Skip to main content

Hank Aaron Speaks Out!

By


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

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

O Pioneers!

By
It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer.  Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions.  I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters.  Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs.  Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77.  I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not.  Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi
12 comments
Read more

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  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, noting the gro
228 comments
Read more

Colonel

By
Now with Colonel Roosevelt , the magnum opus is complete. And it deserves to stand as the definitive study of its restless, mutable, ever-boyish, erudite and tirelessly energetic subject. Mr. Morris has addressed the toughest and most frustrating part of Roosevelt’s life with the same care and precision that he brought to the two earlier installments. And if this story of a lifetime is his own life’s work, he has reason to be immensely proud.  -- Janet Maslin -- NY Times . Let the discussion begin!
240 comments
Read more