Blackout

by Lamb, Chris

• ISBN13: 9780803229563
• ISBN10: 0803229569
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-09-01
• Publisher: Univ of Nebraska Pr

Summary

In the spring of 1946, following the defeat of Hitler's Germany, America found itself still struggling with the subtler but no less insidious tyrannies of racism and segregation at home. In the midst of it all, Jackie Robinson, a full year away from breaking major league baseball's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers, was undergoing a harrowing dress rehearsal for integration--his first spring training as a minor league prospect with the Montreal Royals, Brooklyn's AAA team. InBlackout, Chris Lamb tells what happened during these six weeks in segregated Florida--six weeks that would become a critical juncture for the national pastime and for an American society on the threshold of a civil rights revolution.Blackoutchronicles Robinson's tremendous ordeal during that crucial spring training--how he struggled on the field and off. The restaurants and hotels that welcomed his white teammates were closed to him, and in one city after another he was prohibited from taking the field. Steeping his story in its complex cultural context, Lamb describes Robinson's determination and anxiety, the reaction of the black and white communities to his appearance, and the unique and influential role of the press--mainstream reporting, the alternative black weeklies, and the CommunistDaily Worker--in the integration of baseball. Told here in detail for the first time, this story brilliantly encapsulates the larger history of a man, a sport, and a nation on the verge of great and enduring change.

Author Biography

Chris Lamb is an associate professor of media studies at the College of Charleston.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vii
Acknowledgments	ix
Part 1
1. Fried Chicken and Hard-Boiled Eggs	3	(20)
Part 2
2. Jim Crow Baseball Must End	23	(18)
3. Rickey and Robinson Challenge Segregated Baseball	41	(18)
4. Robinson and Wright Take Their Game to Sanford	59	(22)
Part 3
5. Robinson and Wright Flee Sanford by Sundown	81	(20)
6. Robinson Takes the Field	101	(16)
7. Cheap Talk, Mexican Millionaires, and Eddie Klep	117	(16)
8. Lights Out in Deland and Locked Gates in Jacksonville	133	(16)
9. Integration Stands Its Ground against Southern Intolerance	149
Part 4
10. Robinson Wins the Day during His First Game in Montreal	169	(16)
Notes	185	(24)
Bibliography	209	(8)
Index	217