1635-12 Anti-Semitism heritage is better,
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1 JACKIE ROBINSON AND HANK GREENBERG
(-3611
IS
It
, , seasons
.,
j " r By STEPHEN H.$IORWOOD, 1
4. Washington Post for their prominent
t '' .i
. ABRAHAM COOPER role in the campaign to desegregate
And HAROLD BRACKMAN baseball.Winchell at that time conspic-
:. live in an age of second uously accompanied African-AmericWe
thou�ghts about civil rights boxing great Sugar Ray Robinson
progress,black-Jewish coop-
around Miami when hotels still posted
enation and theimpact of pro sports on signs: "No Negroes,Jews or dogs
minority communities.The 50th allowed."
anniversary of Jackie Robinson's Headlines of the day suggest other
! desegregation of major league baseball parallels between the African-
, recalls another troubled time with a American and Jewish struggles. In
i surer moral compass. In leading a May 1947,early in Robinson's rookie
major civil rights advance,Robinson season, the press reported that an all-
[
i was encouraged at a critical point in white jury in Greenville,S.C.,had
the 1947 season by Jewish slugger acquitted 28 "confessed lynch murder-
1 r Hank Greenberg.Their friendship was ers," charged with torturing a black.
not an isokrted incident but highlighted man to death.That same month,
r strong bonds of mutual support reflecting strong black support for the
between African Americans and Jews. creation of Israel,The Chicago
When Robinson broke baseball's Defender condemned both Great
I color barrier, the African-American Britain and the State Department for
press often emphasized that blacks and their "unbelievably shameful double
Jews were joined in a common struggle ' crossing" of Holocaust survivors
whose desperate attempt to reach
against bigotry. Black
papers acknowledged Palestine on the ship Hatikvah was
Jews' disproportionate brutally thwarted by British sailors
Tuesday will support for the using tear gas and fire hoses.
be the 50th civil rights As Jackie Robinson suffered
anniversary of cause.,and
Jackie praised PLEASE SEE ROBINSON,6L
Robinson's Jewish jour- Stephen H.Norwood is a
desegregation jour-
nalists and �,< history professor at the
of major • spoftswriters University of Oklahoma;Rabbi
like Walter ., Abraham Cooper is associate
league base- p
ball. Wihchell and dean of the Simon •.�
Shirley Povich Wiesenthal Center, and
,erald File Photo of The ` x Dr. Harold Brackmart
eF..
•
is a consultant on
intergroup rela-
tions for the cen-
ter's Museum of4 r Tolerance in
,,' . Los Angeles.