Hank Aaron Speaks Out!

Hank Aaron certainly doesn't shy away from controversy, comparing the continued assault on Obama by Republicans to the KKK raiding parties. The only difference in his mind is "now they have neckties and starched shirts." Probably wore them under their capes as well. The "true home run king" went onto say that he has kept the many ugly letters he received when he broke Babe Ruth's record 40 years ago, and that we have a long way to go to improve race relations in this country.

As an example, Jim DeMint apparently believes the federal government had little role in the emancipation of slaves. He does credit Lincoln for playing a part in it, although holds up the "Great Emancipator" as the first Republican president, as if to say these are values the GOP stands by today. He seems to forget that the amendments abolishing slavery and expanding voting rights were added after the Civil War, not before. He also downplays Southern plantation owners who used the Bible to defend slavery, just as Northern abolitionists used the Bible to condemn this "peculiar institution." Also, no allusion to the decades of Jim Crow laws, which were in direct defiance to the Constitution, keeping black baseball players out of Major League Baseball, resulting in a separate Negro League.

Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier back in 1947, when he was acquired by the Brooklyn Dodgers from the Kansas City Monarchs. He appeared torn emotionally, as one can read in this excerpt from his autobiography, I Never Had It Made. After retiring from the MLB in 1956, he actively campaigned for Nixon in the 1960 election. Robinson came to regret that decision. He supported Nelson Rockefeller in 1962, who promoted civil rights, but was overrun by "Golderwaterites" in his bid for President in 1964. Robinson still believed in the Party of Lincoln, but became an LBJ supporter in the aftermath of the GOP convention. Goldwater went on to be routed by Johnson in the election.

Like Robinson before him, Aaron started out in the Negro League. He played for the Indianapolis Clowns before being picked up by the Milwaukee Braves for $10,000 and promoted to the MLB in 1954. The Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966.

I'm glad to hear Aaron speak out, especially after the Atlanta Braves game honoring his historic milestone. It is hard to equate the GOP today with the Party of Lincoln. It seems more like the Party of Denial.

Comments

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, not...

Dylan in America

Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan. Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose. Looks like only yesterday. Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005

Dispatches from Vilnius

Search This Blog