Norfolk Journal and Guide - April 19, 1947
1 2019-03-12T23:56:21+00:00 Stanford University Press af84c3e11fe030c51c61bbd190fa82a3a1a12824 1 1 Norfolk Journal and Guide - April 19, 1947 plain published 2019-03-12T23:56:21+00:00 AnonymousThis page is referenced by:
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April - Archived Posts
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Click on date to view post:April 1, 1950: Political April Fools’ Day wishes in Pittsburgh Courier.April 2, 1966: Pittsburgh Courier sports editor Bill Nunn Jr. on Texas Western championship basketball team.April 3, 1954: Cleveland Call and Post reports on death of nightclub owner and numbers racket king Bennie Mason.April 4, 1968: The front pages of black newspapers after assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.April 5, 1933: Hamilton Lodge Ball and drag performances in New York Amsterdam News.April 6, 1972: North Carolina Mutual insurance advertisement in Los Angeles Sentinel.April 7, 1959: Ads for Lydia Pinkham’s tablets and topics to relieve menstrual and menopausal pain in the Philadelphia Tribune.April 8, 1939: Norfolk Journal and Guide on controversy over Louis Armstrong’s swing version of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”April 9, 197: Hank Aaron’s record breaking 715th home run covered in the Atlanta Daily World.April 10, 1909: New York Women’s Business Club featured in Baltimore Afro-American.April 11, 1936: Chicago Defender on a Howard University student bet gone wrong.April 12, 1947: Jackie Robinson’s Major League Baseball debut covered in the black press.April 13, 1948: Philadelphia Tribune reports on killing of World War II veteran George Serrell, who refused to sit in a Jim Crow train car.April 14, 1979: Disco advertisements in the Cleveland Call and Post.April 15, 1939: Account from a fugitive from a North Carolina prison in the Baltimore Afro-American. Guest post by Daniel Arico, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.April 15, 1939: Marian Anderson’s landmark performance at Lincoln Memorial reported in Chicago Defender.April 16, 1904: Anti-profanity campaign reported in The Appeal. Guest post by Caroline Arkesteyn, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.April 16, 1959: Francois Andre’s male fashion show at Hollywood’s Moulin Rouge in the Los Angeles Sentinel.April 17, 1915: Ohio Governor Frank Willis blocks exhibition of racist photoplay, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Alex Bishop, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.April 17, 1943: African-American women protest racial discrimination at Bechtel-McCone-Parsons airplane modification plant in Birmingham, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Lillian G. Page, MA student in history at the University of Memphis.April 18, 1942: Eleanor Roosevelt calls for equality in speech at the Hampton Institute, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Connor Callahan, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.April 19, 1958: New York Amsterdam News on dangerous apartment conditions. Guest post by Mark Speltz.April 19, 1960: Chicago Defender on racial discrimination and student organizing at Indiana University. Guest post by Samuel Carter, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.April 20, 1929: Chicago Defender on teen runner killed after winning race. Guest post by Trent Cork, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.April 21, 1953: Washington Afro-American on discrimination in the U.S. Army. Guest post by Katelyn Culver, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.April 22, 1950: Housing discrimination in Los Angeles’ Leimert Park neighborhood, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Austin Demers, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.April 23, 1960: White woman in Alabama beaten for dating black men, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Thomas Esposito, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.April 24, 1954: Chicago Defender on discrimination in Baltimore hotels. Guest post by Mark Fowler, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.April 25, 1987: Indianapolis Recorder on black student demands at Purdue University. Guest post by Derek Gilman, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.April 26, 1930: Indianapolis Recorder on movie theater discrimination. Guest post by Ethan Hill, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.April 27, 1974: Chicago Defender salutes Duke Ellington on his birthday. Guest post by Luke Johnson, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.April 28, 1962: Police brutality reported in Indianapolis Recorder. Guest post by Samanvay Kasarala, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.April 28, 1988: Cleveland Call and Post endorses Jesse Jackson for President.April 29, 1904: Iowa State Bystander reports on practical joke gone wrong. Guest post by Robert Kinser, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.April 30, 1960: Student protests in Greensboro, North Carolina reported in the Chicago Defender. Guest post by Samuel Kramer, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
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April 12, 1947
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On April 12, 1947, the New York Amsterdam News reported exciting news from the sporting world. “Jackie Robinson became the first Negro to crash major league baseball when he was signed by Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers at 3:30 P.M. Thursday afternoon when Robinson’s contract was purchased by the Brooklyn Dodgers from the Montreal Royals,” Amsterdam editor Dan Burley wrote. “It is still a dark mystery whether Robinson will play the opening game, and if he will get the nod for the first base post. But in whatever capacity Jackie Robinson now becomes the first Negro to crack the hoary-headed-lily-white tradition of lily-whitism in major league baseball.”
When the twenty-eight-year-old Robinson made his major league debut on April 15, it was covered in black newspapers across the country. The Chicago Defender ran a banner headline, “Jackie Robinson Opens the Door...Makes History,” while the Pittsburgh Courier noted, “Fans Throng to Jackie’s Debut.” “It’s really official now,” the Cleveland Call and Post said. “When Jackie Robinson, brilliant Negro infielder walked out from the Dodger dugout at Ebbetts Field Thursday to take his position at first for the Bums, his long, uphill struggle to surmount the barrier against Negro players entering the Major League climaxed with a reverberation that was heard around the nation. In millions of Negro homes, Junior went down into the cellar or dug into his ‘treasure chest’ for that battered fielders mitt, and from now on he will pound it with a new determination when the gang lines up to choose sides on the sandlots.” The Norfolk Journal and Guide’s headline, “Robinson First in Majors Since Fleetwood Moses, in 1884,” gestured toward a longer history of black professional baseball players (though the paper misordered Moses Fleetwood Walker’s name). The Los Angeles Sentinel proudly noted that Robinson was a Pasadenan and that Jackie and his wife Rachel were graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles. The Sentinel also reported that “some 5,000 Negroes streaked across New York from Harlem last Friday to swell the buzzing crowd to 14,282.”
In the Pittsburgh Courier, editor William Nunn coupled his praise of Robinson with a word of caution to black baseball fans. “Now the real challenge faces Negro America!,” Dunn wrote. “The challenge of taking this tremendous victory in stride! The challenge to keep our big mouths closed and give Jackie the chance to PROVE he’s major league calibre! The challenge to conduct ourselves at these ball games in the recognized American way! The challenge to NOT recognize the appearance of Jackie Robinson as the signal for a Roman holiday, with the Bacchanalian orgy complex! The challenge to leave whiskey bottles at home or on the shelves of the liquor store...and to leave our loud talking, obscene language and indecent dress on the outside of the ball parks.” The Chicago Defender’s Fay Young made a similar point in his column. “Robinson will not be on trial as much as the Negro fan,” Young warned. “The Negro fan has been the ’hot potato’ dodged by managers who would have taken a chance by signing a Negro player. The unruly Negro has and can set us back 25 years...The Negro fan can help Robinson. The Negro fan can ruin him. Robinson is an American citizen, an ex-army officer, a ball player and a gentleman. Let us try and meet his qualifications as a gentleman. If you Chicagoans have got to raise a lot of hell, do a lot of cussing, go somewhere else” (click to view PDF).
Finally, the Pittsburgh Courier carried a column from Jackie Robinson. “I know now that dreams do come true,” Robinson said. “I will never stop trying. I hope I’ll get better and better every day and help bring a pennant and world series to Brooklyn. Being up here is absolutely wonderful. That’s why I’m a believer in fairy tales now. You see, it actually happened to me.”