by Cary Osborne
Civil rights activist, educator and author Dr. Harry Edwards — a powerful figure whose booming voice has influenced sports and society for decades — used one of his greatest tools in recognition of the great Jackie Robinson.
For nearly 20 minutes on Monday, he spoke in front of the Jackie Robinson statue in Centerfield Plaza in front of a gathering of Dodger players, coaches, staff and executives. In what has become an annual event of solidarity, the Dodgers’ opponent on Jackie Robinson Day, the Washington Nationals, stood side by side with the Dodgers.
Edwards followed Dodger manager Dave Roberts and Dodger great Reggie Smith and gave a profound speech with the theme that Jackie Robinson was a transcendent figure whose impact went far beyond baseball.
Edwards finished with a plea — for Jackie Robinson to be honored with a Nobel Peace Prize.
Edwards’ words:
Decades ago, the illustrious Mr. Jackie Roosevelt Robinson observed that life is not important, except in the impact it has upon other lives. It is all but impossible to grasp the full grandeur and majesty of a great mountain while standing in close proximity to it. As opposed to standing atop its heights. Likewise, we often fall short and enduring comprehension of the magnitude and totality of the impact and contributions made by some among even the greatest of us until it becomes irrefutably demonstrable. In retrospect, that we stand taller, we see farther, we reach higher, and we grasp more because we stand on the shoulders of giants. So it is with Jackie Robinson.
Jackie’s incomparably remarkable and historic sojourn, as a barrier-shattering Major League Baseball player and his post-career advocacy and struggle for freedom equality, social justice and society to this day, stand as models of exemplary and enduring courage, superlative performance and strategic vision. Models that indisputably presaged and prepared the path of advancement for a then-nascent and still-evolving post-Civil War Civil Rights Movement.
As the first openly identified African-American who played baseball in the Major Leagues in the 20th Century, Jackie Robinson became the most vilified, targeted subject of verbal abuse and malicious treatment in the sports arena since Jack Johnson had the audacity to become heavyweight champion of the world in 1908. And like Jack Johnson, Jackie Robinson stood alone.
As torrents of racial slurs rain down from the stands and out of opposing dugouts, about how pitchers threw at his head and hit him with what would be brushback pitches, about how opposing baserunners sometimes slid into his legs with their spikes up when he covered bases, and how despite his well-earned and established reputation for fiercely fighting back against race-based affronts, indignities and slights, he kept his peace. In the spotlight, at center stage and in America’s national pastime, Jackie Robinson found a way within himself not to fight back. He answered belligerent, bellicose bias with bravery and brilliant baseball.
For Jackie, it was no less strategically imperative, that the possible not be made the enemy of the principles, and he was committed to freedom, justice and equality not just as a matter of constitutional promise, but as a matter of moral principle.
He had endorsed, even while he was playing, a 27-year-old pastor 10 years his junior, who was leading an effort to desegregate public transportation in Montgomery, Alabama in June of 1957. Through coincidence, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Jackie Robinson were honored with honorary doctorate degrees for Howard University as a result of their service leadership and sacrifice in the area of civil rights. While waiting in the green room during that panel discussion in 1969, waiting to go on stage, I asked Jackie, if he thought that Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement really appreciate the monumental debt they owed him — not only for his lifetime contributions and service in the baseball arena, but beyond — for his social-change model that he has established and validated. In a profoundly modest, unassuming and almost self-effacing tone and countenance, he turned to me and said, “Yes, I think they knew we were traveling the same path.”
But Jackie’s greatest and most enduring impact was the model he crafted and established that was germane and applicable to the broader society. As much as he was a proven devotee of Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King was a protege and a principal leadership beneficiary of Jackie Robinson.
It is the day — my judgment and plea — that both belated and long past due, and though no athlete has ever been awarded the honor — over the signatures of the current commissioner of Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the National Football League — all of whom have benefited from Jackie’s contributions — over the signatures of those major civil and human rights organizations who drew strength for movements based on Jackie Robinson’s example, those of as many active and former professional athletes, coaches, and even former presidents of the United States, as are willing to sign on to a letter: Like Dr. Martin Luther King, a letter should be crafted in posthumous nomination of Jackie Robinson for the Nobel Peace Prize. He deserves it.
Profound words honor and celebrate Jackie Robinson was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.