As the baseball team celebrates Black Histories, Reggie Jackson recalls racist past

The great baseball player Reggie Jackson offered fans a brutal historical lesson on Thursday reminiscing about the racial discrimination Black players were subject to in the discriminatory South of the 1960s on a day when the game celebrated the sport’s African American history with a game in Birmingham, Alabama.

By Daniel Trotta

Jun 21, 2024 01:11 AM

June 20 (Reuters) – (This story contains racial slur in paragraph 2 and language that some readers might find offensive in paragraph 7)

Baseball legend Reggie Jackson offered fans a brutal background on Thursday, reminiscing about the racial discrimination Black players had to face in the racially segregated South of the 1960s on a day that the game celebrated it’s African American history with a game in Birmingham, Alabama.

“I went to restaurants and they would look at me and declare, ‘The nigger isn’t allowed to take a bite here.’ I would then go to the hotel, and the staff would tell me”The nigger isn’t allowed to stay there,” Jackson, 78 spoke during the live Fox Sports telecast ahead of the game between San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals at Birmingham’s historical Rickwood Field.

“I wouldn’t wish it on anyone,” Jackson declared.

Baseball honored Black players during a game just a day following the Juneteenth celebration, which marked ending slavery as well as the match was held in the game still mourning the passing on the Tuesday of Willie Mays, aged 93, who was a member of the Birmingham team of the Negro Leagues, which thrived prior to the time baseball became integrated in 1947.

Jackson spoke on a panel with former greats Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz and Derek Jeter, said it was difficult to go back to Birmingham in the city where he had played for a time as an amateur from 1967 prior to the start of his Major League career with the Oakland A’s and New York Yankees.

Jackson is one of the Hall of Famers honored with the title of “Mr. October” for his World Series dramatics with the Yankees and his the white players, including manager John McNamara, Rollie Fingers, Joe Rudi, Dave Duncan and Lee Meyers for refusing to allow the team to patronize restaurant and hotels that were racialized and for stopping the player when he was able to stand up against the racists.

“I’d have got killed here because I’d have beat somebody’s ass, and you’d have saw me in an oak tree somewhere,” Jackson declared, referring back to history surrounding lynchings in the South.

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Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Christian Schmollinger

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