42

This last week, while on vacation, my wife and I went to see the movie 42.  It’s a movie about Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to enter and play in Major League Baseball since the late 1880s.  If you haven’t seen this movie, I’d encourage you to go.  

It’s an eye-opening, riveting movie giving us a glimpse into the challenges of de-segregation in baseball.  It takes place in the mid-1940’s following WWII.  Jackie, who went to UCLA and was the first athlete to win varsity letters in four sports while there; who served in WWII and was honorably discharged from the Army as a Lieutenant; is brought up from the minor leagues to the Brooklyn Dodgers by Branch Rickey, a visionary who felt called to help end the segregation between whites and blacks in baseball.    

Three moments in the movie stood out to me:

• At the beginning of one of the Dodger games everyone is standing and singing the Star Spangled Banner.  The camera pans the audience who are holding hands over hearts and mouthing the words of the song.  The camera pans the players who are doing likewise.  The camera then focuses on Jackie at the moment when the words – “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave” are being sung.  Jackie is not singing along.  I thought to myself – how is this the home of the free when black people cannot use the same restroom as white people, or they have to enter the stadium through the “Colored” entrance, or black players cannot stay in the same hotel as white players…

• During one of the games in the south (I don’t remember where they were playing at the moment) Jackie came out to take the field.  Just prior, the camera showed a dad and his young son at their first ball game together.  The boy was so excited to see his first game with his dad.  His dad was sharing the story of his dad taking him to the ball game when he was a boy.  When Jackie came on to the field the spectators began to yell at him to get off the field, to go back to the cotton fields where he belonged, and they used the “n” word vociferously.  The little boy looked around at everyone cussing and yelling with great prejudice including his dad and then he himself began to call out, “get off the field you 'n…'”.  Just moments before he had been filled with this joyous innocence.  And then he learned how to shout out in hate and prejudice.  It's amazing what our children learn from us.   

• When Branch Rickey first talked to Jackie about becoming a Brooklyn Dodger he got up in his face asking if he would be able to stand up to the prejudice, the names, the rocks being thrown, that he might not be able to stay at the same hotel, the hate, the vitriol… Branch asked he if had the courage to do this.  When Branch said, “Can you do this you, s.o.b. n...?” Jackie stood up and asked, “You want someone with the courage to stand up and fight against this bigotry?”  Branch replied, “No, I want someone with the courage to not stand up and fight…”

 
It takes courage to not strike out at those who hate, who throw stones, who spit upon you, who threaten your life.  It takes courage to respond, not in kind but, in love and restraint.  It takes the courage of Christ to face that kind of bigotry and prejudice.   
 
As an aside, I found it interesting that Jackie was a Methodist as was Branch Rickey!