Many people have no idea of the impact they displayed during
their time in sports. In 1946, the
number 42 was just a jersey to the sports world. Today, it is remembered as one of the
significant first steps in the attitude of acceptance in America.
According
to Wiggins, Jackie Robinson was just a man who wanted to play the game of
baseball. Wendall Smith was just a man
who wanted to write about sports. Branch
Rickey was just a man who wanted to win baseball games. Together Robinson and Smith began changing
society’s views all because of their talents protruding through their skin
color. Rickey was just a man who gave
both of them the opportunity.
Smith
was a sports editor who was trying so desperately to integrate the meaning of
sports. He knew blacks could do it, but
society just was not ready. Besides the
newly reluctant acceptance of the blacks in a white man’s game, the blacks were
feeling different pressures of their own race.
Blacks were worried their league would be shut down now that some blacks
could move to the professional league.
They wanted to preserve their league which did end up dying out
eventually. Smith even tried to get the
leaders to comment on their feelings, but they stayed silent until the
end. It seemed like they definitely were
not into the change especially since they knew only a few stars would get the
opportunity to play if the black league died out.
While there still were cynical
attitudes toward blacks, there also was much more positive reaction to black
players. Right as it seemed that change
was upon us, the attitudes changed when a black player was refused a promise to
play in the league. This created a sever
tension between races and it made them want to segregate more. Harlem riots were increasingly worse and even
though it seems sports (both professional and journalism) had a fighting
chance, the atmosphere Smith was left in was fatal. He wanted so badly to change the game as a
stepping stone of changing the world.
Finally when Branch felt the need
to show black exposure, he called upon Smith for the changes to be made. Smith recommended Robinson and then 42 went
down in history. People can say the main
concern with journalists is their professional and maybe they are right because
had Smith not broken his professional barrier, the integration would have been
much later.
In Wiggins, we saw the struggle, but in Lamb, we finally saw
the overall success. With the integration
of baseball, it seemed as if black writers would finally receive more recognition
and job offers. It did change because of
Robinson. When he was first covered,
there were 28 news outlets that picked up the story. The main man on the scene was Smith. He was trying to rebuild the black pride and
let the community to be known, but it was starting to seem like blacks wanted
the pride within their races. Just like
in Wiggins, Smith was pressing for this better future and he was the leader of
change. This article followed the harsh criticizes
Robinson received by white writers. The
story was completely differently received by who was writing. Black writers were supportive and positive;
white writers were negative and unsupported.
While civil rights were important, it seemed the writing was
questionable due to the underlying context.
Both articles talked about the important role integration played; however, they showed two different sides.
No comments:
Post a Comment