RACISM AND INSUBORDINATION

Trawling through events which occurred on particular days brings to light bits of history which never cease to astonish. It concerns a great American baseball hero.

Robinson as ABC sports
 announcer in 1965

Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson (31 January 1919 – 24 October 1972) was an American baseball player who became the first black Major League Baseball (MLB) player of the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball colour line when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. As the first black man to play in the major leagues since the 1880s, he was instrumental in bringing an end to racial segregation in professional baseball, which had relegated black players to the Negro leagues for six decades. Signs of racial discrimination in professional sports continued to decline over the latter half of the twentieth century. The example of his character and unquestionable talent challenged the traditional basis of segregation, which then marked many other aspects of American life, and contributed significantly to the Civil Right Movement.

Before his rise to baseball fame, Robinson had been drafted into the army in 1942 at the beginning of U.S. involvement in World War II.

Paul Bates

An event on 6^th July 1944 derailed Robinson's military career. While awaiting results of hospital tests on the ankle he had injured in junior college, Robinson boarded an Army bus with a fellow officer's wife; although the Army had commissioned its own unsegregated bus line, the bus driver ordered Robinson to move to the back of the bus. Robinson refused. The driver backed down, but after reaching the end of the line, summoned the military police, who took Robinson into custody. When Robinson later confronted the investigating duty officer about racist questioning by the officer and his assistant, the officer recommended Robinson be court- martialed. After Robinson's commander in the 761st, Paul L. Bates, refused to authorize the legal action, Robinson was summarily transferred to the 758 Battalion—where the commander quickly consented to charge Robinson with multiple offenses, including, among other charges, public drunkenness—even though Robinson did not drink.

By the time of the court-martial in August 1944, the charges against Robinson had been reduced to two counts of insubordination during questioning. Robinson was acquitted by an all-white panel of nine officers. Although his former unit, the 761st Tank Battalion, became the first black tank unit to see combat in World War II, Robinson's court-martial proceedings prohibited him from being deployed overseas, thus he never saw combat action.

After his acquittal, he was transferred to Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky, where he served as a coach for army athletics until receiving an honourable discharge in November 1944. While there, Robinson met an ex-player for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League, who encouraged Robinson to write the Monarchs and ask for a try-out. Robinson took the ex-player's advice and wrote Monarchs' co-owner Thomas Baird. The rest is baseball history.

The astonishing thing in this saga is the fact that Robinson was acquitted by an all-white panel of nine officers. The whole story is riddled with evidence of the endemic racism that existed in the United Sates Army in the 1940s and probably still does. Robinson was being tried on two counts of insubordination during questioning. There is little doubt that he probably was being insubordinate when being questioned by someone who was clearly racist. Therein is the surprise. Statistically, out of two officers, Robinson’s commanding officer of the 761^st and his next commander of 758^th, the second was more than willing to institute a whole series of charges, including a trumped up charge of drunkenness. How on earth did the Army come up with nine white officers who all agreed that racism was not to be tolerated, and that insubordination in the face of racism would be?

The 6^th July also raises another incident involving a baseball bat and yet more discrimination in the military. On the 6^th July 1999 U.S. Army private Barry Winchell died from baseball-bat injuries inflicted in his sleep the previous day by a fellow soldier, Calvin Glover, for his relationship with transgender showgirl and former Navy Corpsman Calpernia Addams. This incident became a point of reference in the on-going debate about the policy known as “Don’t ask don’t tell", which banned gays and lesbians, who were open about their sexual orientation, from the U.S. military. The incident became the subject of the film Soldier Girl (2003)