![]() At the same time, it did not want to bring down a political firestorm by appearing to challenge or erode the racial status quo. The war was promising to be a prolonged and total conflict, one demanding use of all resources, human and other.Īs the Second World War deepened, it became increasingly clear to the War Department that maintaining Jim Crow was expensive both in terms of morale and efficiency of effort. When aggravated by sustained and especially vigorous physical activity, this condition required intermittent visits to military doctors and hospitals during his more than two-and-a-half-year stint in the service.īy the time Robinson was called into service, the nation found itself in global warfare, embroiled on two distant fronts. His ankle, first broken while playing football in 1937 for Pasadena Junior College and later in 1941 while performing for the semipro Los Angeles Bulldogs, contained a large bone chip, which occasionally caused the joint to lock up entirely. With suspect physical condition-damaged ankle-and his mother largely dependent on welfare, Robinson should not have had to serve in the armed services. He joined millions of other draftees-800,000 or more of them black-called by their Uncle Sam to serve. On April 3, 1942, at a Los Angeles induction center, Robinson reported for military duty as required. But Robinson's gutsy action foreshadowed subsequent baseball diamond conduct and served notice on the military, which would begin desegregating in 1948, and the world that here was a black man unwilling to take even a modicum of racial guff. More than 60 years later, there is still not complete consensus on exactly what happened in 1944 and why. ![]() ![]() The sports part of Robinson's story has been exceedingly well documented, so it is understandable that the periods immediately preceding and following that phase of life have atttracted relatively little public attention. Second Lieutenant Jack Roosevelt Robinson was beginning to make history, well before 1947, when he became the first person of his race to play in baseball's major leagues. The trial of the young officer at Camp (now Fort) Hood received little notice at the time, but his action-refusing to go to the "back of the bus"-would become a symbolic act of the civil rights movement in the decades following the war.Īnd the young lieutenant would gain some valuable training for a later role as a pioneer in securing equal rights for black Americans in sports-already showing the same qualities that would make him great on the playing field and elsewhere: physical and emotional valor strength of character and fierce, unyielding determination to confront and conquer racism. ![]() The Army base at Fort Hood, Texas, where Lt. Anonymous black soldiers, Jackson (Mississippi) Air Base, 1942Īs Allied troops continued their drive into the heart of Europe a month after the D-day landing in 1944, an incident that would provide a preview of post–World War II events in America was unfolding in Texas.Ī young African American Army officer attached to an all-black unit at Camp Hood was subjected to a general court-martial-for resisting usual southern protocol and refusing to move to the back of the bus on the military post when directed by the driver to do so. Even the officers here are calling us n-r. The word Negro is never used here, all they call us are n-r do this, n-r that. McCloy, Washington, DC, 1942 We are treated like wild animals. an alarmingly large percentage of Negroes in and out of the Army who do not seem to be vitally concerned about winning the war. 1 By John Vernon If the United States does not win this war, the lot of the Negro is going to be far, far worse than it is today. Jim Crow, Meet Lieutenant Robinson A 1944 Court-Martial
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