An ongoing illustrative history study
This piece originally posted on 04/11/2025
as a courtesy to the United States Department Of Defense
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"My lawyer summed up the case beautifully by telling the board that this was not a case involving any violation of the Articles of War, or even of military tradition, but simply a situation in which a few individuals sought to vent their bigotry on a Negro they considered 'uppity' because he had the audacity to exercise rights that belonged to him as an American and a soldier."
While his legendary contribution to baseball is of course widely known and (rightly) celebrated, the military service of Jackie Robinson is perhaps less familiar. The future barrier-breaking athlete was born in 1919 in Cairo, Georgia, but his father left the family when Jackie was still a baby --his mother moved the family to Pasadena, California in search of better prospects but the family was never able to truly rise up out of poverty. Robinson's early athletic abilities earned him varsity letters in no less than four sports (football, basketball, track, and baseball). In 1939 Robinson graduated from Pasadena Junior College and was accepted at UCLA, where he again lettered in the same four sports. His athletic path ostensibly fixed in the heavens, his life nevertheless took something of a detour in 1942, and he found himself drafted into a segregated all-Black U.S. Army unit based out of Fort Riley, Kansas.
Robinson earned his commission as a second lieutenant a year later (making him one of a very small minority of Black officers at the time, as Black soldiers were generally not accepted at Officers' Candidate School), and was assigned to Fort Hood, Texas as part of the 761st Black Panthers tank battalion. Significantly during Robinson's time in the service, he was part of the "Double V" (double victory) movement, an assertion that Black soldiers use their wartime service to not only fight rising fascism abroad, but also institutionalized racism at home. This campaign was borne out of an editorial in The Pittsburgh Courier that (not-so-rhetorically) asked, "Would it be demanding too much to demand full citizenship rights in exchange for the sacrificing of my life?" The hypocrisy that the article called out, was then further amplified in a speech by no less than W.E.B. Du Bois (see Lesson #1 in this series). Robinson, mindful of his public status (he was already something of an athletic role model, at this point), stuck to his convictions and wore the "double V" button.
On the pivotal date of July 6, 1944, Robinson happened to be aboard a civilian bus bound for Fort Hood, but when additional white passengers boarded, he refused the driver's order to move to the back. Despite Executive Order 8802 having been in effect since June 1941 (a directive that banned discriminatory practices throughout all Federal agencies including the War Department), MPs and Fort Riley's provost marshal were nevertheless called and Robison was arrested and court-martialed. Six charges initially arose from his seat refusal: disturbing the peace, drunkenness, conduct unbecoming an officer, insulting a civilian woman, insubordination, and refusing to obey the lawful orders of a superior officer. These obviously-inflated extra charges were eventually dismissed but that was very much not the norm for Black officers serving at that time, and the court-martial became not so much a question of internal discipline, but of unwillingness to bend to bigoted Southern customs and traditions. A court of nine combat officers ultimately acquitted Robinson and his Army career could continue, despite a deeply contentious process that could very easily have gone the other way.
He was then transferred to Camp Breckenridge (Kentucky), and served as a coach for the Army athletics until his honorable discharge in 1944. His army career thus over, Robinson would return to athletics and play for various Negro League teams, the first steps along the path that would eventually bring him to his history-making 1947 signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
(And... I guess this means I have again --technically-- drawn another baseball card for this series.)
Search the Wayback Machine for this misplaced biography:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250308234700/https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/jackie-robinson-and-double-v-campaign
Next lesson - Lesson 183: Medgar Evers's military career