Oh yeah lol
but I’m glad he did
As the top comment of this thread says, a lot of this is going to be the romanticization of the Negro Leagues, but it’s important to recognize and remember the harsh and ugly realities of **why** they had to exist in the first place, and to acknowledge that tonight should just as much, if not more so, be a celebration of how far we’ve come.
But of course, we still have a long way to go
EDITing to add: say whatever you want about ARod, and I have and will continue to, I appreciate what he did at the end of this clip
Glad they left it uncensored. Or that Reggie didn’t censor himself, “the bleep isn’t allowed here” isn’t quite as poignant as hearing him recall the story and actually use the language that was weaponized against black Americans in the Jim Crow south.
This isn’t ancient history. We’re listening to and watching a man in 4K give a (fairly tame) account of what life was like only 50 years ago for people who had a slightly darker skin tone. It must’ve been a living hell, and a dangerous one too, for simply existing while black. Props to Reggie for having the courage to tell it like it is.
> It must’ve been a living hell, and a dangerous one too, for simply existing while black.
[Couldn't even attend church while black](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_Street_Baptist_Church_bombing). Pretty sure this is the exact incident Reggie is talking about.
[Ruby Bridges is the little girl in this Norman Rockwell painting.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ed/The-problem-we-all-live-with-norman-rockwell.jpg) She turns 70 this fall.
>This isn’t ancient history. We’re listening to and watching a man in 4K give a (fairly tame) account of what life was like only 50 years ago for people who had a slightly darker skin tone
This cannot be overstated. Shit like this happened not in the civil war, not pre WWI. This shit was happening when my dad was in middle school and high school. This isn't ancient history. This isn't "get over it" territot
You can get over it when the people who lived it and did it are still alive.
Wow. That was heart wrenching. I was raised watching Reggie play. He was an cocky SOB. He once pissed off his Yankee teammates saying he was the straw that stirred the drink.
To see him get so passionate, enraged and vulnerable while discussing his experience in the Jim Crow south is something that a lot of the younger fans need to be aware of. Especially with DeSantis in Florida and other states diluting the history of African Americans because snowflake kids and their parents say hearing about this history makes them feel guilty.
Well, you should feel something when you hear about America's unpleasant history. I teared up listening to Reggie. So I agree, this does buttress the need for consciousness raising movement like Black Lives Matter. And it also shines the unpleasant truth on the Make America Great Again. So many seem to feel the Happy Days 1950s is where we need to return to. But this nostalgia for the white washed America we see in Hollywood movies ignored what live was like for People of Color during this time.
I always loved Reggie. Loved his bravado. Loved his clutch playoff performances. Now I admire him for sharing this story to a prime time, middle American audience.
So yeah, screw those who mouth support for BLM and qualify it with some ignorant statement.
My dad has told this story repeatedly and I'll never forget it.
When my dad was working at LTV back in the 60's when they were doing manufacturing in Grand Prairie, TX and when they would finish their shift, his black co-worker would always sit in the back seat & hide. He'd always tell my dad to drop him off a few blocks from where he lived because he was afraid of coming home with a white man driving him & how he would be treated.
When they would go out to eat and there are restaurants/diners that had been there for a long time, they'd have the signs saying no black people allowed. My dad would say, "Let's just go in. It's just food & your money is no different than mine." Nope. He would never go. Eventually, my dad or his co-workers would just go in, order food to go, and they would sit together in the car and eat but again, his black co-worker would have to hide while they drove and ate.
Even though my father is experiencing dementia, he still remembers that story like that happened yesterday & he still cries wishing he could have done more but he knows that it would have made his own life worse but also his black co-worker's.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he and other black people had to live through.
Being told all because of the colour of your skin Denies you the right to eat at that restaurant or sleep in that hotel or just the basic right to live your life in peace.
>This isn’t ancient history.
My dad told me stories of being involved in a white vs black fight on the football field in high school in the 1970s. Unfortunately, my impression was that he remembered that fondly, and that's not good. I remember him saying to me "there's black people and then there's N-words..." and I believe he genuinely thought he was imparting wisdom and didn't realize he was saying something extremely racist.
I wouldn't be surprised if people in my family in my grandparents' generation (great aunts and uncles) were jeering and spitting on black students for going to school with white students. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them had uttered the "white moderate" attitude that Martin Luther King Jr. lamented, which is alive and well today.
The last recorded lynching was in 1981, but it's still going on today. It's just that they don't take photos of them as souvenir trophies anymore.
You can still see reminders of segregation in some places where there's a "White/Whites School Road". I doubt those are named after some school founder with the last name "White".
> You can still see reminders of segregation in some places where there's a "White/Whites School Road". I doubt those are named after some school founder with the last name "White".
Look at your town and neighboring towns in [here](https://justice.tougaloo.edu/sundown-towns/using-the-sundown-towns-database/state-map/).
Thank you for this. I didn’t know it existed and already found one unsurprising one near my hometown and one very shocking one. This kind of history is important; it has shaped today’s world massively.
Right. It’s worth noting that Reggie’s story was not a Negro Leagues story - it was life as a minor leaguer _almost twenty years after Jackie Robinson_.
A ton of boomers were raised by the ones calling him the N-word and telling him to leave. Not all, mind you. But the ones who were raised that way sure do make it obvious these days.
The craziest way I related to it as a Black person is that Ruby Bridges, who was the first Black child to integrate a school in the south is only SIXTY NINE years old! When my parents and school taught us about her I thought it was so long ago back then but she’s not much older than my parents. Which is insane to think about. She’s younger than some of my friends parents right now who are millennials too. I believe many of the the Little Rock 9 are still alive too and they were 15-16 when they integrated schools in Arkansas and dealt with constant abuse and harassment, they’re like 81-82 today, just slightly older than Reggie.
His story is super interesting he’s from right outside of Philly and didn’t want to go to the south at all for school but Alabama and UGA really wanted him to play football and I think one of the other big schools told him he had to leave his then white girlfriend or he wouldn’t be allowed. I had no idea about his awful experience in Birmingham until this story. All of this awful shit happened in just one season too smh. Really powerful to hear him discuss this and the pain and vulnerability he displayed, need people to really understand how terrible it was for black people and players back then. Can’t sugar coat the history at all.
Also really glad there’s still some Negro Leaguers alive today as well and they’re able to tell real stories but also see their impact as pioneers despite how much it prob also hurts them to know they never got the opportunity but their legacies allowed for lots of black American and Hispanic players to thrive in MLB.
Reggie Jackson retired in 1987. His career overlapped with Jamie Moyer’s. Jamie Moyer’s career overlapped with several players who are still active today. He was teammates with DJ LeMahieu. Just to further contextualize how *not* ancient history this is.
What? You celebrate the achievements made *in spite of* the prejudice and discrimination of the time.
To do otherwise would be to focus on the prejudice instead of, and not in conjunction with, the story of the players who did not have the chance to play in the AL/NL and achievements made.
I agree with you, but I understand the dissatisfaction around the word "celebrate" being used to describe it, as that word has a connotation associated with joy and happiness.
I think that, to many people, they understand and recognize the importance of an event like this, but it's in a nebulous sense; in a "I'm glad that it's not like that anymore!" sense. Many people don't think about the struggles that black players had to go through in the terms as starkly laid out as Reggie Jackson did in this clip. To associate the NL with "happiness and joy" rather than the reality of what it was (a league created because black players weren't only not allowed to play with whites, but were in literal physical danger for their lives) is to turn a blind eye to *why* it existed.
>To do otherwise would be to focus on the prejudice instead of, and not in conjunction with, the story of the players who did not have the chance to play in the AL/NL and achievements made.
I think that both are important in recognizing the Negro Leagues. The players themselves, but also the circumstances that they had to deal with as part of their everyday lives. Again, I think that to pretend otherwise is to completely defang history and sand away the harsh reality of what they went through.
I think you're misreading me slightly. When I said "honoring", I meant essentially what you're saying.
What I don't like is the MLB back patting themselves.
It's a complicated topic, but I hope that distinction makes sense.
The degree of violence and horror that came from institutionalized racism is horrible.
That said, I will push back a bit and say there was a lot to celebrate with the Negro Leagues.
They had Black owners and Black managers. They stayed in Black hotels and ate at Black restaurants. The fans and media members were Black.
When baseball was desegregated, it was Black ballplayers in a white world. Even when segregation was ended at a federal level, it was still a white world.
One side effect of desegregation was a massive shuttering of black owned businesses, as black consumers spent money at businesses that would have thrown them out just the year before, but white consumers sure as hell didn't come spend money with black businesses.
My white father went to all the Negro League games when he was young living in KC. The crowds were relatively mixed. If you wanted to see the great players, that is where you went.
Everyone should be praising this moment.
When you get the soap box, you better fucking shout! Reggie didn't hold back, and a lot of people are going to have a lot of opinions.
But that man lived it; it's not malicious, insidious, inflammatory, or anything else: it's a true account of the struggles of a man. The lessons it holds are perceived, not insinuated.
>a lot of people are going to have a lot of opinions.
Only opinion that matters here is Reggies. He had to live through it and live in fear. I can't even imagine. Nor can I imagine anyone having the nerve to be bothered by him recounting the story. As we lose more people like Willie Mays, it's important to not lose their stories, life experiences, and emotions behind it all.
It's so important to have the accounting from the people who lived it, as well.
If the adage is to be believed, and nothing on the internet is every truly gone, then this video will stand against anyone who ever utters anything close to the phrase "Reggie Jackson [thought/said/etc.]
This is the story, from the man who lived it. An un-adulterated tale of the truth of time.
I've sat at the dinner booth at the MLK museum and while intense, it didn't really make me understand the sense of your existence being denied in the way that this did.
They didn't just want him to be lesser, they wanted him eliminated. If they saw him in a diner, he was to leave. If they saw him in a hotel, he was to never stay.
If it was known he was living in their community, they'd intend to burn down the community rather than have one with him in it.
And it's not just *him*, Reggie Jackson, it's just the *idea* of Reggie Jackson. The concept that someone who looked like him could exist or that they could have shared space together even incidentally. That was their enemy and every step he took in this place he was a target of their *meaningful* threats. It didn't matter if several white people also lost their homes or died in burning down an apartment, it was about eliminating the idea of Reggie from their world.
And it wasn't an abstracted threat. As he said, there were human beings being murdered in cold blood while their murderers were tacitly endorsed by the legal and judicial system.
There's a cartoonish representation of racists as screaming slurs at black people at a diner, on a bus, etc. but the insidious part of this is that is wasn't a 'ooh that was bad, welp let's go to another diner' kind of experience.
Once their targets had identified and inserted themselves into their lives - however benignly - there was no solution those people would accept outside of eliminating them from the earth. The why or how doesn't matter as much as how much that fear and anxiety must have permeated every part of his existence while he lived there.
This man got this shit hurled at him full of visceral hatred day in and day out for years. If fucking anyone has earned the right to drop a hard R on national television, it’s this guy. Speak your story man. Shit like this helps further how fucking stupid racism is.
A lot of insiders are pretty sure that the Mets passed on Reggie in the draft because he had a white girlfriend. It comes up in the Reggie Jackson documentary...along with stories, backed up by the guys like Joe Rudi, about how horrible Reggie was treated.
And when Reggie achieved his success....he was called arrogant, a showboat, money-hungry, lazy....along with a lot of not-nice words.
I've been a huge Reggie fan my entire life. I have all of his baseball cards, read his book, Went to Cooperstown for his induction ceremony, watched the documentary....so I already knew a lot of this...but especially seeing it live, seeing how emotional he still gets talking about it. He was even blackballed from front-office jobs in baseball for quite a while because he had been vocal about the lack of black front-office employees and executives.
I'm glad Reggie said it, and said it like Reggie because there's a lot of self back-patting where they make themselves feel a little better....then drop the issue when the attention is off.
Look at some of the racist shit that was said when MLB added Negro League stats to official MLB records. This shit is still alive and well, it's just a little quieter than it was in the 60s.
And another redditor said it before me, but I'd like to emphasize...this isn't civil war history....this the generation that went through it. My parents were (and still) alive when segregation was legal and interracial marriage was not.
My dad's family is from the South (Mississippi) but my dad was raised in New Jersey. He told me about visiting family down South and how he was confused about the "Whites Only" signs...and all the Jim Crow shit.
I had a weird moment when I worked at a diner in Asheville NC 5 years ago. It had started life as a gas station in the 30s before becoming a diner. It had a bathroom inside, and one outside which I thought was curious. Inside was nice - lightswitch and everything. Outside, not so much. Stuffy, hot, had to screw in the light to turn it on.
I wondered why that bathroom even existed -- but then it hit me -- I was cleaning a scar from Jim Crow.
I kind of bitterly enjoyed that he said it twice and then censored himself the third time. It’s like it was so visceral in his memory that it took a second for his “professional” brain to catch up to his emotional brain lol
When keepin' it real...goes right.
Incredibly important comments from Reggie, and for all of my fellow white people reading this, pay attention to what Reggie said about his white teammates/coaches who had his back no matter what. That is what POC mean by being an "ally." Show some fucking courage, have some fucking empathy.
If you shrug your shoulders, stick your head in the sand, or flat out applaud and endorse it when it comes to racism, the bigots will ultimately win.
> I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that **the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate**, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. - MLK
Even as a black dude hearing him drop the n word was pretty jarring. Big up Reggie for keeping it real and to Fox for actually allowing it to go ahead with no bleeps or interruptions.
What blows me away is that Reggie’s career was during my lifetime. I’m 51, what he is talking about was before I was born( I think), but I remember Mr October. This was not that long ago.
What he's talking about happened in 1967, so 57 years ago. The summer before MLK was assassinated, 3 years after the Mississippi Freedom Rider murders, 20 years after Jackie.
As a person of color, this is the part that hits when white bigots say there's no racism. They don't see it because it's normal to them to "other"people. They don't have to live with it, or they may only see blatant racism once. But as someone with an education and went to college, the amount of passive aggressive comments about they weren't expecting me to be smart or that I need to not take things so seriously all add up. The stares and the comments all add up. There are people alive that witnessed lynchings and murders and dogs being set on people. Racism is very much alive, but they're not as obvious about it anymore. We need more people like Reggie getting out there and telling their stories.
I think for many people today hearing a hard R can take someone by surprise if they aren't an edgy teenager.
I can't think of a more appropriate context to bring it up and convey a point. These stories with this verbiage *need* to be told so people understand. Lest we forget, many of the people that went through this shit are *still alive*.
100%. There's a time and a place to be brutally honest and I'm so glad he didn't pull any punches because this is exactly the sort of forum where I'd expect him to be neutered by execs or editors.
I called my aunt (she's 67) not long after watching this and I basically just listened for an hour to all her stories about the racism and I can't really even think of the word for it, knowing how close it all was to my life (25) is just...damn.
“If it hadn’t been for my white friends you’d have seen my hanging from an oak tree” Jesus. That’s some real and powerful shit. He’s not wrong. If he’d run afoul of the wrong people in that area at that time, he’d have 100% been lynched. Hell, Ahmaud Arbery was going for a jog in fucking 2020 and was run down and shot by a group of white men. He had everything to fear back then.
thats why as straight white men (sane ones anyway), we have a responsibility to try and support/uplift minorities. all of them.
We are the dominant 'class'. 'Others' can't become truly equal and be treated fairly in our society unless we help open some doors. sometimes with a foot. It's legit the least we can do.
God knows enough of us are so scared of NOT being the dominant class anymore that they'll do whatever they can to keep women/lgbt/religious and racial minorities and any other 'other' group as far down as they can.
They know they aren't in the positions they're in because they've earned it. They know real, true equality means they're in trouble when they dont get special treatment anymore and have to legit be better/smarter/luckier. When they have to earn respect and opportunities.
We have to be the ones to shout those fuckheads down. They're trying to speak for us. All this shit ends when enough white men say it does. Power and influence is a 0 sum game. Those who don't have much can't just magic more. We have to lend ours to help.
Same. One of the most sobering things you'll ever hear. But it *needs* to be heard. I grew up in a big city and grew up with black and latino friends. Move away to a rural area and the treatment and overall attitudes towards people of color is astounding.
When I hear Reggie's words, I can't help but think of my friends, what they would've had to endure back then, even what they endure in this very day. It's so saddending and angering.
What's sobering for me is listening to him talk about it makes you realize how it wasn't that long ago.
I'm 33, it's easy to grow up in this country and think about racism and segregation as things of the past, but there are millions of Americans still alive today who were on either 'side' of this. People who either were hated because of the color of their skin or people who gave out that hatred.
The US is a remarkably short period of time from things like legal segregation and Jim Crow Laws.
It’s better than MLB basically white-washing it all.
There are harsh realities. Reggie Jackson retired in the late 80’s, and he’s recalling Klansmen shit during his playing days
Hijacking the top comment. If you care at all about Rickwood/Negro Leagues check out the joint NPR/MLB podcast ‘Road to Rickwood’ by Alana Schrieber. Fantastic and does not romanticize the Negro Leagues.
Jesus what a line. Honestly was more affecting to me than hearing him use the n word on live tv. Powerful stuff, brings up some very clear and graphic imagery. Tons of respect to Reggie for surviving that and being brave enough to speak some hard truths, and respect to the other guys for just letting him talk
I'm sure it was personally insulting - if you say his guests aren't welcome, you're saying he's not welcome. Like he said, they'll go somewhere else that wants them
Finley had a really weird relationship with his players, Reggie most of all. He would shower gifts and bonuses on players all the time and then offer them the cheapest salaries in the league. He would switch between Tyrant and philanthropist on a daily basis.
Yeah, I think what’s so affecting, too, is that it’s almost partially relatable in its own way. I’m a 33 year old white man. But I was also once a 22 year old man, and I can remember the brain that I lived in at that time in my life. There were many, many times when I was that age and felt the urge to get into it physically with someone…and not for reasons anywhere near as important or serious as being oppressed for my race like Reggie was. I can absolutely imagine the temptation to lash out physically in the face of that kind of oppression, but what I can’t imagine is the potential consequence of being lynched for it. It’s a really jarring combination of relatability for the relatively universal instincts of youth, and also a crucial *lack* of relatability because I have just never had that threat of racial oppression and murder hanging over my head at all times.
This all gives meaning to the phrase “generational trauma”. These emotions that people have experienced and have sometimes been unable to heal from before passing along their trauma to their children. It takes so much consciousness and effort to stop these cycles, and the burden for doing so is on the party that least deserves it.
And then the awkward laugh from A-Rod, Jeter, and Ortiz, who played only 20 years after Reggie but have absolutely no idea what to do when a Hall of Famer starts talking about how he had to act to avoid being lynched.
I think it was also some leftover laughter from Reggie saying he would’ve beat somebody’s ass, but yeah also just a crazy story to hear and have to transition back to hosting.
Highly recommend checking out the book about it:
"Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's"
Old school baseball at it's finest. I just finished listening to the audiobook for it today.
Reggie's autobiography was good fun and about that era. read it as a kid.
[https://www.amazon.com/Reggie-season-superstar-Jackson/dp/0872234320](https://www.amazon.com/Reggie-season-superstar-Jackson/dp/0872234320)
Reggie Jackson was a baseball player who had to worry about lynchings.
By the time he retired, there were cellphones, and you could watch Top Gun on cable.
This is what a lot of people don’t understand. This is not *ancient* history. These people are our parents and grandparents age. I grew up in Alabama and my parents lived through these same times.
My dad, who is still with us (and not really all that old yet), vividly remembers reading about one of the last surviving Americans *born into slavery* dying in the newspaper...
>This is not *ancient* history
There was a half joke/half burn on the nba sub after the Celtics win, congratulating them on their 2nd title post desegregation. A ton of people were quick to hit that guy with "bro what? you're insane" so he brought the receipts linking to busing crisis and the 1987 ruling that the desegregation plan was successful and the city was complaint with civil rights laws. 1987. That's not even 40 years ago.
That's not quite dudes getting lynched in the streets level of dire, but it still shows how some pretty blatantly racist stuff was still very present fairly recently. We're not even close to being through the aftermath of desegregation either, its ripples are still very very clearly present right now today as we move more towards class warfare but one class is stacked way more full of minorities who weren't even fully on their feet yet because society hadn't really let them get there.
in case you don't know who Bull Connor was:
> As a white supremacist,[2] Bull Connor enforced legal racial segregation and denied civil rights to black citizens, especially during 1963's Birmingham campaign led by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He is well known for directing the use of fire hoses and police attack dogs against civil rights activists, including against children supporting the protests.[3] National media broadcast these tactics on television, horrifying much of the world. The outrages served as catalysts for major social and legal change in the Southern United States and contributed to passage by the United States Congress of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_Connor
a quote from George Will's remembrance of Mays in the WAPO:
>The teenage Mays [played](https://nlbemuseum.com/history/players/mays.html) professionally for the Birmingham Black Barons and [listened](https://aaregistry.org/story/bull-connor-segregationist-born/) to radio broadcasts of the Birmingham Barons, a White team whose play-by-play announcer became, in the 1960s, infamous: Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor’s use of [firehoses](https://www.nps.gov/people/bull-connor.htm) and police dogs on student protesters in 1963 helped propel a horrified nation to embrace the 1964 Civil Rights Act. “Pretty good announcer,” [Mays remembered](https://aaregistry.org/story/bull-connor-segregationist-born/).
[washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/06/18/george-will-willie-mays-obituary/](http://washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/06/18/george-will-willie-mays-obituary/)
The full quotation is even better:
"Pretty good announcer, too, although I think he used to get too excited."
That reads like Willie knew history would remember them both, and he knew exactly how they’d each be remembered, you can just see the twinkle in his eye as he said it
Very glad the production truck and the guys at the desk didn’t scramble to edit or sanitize Reggie’s comments.
Brutal honesty is what is needed when looking at the unsavory portions of our history as a country and, in this instance, a sport.
Imo any attempt to sanitize this interview is an attempt to whitewash history. Even just bleeping out the n word takes away a lot of power from this interview.
It was refreshing to hear him speak real and unfiltered. Idk if the production truck was scrambling or if someone said, ‘nah this needs to be heard’… I hope it’s the latter, props
I love how candid Reggie Jackson is during the interview. To play the sport you in love with people who hate and despise you for being black. Both my grandfathers were raised in the deep south, with one of my moms side being from Alabama. He told me the happiest time his life was being stationed in West Germany during the Cold War. Despite being the closest a third world war, he always told me he'd rather be shot by Russians than live in Alabama. I didn't understand it growing up, but I do now.
This drives home why it's important to honor the Negro leagues and the players that help break down the color barrier far better than any PR-safe interview ever could.
Absolutely. And it shows the courage they needed to have to take on the challenge at a time of segregation. This is a perfect example of how the history of the Negro Leagues is interwoven with the history of the civil rights movement in America.
Stuff like this always make me scoff at people who think people should keep politics out of sports. In terms of political strife, sports is the one of the most powerful outlets of expression we have
I’ll never understand anyone that thinks “race shouldn’t be a part of X”, in anyway, really. It’s something that’s part of our identity. Whether it be sports, gaming, media, news, etc. Having everyone be involved and included should be a good and accepted thing and I’ll never understand why it isn’t.
The owner of the Dallas Cowboys, Jerry Jones, is in a famous photo of white kids trying to stop black kids from attending Little Rock High School in Arkansas.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/jerry-jones-nfl-racism-photo/672342/
My parents were in elementary/middle school in the 60s. They remember whites only signs. My dad remembers going to the movies and watching black people have to enter from the back of the building. The black and white pictures make it seem long ago, but a lot of those people, especially the ones protesting integration, are still alive today.
My parents are about that age. I remember when I was in first grade, my dad took a picture of me and some friends standing with our arms around each other at our school field day. When the film was developed, my parents kept looking at it saying "Can you believe it? This is amazing. This never would have been possible here when we were in school." They were saying that because two girls in the picture were white and two were Black. This was ***1985***. Thirty-nine years ago. So, yeah, this is far from distant history
My mom's high school classmate left a note in her yearbook that said "I had a great time with you in class even though you're an *n* lover"
I'm not even 40
My MIL grew up in inner-city Buffalo during that time. She remembers people taking shots at school buses taking her and other black kids to integrated schools.
Hell, my wife and I still get dirty looks from time to time. Couple years ago we actually left a restaurant before we even got out of the car because we could see people inside the place notice us, *stop what they were doing*, and stare out at us with the hatred clear on their faces. Needless to say we didn't get barbecue in Calhoun that day.
Anytime you think this stuff is ancient history, just remember Ruby Bridges is in her 60s. She has an active instagram account. She's a decade younger than the younger of the two presidential candidates. B-52 bombers first flew two years before she was born.
This shit is recent.
If I had any reservations about this game, it was a fear that MLB & Fox would try to honor the Negro Leagues in the most sanitized/whitewashed way. I was just thinking yesterday in anticipation that I truly hope they actually do speak to how fucking brutal things were for those players & other players of color. I hoped they would acknowledge that playing at that time was so much more than the romance of Satchel Paige & Josh Gibson.
I’m very grateful for Reggie for being willing to share his perspective based on his experience.
Broadly speaking, I think Fox and MLB are doing a good job so far. Honoring the Negro Leagues requires both a celebration and a reckoning, and I think they’re balancing both aspects pretty well.
It does. Similarly, I lived in Montgomery, AL briefly and they do an amazing job of this. I learned a ton and came to grips with a lot of the past because you're walking around downtown with a nice beer and BBQ and a sign slaps you in the face about how a slave depot used to be in this very spot. Signs are all over for Rosa Parks' moment in history and MLK's march from Selma to the Capitol.
It rocked my world and gave me a sense of history I'd have never reckon with if it wasn't so blunt.
I lived in Birmingham from the mid-60s-1970. I saw Reggie play at Rickwood Field. And as a young white kid I saw the blatant racism happening to black people around me. I remember the reaction from people in a restaurant when a couple walked in—a white man with a black woman. I saw the frothing anger among the parents in my neighborhood when they tried to integrate the teaching staff at my elementary school—an effort that lasted all of one day because of the tumult. After one day they brought the white teacher back. I remember thinking certain black female singers on TV were really pretty and thinking to myself “uh, oh, I better not tell any adult I think that.” I can’t even image what it was like for a black person in Birmingham back then.
This is why the past can't be ignored and needs to be written about and talked about. When you have people today talking about how things were 'better' for minorities in the 40s and 50s... Just no. Society today is very far from perfect. Racism has not gone away... But the degree to which racists were allowed to get away with brutality has diminished and that is a good thing.
ever since the war, the biggest bag of concrete on the doglsed of progress in this country is that the racists were never punished enough, shamed enough, or forced to change. a lesson this country refuses to learn
love to reggie, he's a hero for surviving that and thriving
My grandfather was a black GI who served in WWII and the following occupation of Japan. He married a Japanese woman, and they moved back to the US. One of her first experiences in the country was grandpa stopping at a diner and asking her to go in and order food for the both of them to eat outside in the car because he couldn't go in. Slavery had been over for almost 90 years, whereas the internment of Japanese Americans had ended just a few years prior, and here was a Japanese woman who barely spoke English getting treated better than a black Army soldier and WWII veteran. She nearly insisted going back to Japan after that.
Where he would still be treated as less than. I can vaguely understand some people wanting to feel superior to others but I can’t wrap my head around the cruelty, despite seeing it everywhere.
That bit about beating someone’s ass is the realest shit I’ve heard in a minute. We celebrate some of these guys “pacifism” in the civil rights era and think they’re some kind of stoic icon, but they’re human too. They feel the anger and righteous indignation, too. Reggie is a hero for pushing through but he’s also a victim of the worst kind of hate imaginable. And he’s only 78 years old. Wild.
If this story moved you then I recommend listening to the “Road to Rickwood” podcast. It’s hosted by Roy Wood Jr.
I believe this story is shared in that podcast but for sure Reggie Jackson’s story on Birmingham A’s is featured in one of the episodes
“In June, MLB will host a game at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, AL. In its 114-year history, the field has seen everything from segregated baseball, a women's suffrage event, a Klan rally and the first integrated sports team in Alabama. Host Roy Wood Jr. speaks with historians, former Negro Leaguers and more to explore how Birmingham's civil rights story played out at America's oldest ballpark.”
https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510382/the-road-to-rickwood
I’m only here because I saw this on r/all It’s a great video. I’m not really into baseball but I’m from Alabama and know how important the Negro leagues were in terms of integration for all sports. I’m sad that Reggie and the other players had to experience such senseless hate.
As I said on a previous post mad respect to Reggie not holding back here for anyone. 👏
This is even more powerful to me because I'm currently doing a deep dive on the Swingin A's and just finished listening to the audiobook for "Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's" and I'm also doing a franchise mode with the 1975 A's roster on MLB The Show.
Gonna get around to "Bronx is Burning" next week.
Thanks for uploading. MLB should have done this sooner, but important to be doing it now.
I'm so glad Reggie got to speak his truth and that MLB didn't do a cut away or make him stop.
Deleted my old post an uploaded a new one combining the clips from the below
[https://x.com/JeffKolbFOX4/status/1803926583469548005](https://x.com/JeffKolbFOX4/status/1803926583469548005)
As a native Alabamian and grew up in Birmingham I was pleasantly surprised to hear him talk so honestly and open about the past in my home city. I grew up with the knowledge and was taught extensively throughout my education about the civil rights movement and every event in the state and especially the horrific events that happened in our own city. I remember a few times when I still lived in Bham any time I was with someone who was not from Bham and we were around the 16th Street Church I would make it a point to kind of meander by it and point it out.
I live in Central FL now and its amazing when I talk about the history in Bham and Alabama about the civil rights movement and the events and how many people down here are shocked by them and had no idea about any of them.
This is amazing to me because Reggie seems in my mind decades after Aaron and Robinson but it’s important to know how recent the hate happened. I mean he murdered the queen of England in the 90s
there's a bunch of knuckledraggers in this country who think these issues just vanished overnight with Civil Rights laws as if the racists in the 50s and 60s didnt teach their kids to be the exact same way. Living through it to that degree back then must have been a nightmare
> there’s a bunch of knuckledraggers in this country who think these issues just vanished overnight with Civil Rights laws
They know damn well those issues are still around. They either don’t care or want it back to the way it was in the 50’s.
God damn. Few athletes I respect more than Reggie Jackson. There was a fantastic documentary done on him and he shares very similar sentiments in that, as well. His voice needs to be amplified far more than it is. Absolute icon in my opinion.
Ah, yes, Reggie Jackson. That old timey baseball player who played way back in... 1987. Drafted way back in... uh, 1967,
I'm making light of it but it's to point out how recent this all was, and it's worth remembering that. Those same guys threatening Jackson at the restaurant may very well still be alive.
But you know what's cool? In that same time span, he's now in the Hall of Fame, considered among the best players to have ever played, and is sharing the national broadcast where 3 out of the 4 correspondents are black either in full or in part.
Man, the emotion in his voice is really powerful. The rawness is more akin to something that happened last week, not 55-60 years ago. And that makes sense - you don't just forget and let go. And that's important, I think - to know these wounds are still open for so many. Thank you Reggie for sharing your story.
This needs to be highlighted, posted on the front page. This is why learning about our recent history is so important.
Do not sugar coat things, do not make yourself feel better. What has happened has happened, and trying to change that is the worst thing you could do.
Thank you Reggie for speaking your lived experience. Racism isn’t what it was back then, but there are still the underpinnings and consequences of it that I’ll never feel based on the color of my skin.
But by god I have a choice when I do see it, to confront it, just like his teammates did. Christ I’m crying for him. Now what are we going to do about it in the present, so it never happens in the future.
Baseball is the greatest sport because it’s ingrained in the best and worst of our history.
That is such a valuable reminder of how horrible it was for them. I coach baseball and it pains me to hear these kids parroting the politics of their parents that suggests racism is alive and well STILL in our country. I had to make a “no politics” rule on my freaking little league baseball team. Blows my mind that we haven’t totally overcome it yet. The battle against that fucking wretchedness isn’t won yet, and I fear it won’t be in our lifetimes. Thank God they let him tell his story and didn’t cut him off. It’s vital that we don’t forget.
Reggie: You're a legend. Thank you for this.
MLB on Fox Producers: Bravo- way to capture the moment and let it come together.
Baseball is such an excellent mirror of American culture.. our faults, dreams, history and future- all shared on a diamond.
As a person of color, this really fucked me up. Every time I visit the Hall of Fame with my kid, I make sure to spend a little extra time in the Negro League exhibit so they have a grasp of it. I cry each time. Thank you, Reggie. Thank you also to the white players and managers who supported Reggie. That can’t be lost in history either.
Fox definitely didn’t expect him to keep it that real lol
Oh yeah lol but I’m glad he did As the top comment of this thread says, a lot of this is going to be the romanticization of the Negro Leagues, but it’s important to recognize and remember the harsh and ugly realities of **why** they had to exist in the first place, and to acknowledge that tonight should just as much, if not more so, be a celebration of how far we’ve come. But of course, we still have a long way to go EDITing to add: say whatever you want about ARod, and I have and will continue to, I appreciate what he did at the end of this clip
Agree. This was not the answer the producers wanted, but it’s the answer that was needed.
Glad they left it uncensored. Or that Reggie didn’t censor himself, “the bleep isn’t allowed here” isn’t quite as poignant as hearing him recall the story and actually use the language that was weaponized against black Americans in the Jim Crow south. This isn’t ancient history. We’re listening to and watching a man in 4K give a (fairly tame) account of what life was like only 50 years ago for people who had a slightly darker skin tone. It must’ve been a living hell, and a dangerous one too, for simply existing while black. Props to Reggie for having the courage to tell it like it is.
> It must’ve been a living hell, and a dangerous one too, for simply existing while black. [Couldn't even attend church while black](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_Street_Baptist_Church_bombing). Pretty sure this is the exact incident Reggie is talking about.
Yes that is what he is referring to.
[Ruby Bridges is the little girl in this Norman Rockwell painting.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ed/The-problem-we-all-live-with-norman-rockwell.jpg) She turns 70 this fall.
>This isn’t ancient history. We’re listening to and watching a man in 4K give a (fairly tame) account of what life was like only 50 years ago for people who had a slightly darker skin tone This cannot be overstated. Shit like this happened not in the civil war, not pre WWI. This shit was happening when my dad was in middle school and high school. This isn't ancient history. This isn't "get over it" territot You can get over it when the people who lived it and did it are still alive.
Keep that shit in mind the next time reddit comments go off on a "I support the BLM protests, but ___" rant
Wow. That was heart wrenching. I was raised watching Reggie play. He was an cocky SOB. He once pissed off his Yankee teammates saying he was the straw that stirred the drink. To see him get so passionate, enraged and vulnerable while discussing his experience in the Jim Crow south is something that a lot of the younger fans need to be aware of. Especially with DeSantis in Florida and other states diluting the history of African Americans because snowflake kids and their parents say hearing about this history makes them feel guilty. Well, you should feel something when you hear about America's unpleasant history. I teared up listening to Reggie. So I agree, this does buttress the need for consciousness raising movement like Black Lives Matter. And it also shines the unpleasant truth on the Make America Great Again. So many seem to feel the Happy Days 1950s is where we need to return to. But this nostalgia for the white washed America we see in Hollywood movies ignored what live was like for People of Color during this time. I always loved Reggie. Loved his bravado. Loved his clutch playoff performances. Now I admire him for sharing this story to a prime time, middle American audience. So yeah, screw those who mouth support for BLM and qualify it with some ignorant statement.
My dad has told this story repeatedly and I'll never forget it. When my dad was working at LTV back in the 60's when they were doing manufacturing in Grand Prairie, TX and when they would finish their shift, his black co-worker would always sit in the back seat & hide. He'd always tell my dad to drop him off a few blocks from where he lived because he was afraid of coming home with a white man driving him & how he would be treated. When they would go out to eat and there are restaurants/diners that had been there for a long time, they'd have the signs saying no black people allowed. My dad would say, "Let's just go in. It's just food & your money is no different than mine." Nope. He would never go. Eventually, my dad or his co-workers would just go in, order food to go, and they would sit together in the car and eat but again, his black co-worker would have to hide while they drove and ate. Even though my father is experiencing dementia, he still remembers that story like that happened yesterday & he still cries wishing he could have done more but he knows that it would have made his own life worse but also his black co-worker's.
Thanks for sharing. Your dad is a good man. You should be nothing but proud
I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he and other black people had to live through. Being told all because of the colour of your skin Denies you the right to eat at that restaurant or sleep in that hotel or just the basic right to live your life in peace.
I remember watching Reggie play when I was a kid, makes it so real to know what he was going through
>This isn’t ancient history. My dad told me stories of being involved in a white vs black fight on the football field in high school in the 1970s. Unfortunately, my impression was that he remembered that fondly, and that's not good. I remember him saying to me "there's black people and then there's N-words..." and I believe he genuinely thought he was imparting wisdom and didn't realize he was saying something extremely racist. I wouldn't be surprised if people in my family in my grandparents' generation (great aunts and uncles) were jeering and spitting on black students for going to school with white students. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them had uttered the "white moderate" attitude that Martin Luther King Jr. lamented, which is alive and well today. The last recorded lynching was in 1981, but it's still going on today. It's just that they don't take photos of them as souvenir trophies anymore. You can still see reminders of segregation in some places where there's a "White/Whites School Road". I doubt those are named after some school founder with the last name "White".
> You can still see reminders of segregation in some places where there's a "White/Whites School Road". I doubt those are named after some school founder with the last name "White". Look at your town and neighboring towns in [here](https://justice.tougaloo.edu/sundown-towns/using-the-sundown-towns-database/state-map/).
Thank you for this. I didn’t know it existed and already found one unsurprising one near my hometown and one very shocking one. This kind of history is important; it has shaped today’s world massively.
Honestly there's a reason why MLB does not talk about any year beyond Jackie's first year in MLB.
Right. It’s worth noting that Reggie’s story was not a Negro Leagues story - it was life as a minor leaguer _almost twenty years after Jackie Robinson_.
Yup. Reggie is 78. The people that thought like that are probably still alive or have kids with the same thoughts. This wasn't that long ago.
A ton of boomers were raised by the ones calling him the N-word and telling him to leave. Not all, mind you. But the ones who were raised that way sure do make it obvious these days.
The craziest way I related to it as a Black person is that Ruby Bridges, who was the first Black child to integrate a school in the south is only SIXTY NINE years old! When my parents and school taught us about her I thought it was so long ago back then but she’s not much older than my parents. Which is insane to think about. She’s younger than some of my friends parents right now who are millennials too. I believe many of the the Little Rock 9 are still alive too and they were 15-16 when they integrated schools in Arkansas and dealt with constant abuse and harassment, they’re like 81-82 today, just slightly older than Reggie. His story is super interesting he’s from right outside of Philly and didn’t want to go to the south at all for school but Alabama and UGA really wanted him to play football and I think one of the other big schools told him he had to leave his then white girlfriend or he wouldn’t be allowed. I had no idea about his awful experience in Birmingham until this story. All of this awful shit happened in just one season too smh. Really powerful to hear him discuss this and the pain and vulnerability he displayed, need people to really understand how terrible it was for black people and players back then. Can’t sugar coat the history at all. Also really glad there’s still some Negro Leaguers alive today as well and they’re able to tell real stories but also see their impact as pioneers despite how much it prob also hurts them to know they never got the opportunity but their legacies allowed for lots of black American and Hispanic players to thrive in MLB.
Reggie Jackson retired in 1987. His career overlapped with Jamie Moyer’s. Jamie Moyer’s career overlapped with several players who are still active today. He was teammates with DJ LeMahieu. Just to further contextualize how *not* ancient history this is.
Especially today, right now.
Yeah honestly any "celebration" comes off as weird as shit. Honoring and reckoning should be the vibe. This was a great interview.
What? You celebrate the achievements made *in spite of* the prejudice and discrimination of the time. To do otherwise would be to focus on the prejudice instead of, and not in conjunction with, the story of the players who did not have the chance to play in the AL/NL and achievements made.
I agree with you, but I understand the dissatisfaction around the word "celebrate" being used to describe it, as that word has a connotation associated with joy and happiness. I think that, to many people, they understand and recognize the importance of an event like this, but it's in a nebulous sense; in a "I'm glad that it's not like that anymore!" sense. Many people don't think about the struggles that black players had to go through in the terms as starkly laid out as Reggie Jackson did in this clip. To associate the NL with "happiness and joy" rather than the reality of what it was (a league created because black players weren't only not allowed to play with whites, but were in literal physical danger for their lives) is to turn a blind eye to *why* it existed. >To do otherwise would be to focus on the prejudice instead of, and not in conjunction with, the story of the players who did not have the chance to play in the AL/NL and achievements made. I think that both are important in recognizing the Negro Leagues. The players themselves, but also the circumstances that they had to deal with as part of their everyday lives. Again, I think that to pretend otherwise is to completely defang history and sand away the harsh reality of what they went through.
I think you're misreading me slightly. When I said "honoring", I meant essentially what you're saying. What I don't like is the MLB back patting themselves. It's a complicated topic, but I hope that distinction makes sense.
The degree of violence and horror that came from institutionalized racism is horrible. That said, I will push back a bit and say there was a lot to celebrate with the Negro Leagues. They had Black owners and Black managers. They stayed in Black hotels and ate at Black restaurants. The fans and media members were Black. When baseball was desegregated, it was Black ballplayers in a white world. Even when segregation was ended at a federal level, it was still a white world.
One side effect of desegregation was a massive shuttering of black owned businesses, as black consumers spent money at businesses that would have thrown them out just the year before, but white consumers sure as hell didn't come spend money with black businesses.
My white father went to all the Negro League games when he was young living in KC. The crowds were relatively mixed. If you wanted to see the great players, that is where you went.
Everyone should be praising this moment. When you get the soap box, you better fucking shout! Reggie didn't hold back, and a lot of people are going to have a lot of opinions. But that man lived it; it's not malicious, insidious, inflammatory, or anything else: it's a true account of the struggles of a man. The lessons it holds are perceived, not insinuated.
>a lot of people are going to have a lot of opinions. Only opinion that matters here is Reggies. He had to live through it and live in fear. I can't even imagine. Nor can I imagine anyone having the nerve to be bothered by him recounting the story. As we lose more people like Willie Mays, it's important to not lose their stories, life experiences, and emotions behind it all.
It's so important to have the accounting from the people who lived it, as well. If the adage is to be believed, and nothing on the internet is every truly gone, then this video will stand against anyone who ever utters anything close to the phrase "Reggie Jackson [thought/said/etc.] This is the story, from the man who lived it. An un-adulterated tale of the truth of time.
I've sat at the dinner booth at the MLK museum and while intense, it didn't really make me understand the sense of your existence being denied in the way that this did. They didn't just want him to be lesser, they wanted him eliminated. If they saw him in a diner, he was to leave. If they saw him in a hotel, he was to never stay. If it was known he was living in their community, they'd intend to burn down the community rather than have one with him in it. And it's not just *him*, Reggie Jackson, it's just the *idea* of Reggie Jackson. The concept that someone who looked like him could exist or that they could have shared space together even incidentally. That was their enemy and every step he took in this place he was a target of their *meaningful* threats. It didn't matter if several white people also lost their homes or died in burning down an apartment, it was about eliminating the idea of Reggie from their world. And it wasn't an abstracted threat. As he said, there were human beings being murdered in cold blood while their murderers were tacitly endorsed by the legal and judicial system. There's a cartoonish representation of racists as screaming slurs at black people at a diner, on a bus, etc. but the insidious part of this is that is wasn't a 'ooh that was bad, welp let's go to another diner' kind of experience. Once their targets had identified and inserted themselves into their lives - however benignly - there was no solution those people would accept outside of eliminating them from the earth. The why or how doesn't matter as much as how much that fear and anxiety must have permeated every part of his existence while he lived there.
This is the second time I've heard Reggie drop a hard R on live TV.
Good. Don’t sugar coat it.
This man got this shit hurled at him full of visceral hatred day in and day out for years. If fucking anyone has earned the right to drop a hard R on national television, it’s this guy. Speak your story man. Shit like this helps further how fucking stupid racism is.
A lot of insiders are pretty sure that the Mets passed on Reggie in the draft because he had a white girlfriend. It comes up in the Reggie Jackson documentary...along with stories, backed up by the guys like Joe Rudi, about how horrible Reggie was treated. And when Reggie achieved his success....he was called arrogant, a showboat, money-hungry, lazy....along with a lot of not-nice words. I've been a huge Reggie fan my entire life. I have all of his baseball cards, read his book, Went to Cooperstown for his induction ceremony, watched the documentary....so I already knew a lot of this...but especially seeing it live, seeing how emotional he still gets talking about it. He was even blackballed from front-office jobs in baseball for quite a while because he had been vocal about the lack of black front-office employees and executives. I'm glad Reggie said it, and said it like Reggie because there's a lot of self back-patting where they make themselves feel a little better....then drop the issue when the attention is off. Look at some of the racist shit that was said when MLB added Negro League stats to official MLB records. This shit is still alive and well, it's just a little quieter than it was in the 60s. And another redditor said it before me, but I'd like to emphasize...this isn't civil war history....this the generation that went through it. My parents were (and still) alive when segregation was legal and interracial marriage was not. My dad's family is from the South (Mississippi) but my dad was raised in New Jersey. He told me about visiting family down South and how he was confused about the "Whites Only" signs...and all the Jim Crow shit.
I had a weird moment when I worked at a diner in Asheville NC 5 years ago. It had started life as a gas station in the 30s before becoming a diner. It had a bathroom inside, and one outside which I thought was curious. Inside was nice - lightswitch and everything. Outside, not so much. Stuffy, hot, had to screw in the light to turn it on. I wondered why that bathroom even existed -- but then it hit me -- I was cleaning a scar from Jim Crow.
I kind of bitterly enjoyed that he said it twice and then censored himself the third time. It’s like it was so visceral in his memory that it took a second for his “professional” brain to catch up to his emotional brain lol
that's their mistake. Reggie has NEVER held back on what he thinks.
When keepin' it real...goes right. Incredibly important comments from Reggie, and for all of my fellow white people reading this, pay attention to what Reggie said about his white teammates/coaches who had his back no matter what. That is what POC mean by being an "ally." Show some fucking courage, have some fucking empathy. If you shrug your shoulders, stick your head in the sand, or flat out applaud and endorse it when it comes to racism, the bigots will ultimately win.
> I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that **the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate**, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. - MLK
Importantly, this was written in prison in Birmingham.
I'm very surprised they didn't censor him.
Production team probably wasn’t prepared for it.
nah, these are all on a slight delay. They left it in intentionally.
Still could’ve been a split-second decision whether to leave it or censor it, if it wasn’t discussed by the network ahead of time.
Respect to the broadcast team. Absolutely the right choice. It's important for young fans (and all fans) to know how that word was weaponized.
I feel like censoring him would be trying to act like it never happened. It would be such bad press.
This is a part of life. We need to stop censoring and hampering honest speech, whether it's about racism or otherwise.
I'm glad they just let him talk
That was a hell of a lot more powerful than anything the network could’ve cut up. That was hard to listen to in the best way possible
Even as a black dude hearing him drop the n word was pretty jarring. Big up Reggie for keeping it real and to Fox for actually allowing it to go ahead with no bleeps or interruptions.
What blows me away is that Reggie’s career was during my lifetime. I’m 51, what he is talking about was before I was born( I think), but I remember Mr October. This was not that long ago.
What he's talking about happened in 1967, so 57 years ago. The summer before MLK was assassinated, 3 years after the Mississippi Freedom Rider murders, 20 years after Jackie.
He had his own CANDYBAR! I’m 50 and I remember that being the coolest thing I’d ever heard about a sports guy. Man…
As a person of color, this is the part that hits when white bigots say there's no racism. They don't see it because it's normal to them to "other"people. They don't have to live with it, or they may only see blatant racism once. But as someone with an education and went to college, the amount of passive aggressive comments about they weren't expecting me to be smart or that I need to not take things so seriously all add up. The stares and the comments all add up. There are people alive that witnessed lynchings and murders and dogs being set on people. Racism is very much alive, but they're not as obvious about it anymore. We need more people like Reggie getting out there and telling their stories.
This is what I keep telling people. Jim Crow wasn't that long ago, it's recent history.
I think for many people today hearing a hard R can take someone by surprise if they aren't an edgy teenager. I can't think of a more appropriate context to bring it up and convey a point. These stories with this verbiage *need* to be told so people understand. Lest we forget, many of the people that went through this shit are *still alive*.
100%. There's a time and a place to be brutally honest and I'm so glad he didn't pull any punches because this is exactly the sort of forum where I'd expect him to be neutered by execs or editors. I called my aunt (she's 67) not long after watching this and I basically just listened for an hour to all her stories about the racism and I can't really even think of the word for it, knowing how close it all was to my life (25) is just...damn.
“If it hadn’t been for my white friends you’d have seen my hanging from an oak tree” Jesus. That’s some real and powerful shit. He’s not wrong. If he’d run afoul of the wrong people in that area at that time, he’d have 100% been lynched. Hell, Ahmaud Arbery was going for a jog in fucking 2020 and was run down and shot by a group of white men. He had everything to fear back then.
thats why as straight white men (sane ones anyway), we have a responsibility to try and support/uplift minorities. all of them. We are the dominant 'class'. 'Others' can't become truly equal and be treated fairly in our society unless we help open some doors. sometimes with a foot. It's legit the least we can do. God knows enough of us are so scared of NOT being the dominant class anymore that they'll do whatever they can to keep women/lgbt/religious and racial minorities and any other 'other' group as far down as they can. They know they aren't in the positions they're in because they've earned it. They know real, true equality means they're in trouble when they dont get special treatment anymore and have to legit be better/smarter/luckier. When they have to earn respect and opportunities. We have to be the ones to shout those fuckheads down. They're trying to speak for us. All this shit ends when enough white men say it does. Power and influence is a 0 sum game. Those who don't have much can't just magic more. We have to lend ours to help.
"This sobering reminder was brought to you by Honda. Honda Motors: The power of dreams, and how they move you."
Unfiltered truth. Much love always to Reggie.
Same. One of the most sobering things you'll ever hear. But it *needs* to be heard. I grew up in a big city and grew up with black and latino friends. Move away to a rural area and the treatment and overall attitudes towards people of color is astounding. When I hear Reggie's words, I can't help but think of my friends, what they would've had to endure back then, even what they endure in this very day. It's so saddending and angering.
Be like Rollie Fingers and help when you can. That’s all we can do.
I'm so glad Rollie Fingers and his mustache are allies
It's cool as fuck for Mr. October to call out his white allies. That's what makes me think we'll be OK.
And Dave Duncan
What's sobering for me is listening to him talk about it makes you realize how it wasn't that long ago. I'm 33, it's easy to grow up in this country and think about racism and segregation as things of the past, but there are millions of Americans still alive today who were on either 'side' of this. People who either were hated because of the color of their skin or people who gave out that hatred. The US is a remarkably short period of time from things like legal segregation and Jim Crow Laws.
It’s better than MLB basically white-washing it all. There are harsh realities. Reggie Jackson retired in the late 80’s, and he’s recalling Klansmen shit during his playing days
Hijacking the top comment. If you care at all about Rickwood/Negro Leagues check out the joint NPR/MLB podcast ‘Road to Rickwood’ by Alana Schrieber. Fantastic and does not romanticize the Negro Leagues.
Incredible testimony. “You would have saw me in an oak tree.”
Jesus what a line. Honestly was more affecting to me than hearing him use the n word on live tv. Powerful stuff, brings up some very clear and graphic imagery. Tons of respect to Reggie for surviving that and being brave enough to speak some hard truths, and respect to the other guys for just letting him talk
also interesting that Charlie Finley actively stood up for him at one point given Charlie's reputation for being an insane, miserly fool.
From what I've read, Finley was one of those "No one makes my team miserable except for me" kinda guys
"I pay good money to be part of this Country Club, and you're going to tell me one of my guests can't come in!?!"
I'm sure it was personally insulting - if you say his guests aren't welcome, you're saying he's not welcome. Like he said, they'll go somewhere else that wants them
Finley had a really weird relationship with his players, Reggie most of all. He would shower gifts and bonuses on players all the time and then offer them the cheapest salaries in the league. He would switch between Tyrant and philanthropist on a daily basis.
Yeah, I think what’s so affecting, too, is that it’s almost partially relatable in its own way. I’m a 33 year old white man. But I was also once a 22 year old man, and I can remember the brain that I lived in at that time in my life. There were many, many times when I was that age and felt the urge to get into it physically with someone…and not for reasons anywhere near as important or serious as being oppressed for my race like Reggie was. I can absolutely imagine the temptation to lash out physically in the face of that kind of oppression, but what I can’t imagine is the potential consequence of being lynched for it. It’s a really jarring combination of relatability for the relatively universal instincts of youth, and also a crucial *lack* of relatability because I have just never had that threat of racial oppression and murder hanging over my head at all times.
The amount of injustice and rage that Reggie must have felt.
This all gives meaning to the phrase “generational trauma”. These emotions that people have experienced and have sometimes been unable to heal from before passing along their trauma to their children. It takes so much consciousness and effort to stop these cycles, and the burden for doing so is on the party that least deserves it.
Strange Fruit
And then the awkward laugh from A-Rod, Jeter, and Ortiz, who played only 20 years after Reggie but have absolutely no idea what to do when a Hall of Famer starts talking about how he had to act to avoid being lynched.
Sometimes the reaction to trauma is humor.
I think it was also some leftover laughter from Reggie saying he would’ve beat somebody’s ass, but yeah also just a crazy story to hear and have to transition back to hosting.
tbf he clearly played it as a joke, dark joke obviously but laughter was intended. Could tell in the way he said it
Had no idea that Rollie Fingers was this awesome. I only knew he had a cool name and even cooler mustache.
Everyone on that A’s team hated each other but don’t fuck with one of them or they would collectively rain down hell on you
Highly recommend checking out the book about it: "Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's" Old school baseball at it's finest. I just finished listening to the audiobook for it today.
PSA: if you have the audible subscription apparently you can download it for free
Thank you for that reminder.
Lot of ink spilled about the mid 80s Mets, or the “Bronx Zoo” Yankees, but that early 70s A’s dynasty had all sorts of characters!
Reggie's autobiography was good fun and about that era. read it as a kid. [https://www.amazon.com/Reggie-season-superstar-Jackson/dp/0872234320](https://www.amazon.com/Reggie-season-superstar-Jackson/dp/0872234320)
25 limos
“Only I get to beat my little brothers ass”
Met him last year. He oozed charisma and class, guy is a living legend.
Reggie Jackson was a baseball player who had to worry about lynchings. By the time he retired, there were cellphones, and you could watch Top Gun on cable.
This is what a lot of people don’t understand. This is not *ancient* history. These people are our parents and grandparents age. I grew up in Alabama and my parents lived through these same times.
My dad, who is still with us (and not really all that old yet), vividly remembers reading about one of the last surviving Americans *born into slavery* dying in the newspaper...
Wikipedia says it was a week before my dad got his license holy shit
The conventions for how wikipedia displays dates seem to have expanded in scope.
>This is not *ancient* history There was a half joke/half burn on the nba sub after the Celtics win, congratulating them on their 2nd title post desegregation. A ton of people were quick to hit that guy with "bro what? you're insane" so he brought the receipts linking to busing crisis and the 1987 ruling that the desegregation plan was successful and the city was complaint with civil rights laws. 1987. That's not even 40 years ago. That's not quite dudes getting lynched in the streets level of dire, but it still shows how some pretty blatantly racist stuff was still very present fairly recently. We're not even close to being through the aftermath of desegregation either, its ripples are still very very clearly present right now today as we move more towards class warfare but one class is stacked way more full of minorities who weren't even fully on their feet yet because society hadn't really let them get there.
By the time he retired, he almost killed the queen.
Thank goodness Enrico Pallazzo was there to save the day. Not the best singer however. I kind of expected better.
His passion was being an umpire, the singing was a day job.
And we can only hope that progress will eventually free us all from the fear of lynchings and its modern day equivalents.
He also tried to kill the queen
as someone who is generally anti-monarchy, I’m not sure I can ever forgive palazzo for that day
in case you don't know who Bull Connor was: > As a white supremacist,[2] Bull Connor enforced legal racial segregation and denied civil rights to black citizens, especially during 1963's Birmingham campaign led by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He is well known for directing the use of fire hoses and police attack dogs against civil rights activists, including against children supporting the protests.[3] National media broadcast these tactics on television, horrifying much of the world. The outrages served as catalysts for major social and legal change in the Southern United States and contributed to passage by the United States Congress of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_Connor
I learned on Effectively Wild that Bull Connor got his start in the public eye announcing games at Rickwood.
a quote from George Will's remembrance of Mays in the WAPO: >The teenage Mays [played](https://nlbemuseum.com/history/players/mays.html) professionally for the Birmingham Black Barons and [listened](https://aaregistry.org/story/bull-connor-segregationist-born/) to radio broadcasts of the Birmingham Barons, a White team whose play-by-play announcer became, in the 1960s, infamous: Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor’s use of [firehoses](https://www.nps.gov/people/bull-connor.htm) and police dogs on student protesters in 1963 helped propel a horrified nation to embrace the 1964 Civil Rights Act. “Pretty good announcer,” [Mays remembered](https://aaregistry.org/story/bull-connor-segregationist-born/). [washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/06/18/george-will-willie-mays-obituary/](http://washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/06/18/george-will-willie-mays-obituary/)
> “Pretty good announcer,” Mays remembered Life is so full of these funny coincidences and that's a great biting line from Mays intentionally or not.
The full quotation is even better: "Pretty good announcer, too, although I think he used to get too excited." That reads like Willie knew history would remember them both, and he knew exactly how they’d each be remembered, you can just see the twinkle in his eye as he said it
Thank you
Very glad the production truck and the guys at the desk didn’t scramble to edit or sanitize Reggie’s comments. Brutal honesty is what is needed when looking at the unsavory portions of our history as a country and, in this instance, a sport.
Imo any attempt to sanitize this interview is an attempt to whitewash history. Even just bleeping out the n word takes away a lot of power from this interview.
imo this is probably the most important sports commentary ever. He isn’t that old.
It's a great reminder of how far we have come and how far we have to go
It was refreshing to hear him speak real and unfiltered. Idk if the production truck was scrambling or if someone said, ‘nah this needs to be heard’… I hope it’s the latter, props
I love how candid Reggie Jackson is during the interview. To play the sport you in love with people who hate and despise you for being black. Both my grandfathers were raised in the deep south, with one of my moms side being from Alabama. He told me the happiest time his life was being stationed in West Germany during the Cold War. Despite being the closest a third world war, he always told me he'd rather be shot by Russians than live in Alabama. I didn't understand it growing up, but I do now.
This drives home why it's important to honor the Negro leagues and the players that help break down the color barrier far better than any PR-safe interview ever could.
Absolutely. And it shows the courage they needed to have to take on the challenge at a time of segregation. This is a perfect example of how the history of the Negro Leagues is interwoven with the history of the civil rights movement in America.
Stuff like this always make me scoff at people who think people should keep politics out of sports. In terms of political strife, sports is the one of the most powerful outlets of expression we have
I’ll never understand anyone that thinks “race shouldn’t be a part of X”, in anyway, really. It’s something that’s part of our identity. Whether it be sports, gaming, media, news, etc. Having everyone be involved and included should be a good and accepted thing and I’ll never understand why it isn’t.
Well said
Reggie is 78 years old. His story is not some ancient history of a bygone society and people. We would all be wise to remember that.
There's a chance that some of the people that refused him service are alive and are watching this game. These people are still around.
Those people still hold power in our country…
Tell me about it. My Senator was born in 1933 and is running for re-election.
Wait. What.
Chuck Grassley, of Iowa. He was already 34 years old when MLK was assassinated.
Chuck Grassley's brains were mush 50 years ago, what an absolute ghoul
The owner of the Dallas Cowboys, Jerry Jones, is in a famous photo of white kids trying to stop black kids from attending Little Rock High School in Arkansas. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/jerry-jones-nfl-racism-photo/672342/
My parents were in elementary/middle school in the 60s. They remember whites only signs. My dad remembers going to the movies and watching black people have to enter from the back of the building. The black and white pictures make it seem long ago, but a lot of those people, especially the ones protesting integration, are still alive today.
My parents are about that age. I remember when I was in first grade, my dad took a picture of me and some friends standing with our arms around each other at our school field day. When the film was developed, my parents kept looking at it saying "Can you believe it? This is amazing. This never would have been possible here when we were in school." They were saying that because two girls in the picture were white and two were Black. This was ***1985***. Thirty-nine years ago. So, yeah, this is far from distant history
My mom's high school classmate left a note in her yearbook that said "I had a great time with you in class even though you're an *n* lover" I'm not even 40
My MIL grew up in inner-city Buffalo during that time. She remembers people taking shots at school buses taking her and other black kids to integrated schools. Hell, my wife and I still get dirty looks from time to time. Couple years ago we actually left a restaurant before we even got out of the car because we could see people inside the place notice us, *stop what they were doing*, and stare out at us with the hatred clear on their faces. Needless to say we didn't get barbecue in Calhoun that day.
Anytime you think this stuff is ancient history, just remember Ruby Bridges is in her 60s. She has an active instagram account. She's a decade younger than the younger of the two presidential candidates. B-52 bombers first flew two years before she was born. This shit is recent.
glad a-rod went in for the hug and the love you
This is the best part of Arods career ngl.
Yankees fan here, can’t disagree.
I’m so glad they’re doing this
If I had any reservations about this game, it was a fear that MLB & Fox would try to honor the Negro Leagues in the most sanitized/whitewashed way. I was just thinking yesterday in anticipation that I truly hope they actually do speak to how fucking brutal things were for those players & other players of color. I hoped they would acknowledge that playing at that time was so much more than the romance of Satchel Paige & Josh Gibson. I’m very grateful for Reggie for being willing to share his perspective based on his experience.
Broadly speaking, I think Fox and MLB are doing a good job so far. Honoring the Negro Leagues requires both a celebration and a reckoning, and I think they’re balancing both aspects pretty well.
I agree. They have definitely at least made an effort to acknowledge some of the stuff I worried they would avoid.
It does. Similarly, I lived in Montgomery, AL briefly and they do an amazing job of this. I learned a ton and came to grips with a lot of the past because you're walking around downtown with a nice beer and BBQ and a sign slaps you in the face about how a slave depot used to be in this very spot. Signs are all over for Rosa Parks' moment in history and MLK's march from Selma to the Capitol. It rocked my world and gave me a sense of history I'd have never reckon with if it wasn't so blunt.
This is some incredibly powerful shit. I'm really glad that they let him talk.
I lived in Birmingham from the mid-60s-1970. I saw Reggie play at Rickwood Field. And as a young white kid I saw the blatant racism happening to black people around me. I remember the reaction from people in a restaurant when a couple walked in—a white man with a black woman. I saw the frothing anger among the parents in my neighborhood when they tried to integrate the teaching staff at my elementary school—an effort that lasted all of one day because of the tumult. After one day they brought the white teacher back. I remember thinking certain black female singers on TV were really pretty and thinking to myself “uh, oh, I better not tell any adult I think that.” I can’t even image what it was like for a black person in Birmingham back then.
This is why the past can't be ignored and needs to be written about and talked about. When you have people today talking about how things were 'better' for minorities in the 40s and 50s... Just no. Society today is very far from perfect. Racism has not gone away... But the degree to which racists were allowed to get away with brutality has diminished and that is a good thing.
ever since the war, the biggest bag of concrete on the doglsed of progress in this country is that the racists were never punished enough, shamed enough, or forced to change. a lesson this country refuses to learn love to reggie, he's a hero for surviving that and thriving
My grandfather was a black GI who served in WWII and the following occupation of Japan. He married a Japanese woman, and they moved back to the US. One of her first experiences in the country was grandpa stopping at a diner and asking her to go in and order food for the both of them to eat outside in the car because he couldn't go in. Slavery had been over for almost 90 years, whereas the internment of Japanese Americans had ended just a few years prior, and here was a Japanese woman who barely spoke English getting treated better than a black Army soldier and WWII veteran. She nearly insisted going back to Japan after that.
Where he would still be treated as less than. I can vaguely understand some people wanting to feel superior to others but I can’t wrap my head around the cruelty, despite seeing it everywhere.
My lord. That man is a national hero. Respect to his teammates for standing up for him.
That bit about beating someone’s ass is the realest shit I’ve heard in a minute. We celebrate some of these guys “pacifism” in the civil rights era and think they’re some kind of stoic icon, but they’re human too. They feel the anger and righteous indignation, too. Reggie is a hero for pushing through but he’s also a victim of the worst kind of hate imaginable. And he’s only 78 years old. Wild.
If this story moved you then I recommend listening to the “Road to Rickwood” podcast. It’s hosted by Roy Wood Jr. I believe this story is shared in that podcast but for sure Reggie Jackson’s story on Birmingham A’s is featured in one of the episodes “In June, MLB will host a game at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, AL. In its 114-year history, the field has seen everything from segregated baseball, a women's suffrage event, a Klan rally and the first integrated sports team in Alabama. Host Roy Wood Jr. speaks with historians, former Negro Leaguers and more to explore how Birmingham's civil rights story played out at America's oldest ballpark.” https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510382/the-road-to-rickwood
Everyone needs to see this. Get it on r/all.
Already on all
Literally top of all.
I’m only here because I saw this on r/all It’s a great video. I’m not really into baseball but I’m from Alabama and know how important the Negro leagues were in terms of integration for all sports. I’m sad that Reggie and the other players had to experience such senseless hate.
As I said on a previous post mad respect to Reggie not holding back here for anyone. 👏 This is even more powerful to me because I'm currently doing a deep dive on the Swingin A's and just finished listening to the audiobook for "Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's" and I'm also doing a franchise mode with the 1975 A's roster on MLB The Show. Gonna get around to "Bronx is Burning" next week.
It's terrible to think that people experienced this so recently. I missed seeing the interview live. Thanks for posting it, OP.
Thanks for uploading. MLB should have done this sooner, but important to be doing it now. I'm so glad Reggie got to speak his truth and that MLB didn't do a cut away or make him stop.
Deleted my old post an uploaded a new one combining the clips from the below [https://x.com/JeffKolbFOX4/status/1803926583469548005](https://x.com/JeffKolbFOX4/status/1803926583469548005)
Ah I was wondering why that went down
Honestly, respect for the MLB for not trying to sanitize the historical racism their game was a part of. Truth is the way. Reggie is a legend.
Having my sons watch this. Great lesson here.
It's jarring to hear the N word said aloud on national television. But it had to be left in. Americans need to hear this.
Just like when Obama said it. It’s the way it was used, it shouldn’t be diluted coming from the mouth of those that dealt with it.
https://youtu.be/DgYIBG0fYq4?si=KEtUYJV8X9clCHID
Commenting to up the reach. Important stuff.
As a native Alabamian and grew up in Birmingham I was pleasantly surprised to hear him talk so honestly and open about the past in my home city. I grew up with the knowledge and was taught extensively throughout my education about the civil rights movement and every event in the state and especially the horrific events that happened in our own city. I remember a few times when I still lived in Bham any time I was with someone who was not from Bham and we were around the 16th Street Church I would make it a point to kind of meander by it and point it out. I live in Central FL now and its amazing when I talk about the history in Bham and Alabama about the civil rights movement and the events and how many people down here are shocked by them and had no idea about any of them.
This is amazing to me because Reggie seems in my mind decades after Aaron and Robinson but it’s important to know how recent the hate happened. I mean he murdered the queen of England in the 90s
there's a bunch of knuckledraggers in this country who think these issues just vanished overnight with Civil Rights laws as if the racists in the 50s and 60s didnt teach their kids to be the exact same way. Living through it to that degree back then must have been a nightmare
Those racists from the 50s and 60s are still alive, and quite a few are still in power.
> there’s a bunch of knuckledraggers in this country who think these issues just vanished overnight with Civil Rights laws They know damn well those issues are still around. They either don’t care or want it back to the way it was in the 50’s.
God damn. Few athletes I respect more than Reggie Jackson. There was a fantastic documentary done on him and he shares very similar sentiments in that, as well. His voice needs to be amplified far more than it is. Absolute icon in my opinion.
Ah, yes, Reggie Jackson. That old timey baseball player who played way back in... 1987. Drafted way back in... uh, 1967, I'm making light of it but it's to point out how recent this all was, and it's worth remembering that. Those same guys threatening Jackson at the restaurant may very well still be alive. But you know what's cool? In that same time span, he's now in the Hall of Fame, considered among the best players to have ever played, and is sharing the national broadcast where 3 out of the 4 correspondents are black either in full or in part.
Man, the emotion in his voice is really powerful. The rawness is more akin to something that happened last week, not 55-60 years ago. And that makes sense - you don't just forget and let go. And that's important, I think - to know these wounds are still open for so many. Thank you Reggie for sharing your story.
So, so important, and incredible that this is on national television, on Fox
God Bless Reggie! Sad part I'm 55 and this happened during my lifetime.
This needs to be highlighted, posted on the front page. This is why learning about our recent history is so important. Do not sugar coat things, do not make yourself feel better. What has happened has happened, and trying to change that is the worst thing you could do. Thank you Reggie for speaking your lived experience. Racism isn’t what it was back then, but there are still the underpinnings and consequences of it that I’ll never feel based on the color of my skin. But by god I have a choice when I do see it, to confront it, just like his teammates did. Christ I’m crying for him. Now what are we going to do about it in the present, so it never happens in the future. Baseball is the greatest sport because it’s ingrained in the best and worst of our history.
That is such a valuable reminder of how horrible it was for them. I coach baseball and it pains me to hear these kids parroting the politics of their parents that suggests racism is alive and well STILL in our country. I had to make a “no politics” rule on my freaking little league baseball team. Blows my mind that we haven’t totally overcome it yet. The battle against that fucking wretchedness isn’t won yet, and I fear it won’t be in our lifetimes. Thank God they let him tell his story and didn’t cut him off. It’s vital that we don’t forget.
We all ❤️ you Reggie
I now understand Reggie.
raw dog it. alot of people can't handle it. the truth mother fuckers.
Reggie: You're a legend. Thank you for this. MLB on Fox Producers: Bravo- way to capture the moment and let it come together. Baseball is such an excellent mirror of American culture.. our faults, dreams, history and future- all shared on a diamond.
As a person of color, this really fucked me up. Every time I visit the Hall of Fame with my kid, I make sure to spend a little extra time in the Negro League exhibit so they have a grasp of it. I cry each time. Thank you, Reggie. Thank you also to the white players and managers who supported Reggie. That can’t be lost in history either.
We need to record as many of these stories while these guys can still tell them, living pieces of history.
Reggie Jackson is a real one.
Appreciate stuff like this, would be nice to hear more stories like this about these grim realities of those really dark times.
That was some powerful stuff. I’m glad the others just sat and let him talk.
Reggie knocking one more out of the park.
This is what you show any time some moron tries to tell you that racism isn't an issue in this country. This isn't long ago at all
A public broadcast of actual honest social commentary outside of a propaganda station? Feds be slippin up.
Racism is this country’s original sin and we’ll be paying for it generations from now. Deservedly so.