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Image of Jackie Robinson from Back Cover of a Comic Book, 1956

Baseball and Jackie Robinson

 

Student Handout Three:
Analysis of Branch Rickey's Speech

Read Branch Rickey's speech to the "100-Percent Wrong Club.", and answer the following questions:
1. In the fourth paragraph of his speech, Rickey seems to be saying that he desired to bring a black player to the St. Louis ballclub. Why did this effort fail?
 
2. According to Rickey, what were the four factors that were necessary for him to bring a black player to the major leagues successfully?
 
3.Rickey stated that "the greatest danger, the greatest hazard, I felt was the negro race itself." What did he mean by that?
 
4. Rickey stated that, according to the historian Frank Tannenbaum, four things were necessary for the acceptance of black players in baseball. What were those four factors?
 
5. When Rickey stated, "I am completely color-blind," do you take him at his word?
 
6. Do you think that the following statement made by Branch Rickey was true in 1956?:
"America is,--it's been proven Jackie,--is more interested in the grace of a man's swing, in the dexterity of his cutting a base, and his speed afoot, in his scientific body control, in his excellence as a competitor on the field,--America, wide and broad, and in Atlanta, and in Georgia, will become instantly more interested in those marvelous, beautiful qualities than they are in the pigmentation of a man's skin."
 
7. What did Rickey mean when he referred to "the last syllable in a man's name"?
 

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