017. The following weekend, greater than 200 NFL gamers kneeled in defiance of Trump.
After the Golden State Warriors gained the 2017 NBA championship, Steph Curry stated he wouldn’t attend a gathering with Trump, who retaliated by tweeting that the staff was disinvited. A lot the identical factor occurred in 2018, when solely a handful of NFL Tremendous Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles gamers would decide to attending a White Home occasion with Trump. The president canceled it. (The 2025 champion Eagles have formally accepted a White Home invitation this 12 months,) In 2019, Trump criticized soccer nice Megan Rapinoe, star of the US Girls’s Nationwide Staff, for not singing the nationwide anthem, and after the staff gained the Girls’s World Cup, its members, too, declined to satisfy with Trump.
In 2019, Mookie Betts, then an outfielder for the World Sequence champion Boston Purple Sox, together with eight of his teammates and supervisor Alex Cora, refused Trump’s invitation to go to the White Home, The following 12 months, enjoying for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Betts took a knee through the nationwide anthem to protest American racism and the killing of George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer. “I’m greater than an athlete,” stated Betts, who additionally led the Dodgers in sitting out a recreation to protest the police taking pictures of one other Black man, this time in Wisconsin. Supervisor Dave Roberts joined the protest. In 2022, Betts produced a documentary, Jackie Robinson: Get to the Bag, broadcast on Fox Sports activities.
Betts could quickly need to resolve once more whether or not to go to Trump on the White Home along with his present staff, the 2024 World Sequence champion Dodgers. The Pentagon’s dissing of Jackie Robinson might make it much more unlikely that the staff will take part in a celebration with Trump.
Lately athletes have change into extra outspoken on problems with racism, homophobia, sexism, American militarism, immigrant rights, and different points. All of them stand on Robinson’s shoulders.
Donald Trump’s merciless and chaotic second time period is simply getting began. In his first month again in workplace, Trump and his lackey Elon Musk (or is it the opposite means round?) have confirmed that nothing is protected from sacrifice on the altar of unchecked energy and riches.
Solely sturdy impartial journalism can minimize by the noise and supply clear-eyed reporting and evaluation based mostly on precept and conscience. That’s what The Nation has performed for 160 years and that’s what we’re doing now.
Our impartial journalism doesn’t enable injustice to go unnoticed or unchallenged—nor will we abandon hope for a greater world. Our writers, editors, and fact-checkers are working relentlessly to maintain you knowledgeable and empowered when a lot of the media fails to take action out of credulity, concern, or fealty.
The Nation has seen unprecedented instances earlier than. We draw energy and steering from our historical past of principled progressive journalism in instances of disaster, and we’re dedicated to persevering with this legacy at this time.
We’re aiming to boost $25,000 throughout our Spring Fundraising Marketing campaign to make sure that we now have the assets to reveal the oligarchs and profiteers making an attempt to loot our republic. Stand for daring impartial journalism and donate to assist The Nation at this time.
Onward,
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Writer, The Nation
Peter Dreier
Peter Dreier teaches politics at Occidental School and is creator of a number of books together with Baseball Rebels: The Gamers, Folks, and Social Actions That Shook Up the Recreation and Modified America, printed in April, 2022.
Extra from The Nation
With the passing of the boxing legend, I wish to recall an interview I by no means anticipated and can always remember
Dave Zirin
An article on Robinson’s navy profession was restored to the Protection Division’s web site. It’s a reminder that we will beat again the racist proper.
Dave Zirin
Partially two of a sequence, trans ladies athletes describe what it’s wish to compete within the Trump period.
Dave Zirin
In a podcast with Charlie Kirk, the California governor put his electoral ambition forward of trans folks. However what do trans athletes themselves need to say?
Dave Zirin
Even in Trump’s cupboard of hucksters, reality-show stars, and drunk white nationalists, Linda McMahon is a weird alternative for schooling secretary.
Dave Zirin
We should always assist the nonviolent anger directed towards Miriam Adelson, the billionaire proprietor of the Dallas Mavericks. And never simply due to her horrible basketball choices.
Dave Zirin
