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SPRINGER BRIEFS IN RELIGIOUS STUDIES
BRIEFS IN RELIGION AND SPORT
Terry Shoemaker Editor
The Prophetic
Dimension of
Sport
SpringerBriefs in Religious Studies
Briefs in Religion and Sport
Series editors
Eric Bain-Selbo, Bowling Green, KY, USA
D. Gregory Sapp, DeLand, FL, USA
The SpringerBriefs in Religion and Sport is a refereed online and print publication
analyzing the intersections between world religions, religious practice, spirituality,
and global sport. Sport is an element of cultures across the globe, and it is
imperative that scholars bring their expertise to the topic in order to provide insights
about society and the human condition. The Series is a venue for theologians and
scholars of religion to interpret and analyze sport phenomena from around the
world. The editors of the series seek contributions that take seriously the study of
religion and sport as well as scholarship investigating notions of sport as religious
or spiritual practice. The series encourages submissions on any sport or sports and
from any religious perspective.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13810

Terry Shoemaker
Editor
The Prophetic Dimension

of Sport
123
Editor
Terry Shoemaker
School of Historical, Philosophical
and Religious Studies
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ, USA
ISSN 2510-5035 ISSN 2510-5043 (electronic)

SpringerBriefs in Religious Studies
ISSN 2510-5051 ISSN 2510-506X (electronic)
Briefs in Religion and Sport
ISBN 978-3-030-02292-1 ISBN 978-3-030-02293-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02293-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018957654
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission
or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from
the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
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This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To Carson and Callie,
For all our sporting memories and
conversations.
Contents
1 On Prophetic Resistance: An Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Terry Shoemaker
2 Sport and Social Change: The Prophetic Dimension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Eric Bain-Selbo
3 Who Is the Prophet? Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey,
and the Integration of Baseball . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Rebecca Alpert
4 The Black Prophetic Fire of Colin Kaepernick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Jeffrey Scholes
5 Running the Prophetic Point: Basketball, Black Lives Matter,
and Prophetic Imagination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Terry Shoemaker
6 Postures of Prophetic Action in American Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Joseph L. Price
vii
Chapter 1
On Prophetic Resistance:
An Introduction
Terry Shoemaker
Abstract This chapter argues that most of the literature regarding religion and sport
situate these phenomena as fulfilling human needs. These arguments focus primarily
on the aspects of sport, like religion, that improve subjective and collective well-
being for the majority. This work is different in that it focuses on the ways that
religion provides a necessary discomfort in a society that strives toward comfort. An
essential aspect of many religious traditions, especially the Abrahamic traditions,
is countering voices and practices. These religious forces, typically referred to as
prophetic, push the tradition and society to recognize its failures and shortcomings.
Taking as a starting position that sport is a civil religious phenomenon in the United
States, this chapter situates athletic activism as contemporary prophetic activity.
Keywords Sport · Religion · Prophet · Athletic activism · Social critique
Sport is an extremely significant aspect of American culture. Millions of American

fans invest their time, energy, and money in attending games and matches, watching
live streams of competitions, and purchasing attire and other products to support
their favorite teams. Professional and collegiate sporting championship games pro-
vide reasons to gather with friends and family. The NFL Super Bowl, MLB World
Series, NHL Stanley Cup, PGA and LPGA tournaments, NASCAR races, and March
Madness are just a few of the events that mark the American calendar. But Americans
are not simply spectators of sport: Numerous people participate in local recreational
leagues and online fantasy leagues. In a world of online technology and gaming,
sport offers a form of physical activity to balance out the sedentary life of various
occupations. Enrollment of children in various types of sports is almost expected
within American society. In sum, Americans are obsessed with sport.
Most Americans maintain sporting interests despite looming political and social
issues. In a nation wrestling with multiple critical issues such as police violence,
mass shootings, immigration debates, nuclear warfare, and environmental concerns,
sport remains central in the United States. On one hand, sport offers a space for
T. Shoemaker (B)
Arizona State University, Tempe, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 1

T. Shoemaker (ed.), The Prophetic Dimension of Sport, Briefs in Religion and Sport,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02293-8_1
2 T. Shoemaker
escaping the burdens and stresses of political matters that weigh heavily on many
Americans’ minds. Certainly, many sports fans might agree that a level of relief is
offered through spectatorship at sporting events or through mediated broadcasts of the
events. On the other hand, sport maintains significance in the United States because
athletes, coaches, and fans address many of the critical issues of American concern.
At the time of this writing, the occasions garnering the most attention from media
and politicians are the demonstrations by professional football players in kneeling
during the national anthem to bring awareness to police violence against African
Americans. Although it garners less attention or critique, other football players are
standing with a raised fist, locking arms with teammates, praying throughout the
national anthem, or boycotting the anthem altogether. This movement extends to
collegiate and high school football as well as soccer and basketball.
The instance of athletes actively engaging publically against social injustices is not
necessarily a new phenomenon within the United States. There are several historical
examples including Muhammad Ali, John Carlos, Tommie Smith, Jim Brown, and
Bill Russell. Just as was the case at other points in American sporting history, there
is a heated debate about whether or not athletes should be as socially and politically
active as they are. Needless to say, professional athletes, coaches, and even league
administrators are citizens who maintain social and political positions and often will
share, voice, and act upon those positions.
The contemporary athletic demonstrations and articulations are similar to the
historical demonstrations to be sure, but the contemporary demonstrations diverge
from the historical examples in at least two ways. One aspect is the increase in sheer
volume of athletes and coaches voicing their positions before or after sporting events.
In many cases, individual athletes demonstrate, but in numerous cases, entire teams
or groups of team members constitute the protest. So instead of singular athletes
raising a fist in a sporting space like Tommie Smith and John Carlos did in the
1968 Olympics, an entire team might kneel before the anthem. Corresponding to
the increase in athletic protests, athletes today have more platforms to voice their
positions. With the advent of social media and 24-hour sports news services, athletes
and coaches can actively leverage their position to respond to particular incidents and
make known their viewpoints. Unlike previous protests that were either mediated
through television or newspaper, the current immediate and repetitious methods
expand the discussion partners and life of the events.
Reporting on these numerous contemporary and historical episodes, the typical
way of both popular media and scholarship is to classify such instances as “ath-
letic activism.” The designation “athletic activism” denotes a particular iteration of
advocacy and protest by sportspersons. Like other forms of activism, the objective
is to bring awareness to particular issues, advocate for a specific cause, and generate
eventual social change. In this sense, athletes are actors who use their public platform
of sport to strategically advocate, bring awareness, and protest.
However, at a time in history when athletes are increasing their activism, the goal
of this book is to analyze the space of sports vis-à-vis sports activism through a
different lens. To begin to analyze these instances, this collection works from the
foundational question of: What are we to make of the multiple instances wherein the
1 On Prophetic Resistance: an Introduction 3
sporting space increasingly becomes the public place in which issues are brought
to public light and debated? To address this question, we consider the prophetic
dimension of sport to examine the space of sports and athletic activism. In this way,
we build upon the growing literature on the relationship between sport and religion
in the United States. Each chapter argues that the intersection of religion and sport
offers a unique position to understand contemporary and historical communicative
counter-narratives and actions within sporting spaces. Specifically, we posit that
some sporting spaces within the United States have the possibility to be transformed
into a kind of prophetic pulpit.
We take as our starting point the position that sport is a civil religious phenomenon
in the United States. In other words, sporting spaces offer a sacred place where
demonstrative performances, cultural symbols, and beliefs in reverence to the nation-
state commonly occur. Most spectators of sporting events might resist the idea that
they participate in civil religious activity, but that might also be part of the power of
such rituals. Take, for example, the typical pre-game ritual of the NFL Super Bowl.
Standing during the national anthem, viewing a field-sized American flag held by
members of various branches of the United States military, while the national anthem
is being performed, ending possibly with an aircraft flyover might appear overt but is
so commonplace that it can become commonly invisible to many participants. Most
sporting events are not as intense as the annual Super Bowl, but the Super Bowl is the
largest sporting civil religious event—that becomes the example for other sporting
events. Once “athletic activism” is situated as prophetic activity within a prophetic
space then such endeavors can be seen as vital and necessary critiques within an
American civil religion framework.
Many religions make room for countering voices and actions to play integral
roles within the tradition. Although these figures go by numerous names, the prophet
typically embodies these countering aspects and articulations. In the first chapter, Eric
Bain-Selbo makes the case that sport encompasses a prophetic dimension. Although
sport certainly reflects many dimensions of any culture, sport also provides a space
to challenge many of the accepted norms of the society. Bain-Selbo argues that
this ability of sport to confront the worst part of society and our individual self
transcends the voices of particular athletes and is located within the intrinsic nature
of sport itself. Sport then carries its significance as a creative human endeavor that
perpetuates norms but also reorients those norms when necessary.
After the groundwork has been established that sport certainly offers a space for
prophetic critique, the following three chapters investigate the three most popular
sports within the United States: baseball, football, and basketball. Through analyzing
specific case studies, these chapters bring specificity to Bain-Selbo’s universal claim.
To begin the case studies, Rebecca Alpert examines the story of Branch Rickey’s
“great experiment” in recruiting Jackie Robinson to break the color barrier of base-
ball. By digging into the historical records, Alpert posits that Rickey purposefully
constructed much of the myth surrounding the integration of black athletes into pro-
fessional baseball. As a means of investigating Rickey, Alpert demonstrates that
Rickey rewrote much of the historical narrative as a way of attaching himself to
4 T. Shoemaker
the prophetic charisma of Robinson. Her analysis makes the reader aware that self-
proclamations of prophetic activity should be interrogated to ascertain true motives.
The issue of race continues to play a role within Jeffrey Scholes’ investigation
of Colin Kaepernick’s high profile kneeling during the national anthem. Scholes
uses Cornel West’s concept of “black prophetic fire” to situate Kaepernick’s cause
for kneeling against systemic social injustice in the American society. Triangulat-
ing race, sport, and neoliberalism creates a moment to critique American values and
policies while questioning the extension of freedoms and equality to People of Color.
To expose these injustices, Scholes situates the NFL quarterback in a rich tradition of
American jeremiads wherein time becomes an important tool in how one postulates
prophetic articulations and counter actions. Thus concepts of the past, present, and
future all find a moment for reflection with Kaepernick’s demonstrations. Scholes’
chapter reminds readers that prophetic demonstrations and articulations combine
an ecology of social histories, symbols, and relationships that are typically back-
grounded. As such, Scholes works to bring these issues to the foreground to highlight
how sport becomes the venue for such contemporary prophetic activity.
Much of the contemporary conversation on sports activism centers on Colin
Kaepernick. In fact, Kaepernick embodies a symbolic center of today’s counter activ-
ity emerging from athletes. However, Kaepernick is far from alone in his activism.
Highlighting complimentary activity, Terry Shoemaker argues that basketball, pro-
fessional and collegiate, engenders a site for collective prophetic activity in the United
States. By using Walter Brueggemann’s framework of prophetic imagination, Shoe-
maker demonstrates the ways in which basketball athletes have leveled critiques,
energized an athletic community, and offered alternative visions of the American
society where People of Color are treated as valuable. To accomplish this investiga-
tion, Shoemaker analyzes how the Black Lives Matter movement found a space within
basketball courts to extend its message of racial equality. This chapter demonstrates
that sport provides a space for collective prophetic activity and counter activities,
not just for individual activism. Like Scholes, Shoemaker argues that because sport-
ing venues are endowed with patriotic symbols and rituals, the same venues then
become ideal spaces for boldly proclaiming critiques of the myths that Americans
hold dearly.
Taking these arguments collectively, it becomes apparent that sporting spaces
serve as a site of resistance within the United States. This resistance acknowledges
corrosive power structures permeating the American context—racism, classism, gen-
der inequality—while also tacitly admitting that there exists a redemptive potential
within those same structures. In the closing chapter, Joseph Price reminds the reader
that the work of prophetic resistance and proclamation is yet unfinished. Sports as an
arena of prophetic activity continues the American tradition of trying to form a more
perfect union—a perfecting of the American democratic experiment. This is a reli-
gious calling. In civil religious devotion to the nation-state, prophetic figures within
sporting venues call citizens to acknowledge the ways that the American society is
failing.
Overall this book contributes to several topics within religion and sport as well as
religion in America. As Price argues, a majority of the work analyzing religion and
1 On Prophetic Resistance: an Introduction 5
sport is attentive to the ways that sport fulfills aspects of religiosity or spirituality.
Most literature centralizes the human needs to perform rituals, make meaning, or
memorialize events. In this way, these books focus primarily on the aspects of sport,
like religion, that improve subjective and collective well-being for the majority. This
work is different in that it focuses on the ways that religion provides a necessary
discomfort in a society that strives toward comfort. One historical function of religion
is to illuminate the ways in which society fails to live up to societal expectations. The
Hebrew prophets supplied a discomforting message throughout Israel’s history that
exposed the ways that the less fortunate and marginalized were treated. For instance,
the prophet Micah pronounced judgment upon the rulers of Israel for hating good
and loving evil, favoring war and ignoring those in hunger (Micah 3). Likewise,
sporting figures are utilizing their venues to spotlight the continued transgressions
against People of Color. This prophetic work seeks to push society to recognize that
the American society is not a level playing field and that many of the adopted myths
are flawed.
Furthermore, the prophetic work of athletes within public sporting venues prob-
lematizes the secular/religious divide. The notion that a strict or even mostly adhered
structure that privatizes religion into recognized institutions fails to capture the
prophetic movements of athletes. This should not come as a surprise as prophets
have frequently ignored the normative societal constructs of their day and felt the
need to find public venues to proclaim their message. The secular/religious divide
is porous and the prophetic work highlighted within the following chapters demon-
strates one approach to understanding the conceptual failures of the divide.
This volume is intended to evoke critical thinking and discussion on the topic
of religion and sport in a thoughtful and challenging manner. Contemporary “ath-
letic activism” is certainly controversial; many Americans are divided regarding the
counter actions performed by athletes within sporting venues. If we understand these
athletes as contemporary prophets, as argued throughout this book, we might begin
to rethink their relevance to our society, and we might begin to comprehend our
society differently. We also might begin to better appreciate the significance of sport
within the American society.
Chapter 2
Sport and Social Change: The Prophetic
Dimension
Eric Bain-Selbo
Abstract If sport can be understood as a kind of religion, then one may reasonably
wonder about whether or not sport has a prophetic dimension. In other words, sport
often has been understood to reflect the dominant values of culture. But does sport
challenge those values, as religions throughout time have challenged the values of
their cultures? This chapter argues that sport indeed has a prophetic dimension.
In fact, at a time when sport increasingly is taking on various functions that are
stereotypically the purview of institutional religion, the prophetic dimension of sport
is needed more than ever. In making his case, the author draws upon the work of
sociologist Harry Edwards, ethicist Robert L. Simon, and journalist/author Dave
Zirin.
Keywords Prophetic institution · Athlete activism · Harry Edwards

Robert Simon · Dave Zirin
In thinking about the prophetic dimension of sport, a couple of important points must
be raised. First, by prophetic dimension I am referring to the realm of ethics and social
behavior. I am not referring (at least not directly) to the human relationship with God
or gods. Second, I want to make a distinction about this prophetic dimension of sport.
On one hand, we can see sport as an institution that provides a venue for individuals
to engage in prophetic work. On the other hand, we can see sport itself as a sort of
prophetic institution—as an institution that by its nature challenges the established
norms and priorities of society. It is in this second sense that I will argue that sport
has a prophetic dimension, and it is this dimension that allows for the development
of prophets of sport.
E. Bain-Selbo (B)
Indiana University Kokomo, Kokomo, USA

8 E. Bain-Selbo
Sport and the Moral Status Quo
What I propose as the prophetic dimension of sport runs counter to a popular con-
ception of sport as simply a reflection of the norms and values of the broader society.
Such is a classical Marxist view, where sport (like religion, which is one of Marx’s
most famous examples) is merely an institution of the superstructure that reflects the
economic base of a society (along with all its injustices) and that subsequently serves
to support and affirm the norms and values that make the economic order possible.
There certainly is a lot of evidence to support this view. For example, sociologist
Edwards (1973) writes about what he calls the dominant creed in American sports.
This creed has seven central themes: character development (cultivating loyalty,
“clean living,” altruism, and much more), discipline, competition, physical fitness,
mental fitness, religiosity, and nationalism (69).1 For Edwards (1973), “sport in
America not only reflects the values [of the broader society], but its character and
the structure of its component activities are also determined by those values” (355,
italics in original). In other words, the very nature of sport is shaped by the norms
and values of the broader society. For example, the foundational economic system in
the United States is capitalism—a system that relies significantly upon competition.
Sport, as an institution of a capitalist society, necessarily reflects those norms and
values of competition. Indeed, it may be fair to say that sport in the United States is
“hypercompetitive”—reflecting the dominant American ethos.
In reflecting the norms and values of society, sport also comes to support and
affirm those norms and values. Such a view is consistent with the arguments of
many scholars and ethicists that sport can contribute to the moral development of
participants and spectators—the kind of moral development that allows the individual
to “fit in” to the ethos of the society and thus affirm its norms and values. We see this
process in particular in youth sport. For example, in the United States, children are
inculcated in the norms and values of competition—enabling them to grow up to be
economically competitive. In this way, sport supports and promotes the norms and
values of capitalism.
Even in the United States, though, sport is about much more than just the norms
and values of competition. As ethicist Feezell (2004) states:
Given the definitions of a practice and a virtue, it is easy to see why the character building
view is so plausible. The young athlete needs to develop a keen sense of himself and his
abilities in relation to the traditions of his sport. His development or simply his participation
requires a certain honesty about himself, a respect for coaches who embody the tradition,
a sense of who deserves or merits playing time, a feeling about the need for cooperation
to achieve shared goals, courage in the face of failing to achieve standards, and persistence
or determination in the attempt to achieve his goals. Since an athlete will participate in a
variety of practices in life, if he really acquires or exercises justice, honesty, courage, and
determination, because they enable him to achieve goods internal to his sport, he will benefit
throughout life. (129)
1 Edwards later adds that the “overriding value orientation salient throughout the institution of sport
and the dominant sports creed is that of the ‘individual achievement through competition’” (334).
2 Sport and Social Change: The Prophetic Dimension 9
In helping the athlete develop virtues like honesty, courage, and determination,
sport is seen to prepare her or him for life in the broader society. “In short,” Edwards
(1973) concludes, “competition in sport is claimed to be of value in preparing the
athlete for life, and in providing him an opportunity for personal advancement in the
greater society” (169, italics in original).
Much like religion, sport in this perspective is an institution that prepares partici-
pants for a successful and moral life in society and promotes identification with and
support for the nation. But like many institutions, its promise of results may differ
from the results that are produced. As Feezell (2004) concludes, “The best that can
be said for this view is that sport can help build a part of character, especially if
coaches and parents are good moral educators” (141).
Of course, what Feezell concludes about sport can be applicable to many of our
institutions—including religious institutions. They have a great capacity for moral
education; however, their success will depend on those people who run the institu-
tions. But even if sport is no better or worse than other institutions in regard to moral
development, it still is the case that sport plays an affirming or supporting role in
regard to the dominant moral environment (the ethos) of a culture.
Much of Edwards’ (1973) work is directed toward making this case. In short,
Edwards argues that sport reaffirms the dominant norms and values of the culture in
which it exists. He writes that “sport affords the fan an opportunity to reaffirm the
established values and beliefs defining acceptable means and solutions to central
problems in the secular realm of everyday societal life” (243, italics in original). The
fan confronts a world that often is difficult—with challenges and obstacles that can
be extremely frustrating. But there is a kind of identity between the fan’s life and
the sports that he or she follows and loves. “Because fans believe these sports …
to be governed by the same values prescribing acceptable conduct for themselves
in the larger society,” Edwards (1973) claims, “these sports become microcosmic
illustrations that this system of values continues to be effective in efforts toward goal
achievement” (270, italics in original). Thus, “the institution of sport … serves a
pattern—or value—maintenance function for the general society, and thus sustains
the fan’s belief in the viability of social values through his involvement” (271). Thus,
for those seeking social change to make their world more just, sport would seem to
be an institutional obstacle.
Sport as Critique of Moral Status Quo
While sport, like religion, reflects the norms and values of the community, it also
serves as a critique of society. This is what I am identifying as the prophetic dimension
of sport—a prophetic dimension that can be expressed in a single athlete’s political
pronouncements but also simply through the intrinsic nature of sport.
Religion provides resources for challenging the dominant norms and values of a
society. While someone like Marx may have viewed religion as a mere instrument
of the oppressors to maintain an unjust social order, it is impossible to deny the
10 E. Bain-Selbo
liberating role that religion can play in the beliefs and actions of those who have
fought for moral ideals and justice. One need look no further than the role of religion
in the thought and work of figures like Mahatma Gandhi or Rev. Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. Even among ordinary religious adherents, their traditions provide resources
for everyday critiques of the world around them—critiques that spur them to be better
moral beings and to seek changes to make the world more just.
Simon (2010) makes the case for seeing sport as a form of external critique of a
culture, or, as I argue, as prophetic. He rejects what he calls “reductionism,” in which
“values in sports are reflections and perhaps reinforcers of values in the broader
society” (193). He argues that sport maintains some independence from the culture,
and thus it (like religion) can be a resource for criticism of the dominant norms and
values:
For example, if dominant ideologies within a society were to devalue excellence and chal-
lenge, the values expressed in good sports contests, conceived of as mutual quests for excel-
lence through challenge, would conflict with rather than reflect dominant social values. If
so, sports might be an important source of moral values and even have a significant role to
play in moral education… (195)
We can imagine other instances in which the norms and values of sport (loyalty,
hard work, discipline, sportsmanship, etc.) may be resources to challenge the kind
of norms and values in the society at large. For example, the excessive individual-
ism often associated with capitalism and the culture of the United States might be
critiqued by the loyalty and teamwork associated with sport. Thus, Simon (2010)
concludes, “the values found in sport can conflict with those dominant in the wider
society, and so are not mere reflections of prevailing social morality” (197). Simon
(2010) even goes so far as to claim that the “inner morality of sports” can have
“justificatory force independent of political ideologies and even provide grounds for
their revision. Maybe sports, when properly conducted, rather than merely reflecting
external social and political values, can provide a justification for changing such
external values for the better” (214).
So sport, like religion, is an institution that may contribute to the moral devel-
opment of athletes and even those who are spectators. It provides a wide range of
practices in which participants and spectators can cultivate moral virtues.2 Like reli-
gion, sport plays a role in affirming the most important norms and values of a society.
But, like religion, sport maintains some ideological independence from the dominant
norms and values of society. Thus, like religion, sport also can serve as a critique of
those norms and values and perhaps even be an agent for change. In our example of
the United States, then, we might say that moral development through sport does not
simply train youth to be cogs in the capitalist machine. It also gives them resources
for critiquing that machine.
2 Perhaps Simon (2010) sums up this perspective best when he writes: “[S]ports, properly conducted,
express, illustrate, and perhaps reinforce values of enduring human significance. Through sports, we
can learn to overcome adversity and appreciate excellence. We can learn to value activities for their
own sake, apart from any intrinsic reward they provide, and learn to appreciate the contributions
of others, even when we are on opposing sides. Through sports we can develop and express moral
virtues and demonstrate the importance of dedication, integrity, fairness, and courage” (214).
Prophets of Sport
As mentioned earlier, Edwards recognizes the ways in which sport works to maintain
the status quo, but he also recognizes and encourages the political role of athletes and
how sport can challenge that status quo. Against the dominant creed of American
norms and values that sport affirms, Edwards (1973) observes that sport also provides
a humanitarian counter-creed and an equalitarian counter-creed.
The humanitarian counter-creed (1) places “a great emphasis upon values demand-
ing altruism and interpersonal and communal moral responsibility,” while being
“openly hostile toward values legitimizing behavior perceived as aggressive or vio-
lent”; (2) advocates for “absolute democracy in sports” against “the current autocratic
authority structure in sports as inhumane and undesirable”; and (3) advocates for a
“system of sports participation which would be open to all regardless of sex, innate
physical capabilities, political philosophy, or life style” (337). While Edwards (1973)
believed this humanitarian counter-creed to be in its “formulative stages” when he
identified it in the early 1970s, it is important to note that it is not simply an imposi-
tion of 1960s progressivism onto sport. Sport has internal resources to generate and
sustain such a creed, for sport is at its best when participants (1) function as a moral
community; (2) embrace democratic processes to some extent; and (3) are open and
welcoming of one another.3
In writing about the equalitarian counter-creed, Edwards (1973) is referring in
particular to the plight of African-American athletes in the United States and their
struggle to have “equal status and opportunity” in the sporting world (341). But his
point here can be applied to any marginalized population that suffers from differen-
tial treatment by the sport establishment. While work in the political and economic
spheres by the Civil Rights Movement certainly impacted sport in the United States
in positive ways, sport again had and continues to have the resources within itself
to generate and sustain this equalitarian counter-creed. At its heart, sport is pure
meritocracy. The athlete who throws the javelin the farthest wins the contest, regard-
less of race or ethnicity. The athlete who performs best is put in the starting lineup,
regardless of race or ethnicity. Sport certainly represents more of a meritocracy in
the United States than does the country’s economic order—where class (particularly,
inherited wealth), race, ethnicity, and gender often contribute to the construction of
an uneven economic playing field.
In regard to both counter-creeds, the practice of sport often falls short of its
ideals. While tremendous progress has been made since Edwards (1973) published
Sociology of Sport in the early 1970s, there is still much more work to be done—both
in American sport and the American society. He wrote, “[I]t is my guess that the
crisis in sports today is only the initial manifestation of value changes that promise
ultimately to alter the character of sport in America in significant ways” (351). Even
more, Edwards believed that changes in values in sport would be in a reciprocal
relationship with changes in values in the broader society. Changes in sport would
depend to some degree on changes in the broader society. As he argues, “without
3 These elements tend to characterize youth sport more so than college or professional sport.
12 E. Bain-Selbo
some massive change in the value prescriptions of American society as a whole …

the institution of sport cannot alter its structure and functioning and still survive”
(356, also see 346, 362).
But Edwards does not doubt that sport also can be an agent for social change—a
catalyst for the kind of norms and values that can lead to a better society. Sport will
not simply follow the wave of change but contribute to it. As he concluded in the
1970s, the observer of sport “can gain access to a mirror reflecting the past traditions,
the present turmoil, and, to a great extent, the future destiny of society” (362). Sport
only provides a vision of that “future destiny” because it is not merely a “mirror.” It
also effects change. The changes for which Edwards hoped have not been achieved
(at least not all of them), but he has continued his work on behalf of sport and social
change. In fact, he recently founded the Institute on Sport and Social Change at San
Jose State University.4 In many ways, we might legitimately think of Edwards as a
prophet of sport as social change. His prophetic voice is a function of the intrinsic
prophetic dimension of sport.
Another prophet of sport is Dave Zirin. He is a political sportswriter and serves as
the sports editor for the political weekly, The Nation. He is the author of numerous
books, many of which focus on sport and social justice.
Like Edwards, Zirin (2005) recognizes that sport can be a reflection of the dom-
inant norms and values of a culture. As he observes, the “way that the games have
been shaped by profit and patriotism has quite understandably led many people to
conclude that sports are little more than a brutal reflection of the savage inequalities
that stream through our world” (20). While granting that there is some merit to such
a view, Zirin nevertheless believes that it is simplistic. As in the case of Edwards,
Zirin (2005) also claims that sport is more than a mere reflection of social norms and
values. He writes:
[T]he playing field is where we can project our every thought, fear, and hope. We want to
believe fiercely that it’s the one place where ability alone is how we are judged. If you can
play, you will play, no matter your color. This is why boxers like Joe Louis and the great
[Muhammad] Ali, Olympic stars like Tommy Smith and John Carlos, tennis players like
Billie Jean King and the Williams sisters, and even golf’s Tiger Woods (although he would
never want the title) are viewed as political beings—carriers of the dream that all doors are
open to all people. (182–183)
Here is a vision of a future in which meritocracy rules—not just in sport but

throughout the society.
For Zirin, sport is a means by which this vision can become a reality. Or, more
modestly, sport is one means by which we can make some progress towards this
vision. It is in this way that sport is prophetic. In that role, sport challenges a society
in which meritocracy is not achieved, where one’s race, ethnicity, sexual orientation,
or other characteristics take precedence over one’s effort and ability. But sport offers
other critiques of society, as well. For example, Zirin (2005) argues, “Cooperation
shadows competition throughout the play of team sports. The kind of satisfaction that
comes from winning a game, or a championship, or simply interacting well together
4 See http://www.sjsu.edu/wordstoaction/legacy/.
is not easily accessible in the workaday world” (291). In other words, teammates
provide us with models of how to be with one another—working together to achieve
a common goal, sharing a powerful bond of camaraderie—that runs counter to the
everyday competitive world of work that many people experience. Far from merely
reflecting social norms and values, sport can help us transform them so we can live
in a more just society. In perhaps a moment of spiritual exhilaration, Zirin (2005)
writes of a possible utopian sport future:
Sports could be woven into the fabric of existence, more cooperative, more accessible, its
competitive spirit removed from the cash pump and the destructive will to win at all costs.
This would require a completely different world. But in such a world, there would be far
less distance between the average person and the star athlete. Sports would become part
of building integrated, whole people. Fun, yes, but also respectful, balanced, and available
to all both to participate in and enjoy. In such a world, I might even be able to dunk [a
basketball]—and that is a world worth fighting for. (293)
In no way should we ignore the kind of religious vision here; the “completely
different world” in which we can become “integrated, whole people.” Here, indeed,
we see the eschatological force of prophecy.
Zirin (2005) does not believe that such a world will come easily. Indeed, we will
have to fight for it. And the reasons that we have to fight, and the reasons that the
fight will be hard, are reasons easily recognizable to anyone who has read biblical
prophecy—the greed and avarice of human beings, particularly as manifested in
those who profit from our sports.5
Zirin (2007) describes sport as “suffocated” by “corporate greed” and “commer-
cialism.” He even describes the world of sport, at least from the perspective of the fan,
as a Terrordome—harkening back to the image of the Superdome in New Orleans
and the suffering of those trapped there in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This
dystopia can be overcome only by heeding the jeremiads of folks like Zirin and other
prophets who proclaim the true meaning of our sports.
While the profiteers can include universities, college coaches, and the National
Collegiate Athletic Association, all of whom profit from the “free” labor of student
athletes, Zirin’s (2005) main targets are professional leagues and owners. And though
he details well their power, he does not think that athletes and fans are helpless. He
instead thinks we (I am including myself here) have a chance. He writes: “By speaking
out for the political [and, I would add, spiritual] soul of the games we love, we begin
to impose our ideas on the world of sports—a counter-morality to compete with
the yawning hypocrisy of the pro leagues” (292). It is in this way that Zirin (2005)
sees sport as a “site of resistance” and a source of hope in a social ethos dominated
by economic self-interest. He believes sport “can become an arena where the ideas
of our society are not only presented but also challenged. Just as sports can reflect
the dominant ideas of our society, they can also reflect struggle” (21). Just like any
5 Zirin(2010) notes that sports used to be a “welcome diversion from economic crisis,” but now
“highlights the crisis and, at worst, exacerbates it” (29).
14 E. Bain-Selbo
religion when it is functioning at its social best, sport has the ability to question our
social norms and values and change the world for the better.6
Conclusion
Sport is an important institution in many cultures. Certainly it is popular, but it is

important for reasons beyond just that it is popular. It embodies many of our most
treasured ideals (e.g., fairness, hard work, justice, and much more) and thus has the
power to serve as a critique of individual and collective failings. In short, sport has
a prophetic dimension.
It is not unusual to see in the biblical texts one prophet referring to or even quoting
another. I want to end in a similar manner. In Welcome to the Terrordome, Zirin
(2007) recounts a conversation he had with Harry Edwards. During that conversation,
Edwards said: “Sport is about the most sacred, deeply rooted, most important values,
sentiments, and structures in the society, and if you can get to sports and you can
get to the athletes, you’re way up the road in terms of changing definitions of reality
in the society as a whole. We’re all in this together” (192). I doubt that the biblical
Jeremiah or Amos or Ezekiel could have said it better.
References
Edwards, H. (1973). Sociology of sports. Homewood, IL: The Dorsey Press.

Feezell, R. (2004). Sport, play & ethical reflection. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Rhoden, W. C. (2006). Forty million dollar slaves: The rise, fall, and redemption of the black athlete.
New York: Three Rivers Press.
Simon, R. L. (2010). Fair play: The ethics of sport (3rd ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Zirin, D. (2005). What’s my name, fool? Sports and resistance in the United States. Chicago:
Haymarket Books.
Zirin, D. (2007). Welcome to the terrordome: The pain, politics, and promise of sports. Chicago:
Haymarket Books.
Zirin, D. (2010). Bad Sports: How owners are ruining the games we love. New York: The New
Press.
6 Foran application of some of these ideas to the plight of African-American athletes in the United
States, see Rhoden (2006).
Chapter 3
Who Is the Prophet? Jackie Robinson,
Branch Rickey, and the Integration
of Baseball
Rebecca Alpert
Abstract Today the name Jackie Robinson is virtually synonymous with the term
“activist athlete.” Yet the story of baseball’s integration was largely forgotten for
many years after the Civil Rights era came to a close. When it was re-introduced to
the public beginning in the 1980s by baseball historians, Hollywood, Major League
Baseball, and Jackie Robinson’s family and heirs, it relied heavily on the myth
Branch Rickey created and promulgated many years before, that he, the Brooklyn
Dodger executive who devised the “great experiment” to end segregation in organized
baseball, was the key figure who changed history, a prophet in his time. This paper
will examine the ways in which the story Rickey told about his role in baseball’s
integration corresponds to dimensions often associated with biblical prophecy: being
at first reluctant, but becoming a moral teacher who exposed injustice, an intermediary
between the human and the divine, a visionary who possessed a true and hopeful view
of the future as it should be. It will also assess the limitations of his “lone pioneer”
strategy and support the claims made by recent scholars and activists who have been
highly critical of how Rickey conducted his “experiment,” placing his prophetic role
in question.
Keywords Jackie Robinson · Branch Rickey · Baseball integration

Activist athlete · Brooklyn Dodgers · Cultural appropriation
Today the name Jackie Robinson is virtually synonymous with the term “activist
athlete.” Yet the story of baseball’s integration was largely forgotten for many years
after the Civil Rights era came to a close. When it was re-introduced to the public
beginning in the 1980s by baseball historians, Hollywood, Major League Baseball,
and Jackie Robinson’s family and heirs, it relied heavily on the myth Branch Rickey
created and promulgated many years before that he, the Brooklyn Dodger executive
who devised the “great experiment” to end segregation in organized baseball, was
the key figure who changed history, a prophet in his time. This paper will examine
the ways in which the myth of Rickey’s role in baseball’s integration was created
R. Alpert (B)
Temple University, Philadelphia, USA

16 R. Alpert
to correspond to dimensions often associated with biblical prophecy: being at first

reluctant, and then becoming a moral teacher who exposed injustice, an intermediary
between the human and the divine, a visionary who possessed a true and hopeful
view of the future as it should be. It will also assess the limitations of his prophetic
“lone pioneer” strategy (Fair et al. 2008).
Stories are told by the powerful to support their viewpoint and confirm their
legacies. In recent years some scholars and activists have been highly critical of how
Rickey conducted his “experiment,” placing his prophetic role in question. They argue
that while Robinson’s inclusion on the Dodgers was no doubt a precursor to other
efforts at racial integration in post-World War II America, they have been critical
of his methods and the myths he created to explain them. Rickey’s “experiment”
also caused much collateral damage to the institution of black baseball, the Negro
Leagues. Rickey’s plan has also been recognized as having ironically played a role
in the ultimate lack of African-American interest and participation in baseball as
players, fans, and executives since that time. And having a white man play the central
role in the story of breaking the color line in baseball raises questions of cultural
appropriation and reconsiderations of his strategy as part of a lack of willingness
on the part of white America to challenge white supremacy except by controlled,
non-violent action.
Rickey the Reluctant Prophet
In the history of biblical prophecy, most of those who were called did not seek
the task or even wish to fulfill it. The prophet Jonah, for example, was depicted
as running as far away from God’s command to go to Nineveh as was humanly
possible, even into the belly of a fish. Every telling of the story of the integration
of baseball takes note of the fact that Branch Rickey was in his sixties when he
finally conducted his “great experiment.” Yet by his own account Rickey was not
unaware of the horrors of segregation early in life. He dated his passion for racial
equity to many years before. When asked what inspired him, Rickey invariably told
the story of his encounter in 1904 with Charles Thomas, the catcher on the baseball
team that Rickey was playing for and coaching during his college years at Ohio
Wesleyan. Rickey frequently described a trip the team took during which Thomas
was distraught because he was not permitted to enter a hotel the rest of the team
was staying in. Finding a way to let Thomas share his room, Rickey claimed to have
listened to Thomas cry and curse his black skin. Rickey later claimed that it was at
that moment that he vowed to do something about segregation. Although there is a
kernel of truth in the story, Tygiel (1983) described it as “vintage Rickey,” noting the
“biblical allegory and sermon-like quality” that “invites skepticism,” although that
skepticism has rarely been expressed (48, 52). More often, the response has been
like that of Jackie Robinson biographer Rampersad (1997):
3 Who Is the Prophet? Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey, and the … 17
The story begged comparison to another, lodged in American lore, about Abe Lincoln going
down the Mississippi and seeing slavery, and vowing to see it end one day. Indeed, a portrait
of Lincoln hung in Rickey’s office…Rickey saw a chance to intervene in the moral history
of the nation, as Lincoln had done. (122)
Yet it was 1943 by the time Rickey began his efforts to integrate the Dodgers in
Brooklyn, a full four decades later. Certainly reluctance to take on this major task
could have been part of the reason it took him so long.
However, Rickey never claimed that he was considering any action in the inter-
vening years. During the time that Rickey was the general manager of the St. Louis
Browns and Cardinals (1919–1942), he made no efforts to bring black players into
organized baseball, although the question of the color line was a public issue in the
early 1930s and by 1936 became a regular topic in both the black and radical Commu-
nist press. Several mainstream columnists took up the question as well. Although he
never discussed what he was thinking in the interim, Rickey’s defenders argued that,
of course, St. Louis, the southernmost city that had major league teams and where the
ballparks still had segregated stands, was no place to attempt integration of the game.
Yet Rickey not only remained in this environment, he also thrived there. In St. Louis
he developed the reputation as a man who was not generous with money, paying his
players as little as possible while making substantial personal profit from trading his
talented players to other teams for cash. But more significantly, it was in St. Louis
that Rickey invented the farm system. Bringing many minor league clubs under the
control of the Cardinals, he cornered the market on a vast number of players who
were, given the reserve system, under contract for life. When Curt Flood challenged
this system in 1964 paving the way for free agency, he called himself a “well-paid
slave” (Snyder 2006). Under Rickey’s regime, the “well-paid” description did not
apply. The 600 players under his control were sometimes referred to as “Rickey’s
chain gang.” His actions drew the wrath of the powerful Baseball Commissioner
Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, thought by many to be integration’s greatest
obstacle (Branson 2016). If Rickey’s refusal to challenge the color line during the
height of his power was reluctance, it was based on a lack of interest, not a fear of
the challenge or personal consequences, as was the case with the biblical prophets.
The Charlie Thomas story provided a moral rationale for Rickey’s later actions but
was not likely to have been the compelling reason for them, or he would either have
not been willing to spend his career in St. Louis or would have made some effort to
change things there.
Rickey as Moral Prophet
Biblical prophets were (mostly) men who tended to be outsiders to the social order
and who used their prophetic status to demand social change and critique authority.
Amos and Hosea are examples of such prophets who challenged the kings of Israel
and Israelite worship of other gods. Although Rickey was, clearly, part of the estab-
lishment, he designed his “great experiment” as a project to be completed as if he
18 R. Alpert
were a marginal figure, without the help or cooperation of other owners (either in
the major or Negro Leagues) and without connections to the many politicians and
sportswriters who were themselves clamoring for integration. Rickey chose his allies
carefully. Most of them (Red Barber, Arthur Mann, and Clyde Sukeforth) were on
the Dodger payroll. He subsequently employed the only member of the black press
he took into his confidence, Wendell Smith. And he did some work with sociologists
Dan Dodson and Frank Tannenbaum on the political front. He also planned to corner
the market on African-American talent, and although he claimed that he was inter-
ested in bringing several black players to the majors at once, the “great experiment”
involved him and the one player he chose: Jack Roosevelt Robinson.
Like the Charlie Thomas legend, Rickey crafted a narrative to highlight his
marginal status and illustrate how other owners opposed his efforts. Rickey waited
until 1948 when, in a dramatic speech at the historically black Wilberforce College
before a primarily black audience, he revealed that at the 1946 annual meeting the
owners voted (15-1) against any effort to integrate the major leagues and claimed that
they subsequently destroyed the document, leaving Rickey without evidence. The
commissioner, Happy Chandler, confirmed his memory. And Rickey was correct that
the report was opposed to Rickey’s plan for integration. It did not, however, oppose
any other plans for integration. The report stated: “Signing a few Negro League
players for the major leagues would be a gesture—but it would contribute little or
nothing to the solution of the real problem” (Polner 2007, 171). The owners argued
that bringing a few players to the majors would destroy the Negro Leagues and fail
to create a plan for proper player development that would create opportunities for a
larger group of Negro League players.
Other forces were also at work making other plans that Rickey ignored, disdained,
or actively thwarted, marginalizing these efforts. Black and communist sportswriters
had been pressing the case for years. In 1937, the communist newspaper the Daily
Worker organized a petition campaign to persuade the prior Dodger leadership to
sign Satchel Paige, the leading pitcher in the Negro Leagues, to a contract that could
have been the seed for the Dodger ownership to be open to Rickey’s initiative and
for which they got no credit (Alpert 2011).
Tryouts were another tactic the black press employed. Joe Bostic of People’s
World and Nat Low of the Daily Worker brought two Negro League players, Terrie
McDuffie and Dave “Showboat” Thomas, to tryout at the Dodgers Bear Mountain
training camp prior to the 1945 season. Rickey was furious, claiming their efforts
to force his hand were counterproductive. Rickey was hell bent on introducing his
singular African-American player and doing it his way. He did not want it to appear
that any outside pressure had any impact on his decision-making.
But one political effort did force him to alter his timing if nothing else. Fiorello
LaGuardia, New York’s liberal mayor, also wanted to end the color line in baseball.
He had the backing of the law. New York State had just passed the Quinn-Ives Act
that prohibited racial discrimination in employment. Rickey served on LaGuardia’s
committee to create a plan to integrate baseball, but decided that his strategy did not
require the support of the government, and announced signing Jackie Robinson before
the Mayor could reveal his own plan. In order to pre-empt LaGuardia’s initiative,
Rickey sped up his announcement. Legal scholar Mitch Nathanson (2012) has argued
that forcing all the New York owners to integrate, which is what a legal challenge
would have done, rather than leaving it up to owners’ discretion, as Rickey’s model
allowed, would have resulted in more thorough and effective results. But Rickey was
clear that his “experiment” was the correct path, and that he could only act alone.
Rickey also did not want the enthusiasm of the black community to ruin his plans.
He was convinced that they would “have parades, get drunk, get into fights” as a way
of celebrating baseball integration. He organized a meeting of middle class black
leaders and convinced them that it was their responsibility to keep those elements
under control, concluding:
If any individual, group, or segment of Negro society uses the advancement of Jackie Robin-
son in baseball as a triumph of race over race, I will regret the day I ever signed him to a
contract, and I will personally see that baseball is never so abused and misrepresented again!
(Lowenfish 2007, 417)
The other group Rickey did not choose to work with was the men and women
who owned Negro League teams. Of course they, like the major league owners, were
not interested in integration as it would signal the end of their predominantly black-
owned business (as well as revenue for major league owners that rented them their
parks). Rickey’s plan was simply to take players that his scouts deemed worthy of
playing in the majors without compensating the Negro League owners. He made
it clear that since the Negro Leagues had no reserve clause and the players played
without contracts, they were simply available for Rickey to sign. Rickey denigrated
the owners as gamblers and racketeers, although he was ready to work with a former
Negro League owner, Gus Greenlee, who was setting up his own league. And when
publically pressured by Newark Eagle owner Effa Manley, he began to pay for players,
but as little as possible. There is no indication that he would even consider the
possibility of making a Negro League team a part of the Dodger farm system he was
trying to build at the time. His vision was to integrate baseball all by himself, the
lone pioneer and marginalized prophet.
Rickey the Intermediary Between the Divine and the Human
By all measures Rickey was a religious man. He was raised in a Methodist family,
quoted the Bible frequently, and honored the Sabbath (and his mother) by refraining
from attending baseball games on Sundays. While many saw contradictions between
his religious values and his lack of generosity, his desire to integrate baseball is
always seen, even by his detractors, as at least to some extent generated by his moral
vision of justice and equality. Baseball writer Roger Kahn has added evidence to
this perspective with a letter he found that was written by June Fifield, the wife of
Rev. Wendell Fifield, Rickey’s pastor. She reported that Rickey visited her husband,
stood silently, and then told him, “I had to talk to God about it and make sure what
he wanted me to do” (Kahn 2014, 40).
20 R. Alpert
Rickey’s vision for what God wanted him to do was a six-point plan, his blueprint
for success. As discussed above, he first got the backing of the Dodger owners. He
set up a public relations campaign to introduce Robinson to the public and made sure
that the “Negro community” greeted the event without tumult or fanfare. He also
knew that he needed Robinson’s Dodger teammates to be supportive, although he
only dealt with their concerns and fears after the fact. He would choose a man who
would be a good player. Robinson’s baseball abilities were unproven, having only
briefly performed in the Negro Leagues, but there was no doubt that he had skill. But
most important from the religious perspective, Robinson had to be the right kind of
person.
Rickey’s own legendary tale of the first encounter between him and Jackie Robin-
son is laced with religious dimensions that focused on Robinson the man. Rickey
made his selection of Robinson quite carefully. He was used to being in environments
with white people as a college student at UCLA and then as a WWII veteran. He
was neither a drinker nor a gambler and had a serious committed romantic relation-
ship with Rachel Isum, who was soon to be his wife. But even more significantly,
Robinson passed the religious test. The climax of the story of their meeting is the
moment when Rickey pulls out the English translation of The Life of Christ, by
the Italian fascist writer, Giovanni Papini, and makes it clear that the “great experi-
ment” is predicated on Robinson acting the martyr by being “man enough” to “turn
the other cheek” to all racist taunts and acts by fans and players. Although there is
some disagreement about the length of the commitment Rickey required after which
Robinson could be “turned loose,” it was clear that Rickey was the one who was
deciding how this drama would unfold.
For Rickey’s plan to succeed, Robinson would have to acquiesce to holding in
his rage at all of the insults and death threats, and all of the humiliation being the
target of fans, players, management, and even umpires who knew he was keeping a
promise not to retaliate or express his feelings. There is much speculation that the
stress of this requirement was a precursor to the heart condition and diabetes that
took Robinson’s life at age 53. Moreover, the requirement did not match Robinson’s
temperament. He had spoken out against injustice when he refused to sit at the back
of the bus in the Army, and was court-martialed because of it. When unleashed, he
became a fearsome critic and opponent, often termed an “uppity Negro” by writers
and fans (Nanko-Fernández, forthcoming).
Robinson’s willingness to submit to Rickey’s plan makes sense; those were the
conditions Rickey set, and Robinson was expected to take it or leave it—an offer
he would have been foolish to refuse. But what motivated Rickey to follow this
path raises questions about his ambitions and goals. Rickey could have worked
cooperatively with LaGuardia. He could have refused to participate in tryouts and
had his hand forced by sportswriters who would have sued him under Quinn-Ives,
giving him legal protection to go ahead with his plan. He could have persuaded other
owners to work with him rather than against him. He could have actually created the
segregated team (the Brooklyn Brown Dodgers) that he announced he was organizing
in Gus Greenlee’s new league and used that as a training ground and pipeline to bring
black players into the majors by giving them the supportive environment they needed.
He could have worked with Negro League owners on a similar integration project at
the team rather than the individual level.
Rickey followed none of those paths because he did see himself as the “Mahatma”
as sportswriter Tom Meany named him (Tygiel 1983). Like his namesake Gandhi,
Rickey wanted to be the prophet and use Robinson (and others in his employ) as
instruments for his vision. Many scholars have noted the portrait of Lincoln that
hung in Rickey’s office. Despite Simon’s (2002) suggestion that “sometimes a framed
Lincoln is just a framed Lincoln” (71), it seems that Rickey did, in his actions and his
self-mythologizing, identify with and seek to emulate “the great emancipator.” Even
if other paths were open to him, his own sense of his prophetic calling required that
he see himself as overcoming his reluctance, remaining marginalized and answering
only to God—the lone pioneer.
Rickey the Prophetic Visionary
Biblical prophets were considered legitimate in ancient Israel if their words came to
fruition. There is no doubt that Branch Rickey acted as a moral visionary when he
ended the color line in baseball. However, today we can recognize the limitations on
the success of his prophetic action. As Nathanson (2012) points out, he created a plan
for integration that ironically proved Commissioner Landis’ demurrals over the prior
decade correct. Landis had stalled integration by arguing that there was no written
rule, only a “gentlemen’s agreement” that any owner could break at any time. Rickey
called Landis’ bluff soon after he died and broke that barrier. But the consequences
of the way Rickey constructed his plan went far beyond creating the opportunity
for one black man to play in the major leagues; his goal was intended to make full
integration of baseball a reality. He claimed he was setting a path for our national
pastime to integrate in the future. Despite his prophetic intention, Rickey’s plan did
not make for a good future for integration or for African Americans in baseball. His
“lone pioneer” strategy was not the only possible route for the (inevitable, really)
integration of organized baseball (Nathanson 2012).
Rickey expected that once he did this, others would follow. But he never followed
through by working with other owners or encouraging them to follow his lead. It took
twelve years for all of the sixteen teams to have at least one black player. And absent
a unified effort, the other owners were under no legal obligation to do even that and
certainly not required to do more. Most teams would only bring in one or two high
quality players; to truly integrate the teams with average bench players would cost
white men jobs and, it was assumed, make the game less attractive to white fans by
having too many men of color on the field at one time. Having several was unusual
and having a majority not conceivable for many years.
The way Rickey chose to integrate baseball had long-term effects on the way
African-American fans felt about the game. Although initially they came out to see
members of their own race participate in organized baseball, ultimately the numbers
dwindled and blacks turned to other sports (notably football and basketball) where
22 R. Alpert
they were better integrated and often in the majority. And Rickey’s efforts did nothing
to change the managerial and executive ranks. Even today there are few blacks in
leadership positions either on or off the field, a fact that Jackie Robinson spoke out
about publicly at the time of his death.
The Negro Leagues, a predominantly black-owned business that employed a good
number of African-American men at decent wages also suffered as a consequence of
how Branch Rickey decided to integrate baseball. The Leagues could not maintain
themselves after integration. Rickey publicly criticized (even demonized) the owners
and plucked only the best young players for his “experiment,” leaving the rest without
employment. Within five years of integration, virtually all the teams shut down. If not
for a cadre of baseball scholars in the 1980s who revived interest in this institution
and lobbied for the leading players to be included in the Baseball Hall of Fame, the
accomplishments of these great athletes would be all but forgotten.
In fact, even the story of Jackie Robinson was forgotten. The research done by
Tygiel (2000), along with other historians of black baseball, revived public interest
and awareness. In Tygiel’s original account of the “great experiment” he noted that
Branch Rickey also had been all but forgotten. In a later edition of his work, Tygiel
took note of the fact that Rickey’s reputation had also been revived, and Rickey
stood alongside Robinson in the retelling of the story. That is the way the story is
told today—from the film 42 to Major League Baseball’s annual celebration of April
15, 1947, when Robinson made his debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson
and Rickey are viewed primarily as a team that accomplished this great feat. These
various phenomena have solidified Rickey’s legacy.
But critics have realized that Rickey’s strategy of relying solely on Robinson to
shoulder the burden of being “first” also has left that legacy open to questions. The
process repeated a pattern of putting all the pressure on People of Color to change
white culture rather than putting the onus on whites to change their attitudes and
behaviors. Robinson was a hero, but he was also an instrument in Rickey’s design,
and ultimately a martyr to the cause. The strategy also followed the pattern of well-
meaning, anti-racist efforts of white liberals who would not accept that sometimes
violence, or threats of violence, was a necessary aspect of social change. During the
abolitionist era, they rejected John Brown’s legacy. This pattern continued in the civil
rights era with a wide refusal to accept Malcolm X and to sanitize Martin Luther
King, Jr.’s actions, and today to demand non-violence on the part of the Black Lives
Matter movement.
The most disturbing dimension of the way Rickey remains central to the story
of baseball’s integration is not his prophetic strategy, nor its failure, but the fact
that he is the author of the story at all. Rickey’s story is a clear example of cultural
(mis)appropriation: Rather than make this the story of bringing all blacks into orga-
nized baseball, he made himself the equal partner of one man, Jackie Robinson. At the
very least, the prophet and lone pioneer should have been Robinson alone, to whom
the story rightfully belonged. Instead Rickey profited both financially (never paying
Robinson or any of his players adequately) and in terms of legacy. And he treated
African-American culture disrespectfully in the process by denigrating both its insti-
tutions and seeking to control both Robinson and the black community’s experience.
Jackie Robinson participated in elevating Branch Rickey to the status of prophet

and demonstrated his loyalty to Rickey to his dying day (Robinson and Duckett
1995). His widow, Rachel Robinson, followed Jackie’s path and was a major figure
in rehabilitating Rickey’s reputation and reaffirming his prophetic status. But if we
tell the story from a different perspective, it was Robinson, not Rickey, who played
the most important role. Robinson was a mighty force in the civil rights movement.
He was not reluctant, but bravely fought the U.S. military when they did not enforce
integrated seating on Army buses; bravely fought back when released from his vow
to “turn the other cheek”; argued passionately for bringing blacks not only to the
playing field but into managerial and executive positions, and became a passionate
spokesperson for economic justice and civil rights after he retired from baseball. He
may have been marginalized in baseball but not in the civil rights movement where
he worked hand in hand with politicians and black leaders. He made no pretense
that he was acting on God’s orders, or that his vision would change the world, even
though his actions did. Rather than commemorate 1947, we should elevate all aspects
of Robinson’s contribution to his people and to changing American life and culture.
This approach to the story of Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson teaches us to be
wary of moments that have been designated prophetic and especially of people who
declare themselves prophets in their own time. As we see from this case, historical
reflection does not always affirm their perceptions or status.
References
Alpert, R. T. (2011). Out of left field: Jews and black baseball. New York: Oxford University Press.
Branson, D. M. (2016). Greatness in the shadows: Larry Doby and the integration of the American
League. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Fair, R. C., & Catambay, D. (2008). Branch Rickey’s equation fifty years later. NINE: A Journal of
Baseball History and Culture, 17, 111–119.
Helgeland, B. (2013). 42 The Jackie Robinson story. Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video.
Kahn, R. (2014). Rickey & Robinson: The true, untold story of the integration of baseball. New
York, NY: Rodale.
Lowenfish, L. (2007). Branch Rickey: Baseball’s ferocious gentleman. Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press.
Nanko-Fernández, C. (forthcoming). Turning those others’ cheeks: Racial martyrdom and the re-
integration of Major League Baseball. In A. Remillard & R. Alpert (Eds.), Gods, games and
globalization. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.
Nathanson, M. (2012). A people’s history of baseball. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Polner, M. (2007). Branch Rickey: A Biography. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co.
Rampersad, Arnold. (1997). Jackie Robinson: A biography. New York: Knopf.
Robinson, J., & Duckett, A. (1995). I never had it made: An autobiography. Hopewell, N.J: Ecco
Press.
Simon, S. (2002). Jackie Robinson and the integration of baseball. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley.
Snyder, B. (2006). A well-paid slave: Curt flood’s fight for free agency in professional sports. New
York: Viking.
Thorn, J., & Tygiel, J. (2010). “Jackie Robinson’s signing: The real, untold story.” mr.baseball.com.
http://www.mrbaseball.com/index.php?Itemid=57&id=23&option=com_content&task=view.
Accessed January 29, 2011.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
My son came from Russia.
1815.—Arthur, Jane, and myself went post to London the last
day of January, Mary remained at Bradfield with Mrs. Young, who
was unable to move.
About this time ‘Baxteriana’[246] was published. Through the
following spring I was, at various times, too apt to fall into
reflections which tended, more than they ought to have done, to
discontent; but in thirteen weeks to the present day I have not
once entered the doors of any other person than those of Mr.
Wilberforce, and I have not dined once with him, having been
only at breakfast for the pleasure of hearing his Exposition and
Prayer; for the conversation at and after breakfast has been
entirely desultory, and not once on any religious question. And as
to any Christian calling on me, John Babbington, from
Peterborough, once breakfasted here, and is, I believe, never in
town without calling. Mrs. Strachey, who was in town a month,
was so kind as to call three or four times; Mrs. John Wayland
twice, and here, I think, except Miss Francis,[247] dining once a
week, is the whole amount of my communication with those
whose conversation would please me.
It would be natural to suppose that a poor old blind man who,
through the blessing of God, retains his health and strength
might have received something more of friendly attention than
this, but such discontent should be banished, for let me not a
single moment forget the great mercies of God to me; and while
many are on beds of torment from dreadful diseases, I am free
from bodily pain. These are points that should give a perpetual
spring of gratitude in my bosom, and if the neglect which I have
been apt to think of too much turns my attention more to the Lord
Jesus, it is a benefit and not a misfortune. Let me only take care
to be looking unto Jesus, and then I shall esteem, in the manner
it deserves, all that the world can do for me.
Monday, March 6, most execrable riots began in London, on
account of the Corn Bill, then in the House of Commons,
attended with circumstances proving decisively the abominable
effects (sufficiently proved before) of printing in all the
newspapers those violent and mischievous speeches which are
made as much to the Gallery as to the House, and can be
intended for nothing else but to inflame the people, which they
have done to a degree of desperation. Petitions from a multitude
of cities and towns pour in to the Houses every day they meet,
and, in fact, the prayer of them all is to beg that they, the
petitioners, may be starved, which would probably be the result
of granting their desire. 600,000 qrs. of French wheat of an
excellent quality have been poured into our markets to meet a
crop generally mildewed; this has reduced the price on an
average of the kingdom to 59s. per quarter, and that average
taken in so preposterous a way that the real price fairly
ascertained would not amount to 50s.; 90s. per qr. [quarter]
would not pay the farmer in so bad a year. If importation was to
be continued, at least half the farmers in England would be
ruined, and wheat consequently must rise in a year or two to
scarcity, and if importation should be prevented, by many
probable events to famine. Country labourers throughout the
kingdom are in the greatest distress, as I know from many
correspondents. For want of employment they go to the parish,
but these poor families never petition, even when starving, and a
Legislature which attended not to their interest would deserve
the abuse now vomited forth by towns. From thirty to forty
houses at London have had their windows broken, many their
doors forced, and everything in them destroyed; and after much
mischief, with general anxiety and apprehension, the military
were called forth; but it was the last day of the week before their
numbers were sufficient to secure any tolerable tranquillity.
Monday, March 13.—I breakfasted with Mr. Wilberforce: a file
of soldiers in his house, because his servants had been violently
threatened that it should be speedily attacked.
The bawler bearing[248] last week, in the House, read a
denunciation in a petition from Carlisle against the Board of
Agriculture, which made it necessary for me to hire a
bedchamber elsewhere, as blindness would not permit an
escape by the roof of the house.
I wrote to Mr. Vansittart, transcribing a resolution of the
Committee of 1774, proposing to lay the millers under an assize.
The Bill for that purpose passed the Commons, but was lost in
the Lords.
In Mr. Vansittart’s answer to me, he mentioned the difficulties
in the way, but observed that as Mr. Franklin Lewis had taken up
the business of bread and flour in the House, he would mention
to him what I proposed. From Lord Sidmouth’s speech it seems
they intend to remove the assize of bread, which will leave in
case of scarcity the bakers without protection in case of riots,
and also leave the millers in full possession of their rascality.
At Mr. Wilberforce’s I met Miss Francis and Mr. Legh
Richmond, who read to us, with Lord Calthorpe and General
Macaulay, a most interesting letter from a Russian Princess,
describing her conversion to vital Christianity by Mr. Pinkerton
instructing her children, and her translating into Russian the
‘Dairyman’s Daughter,’ and thanking Mr. Richmond for his other
tracts sent her for the same purpose. Her English extremely
good, and real Christianity, with expressions of the deepest
humility, breathing in every line.
This was an eventful year, for my poor wife breathed her last
after a long illness, and it gives me great comfort to be informed
that she showed great marks of resignation and piety. My
daughter was with her to the last.
May 12.—A few days ago, writing to Miss Francis, I used the
expression, ‘If a Christian was to call on me it should be entered
in a pocket-book with a mark of exclamation.’ Mr. Wilberforce
saw this note, and yesterday morning Mr. Pakenham called on
me, and introduced himself by saying that he came for some
conversation with me, by desire of Mr. W. He was quite unknown
to me, but I found that he was the grandson of that Lord
Longford with whom I was in Ireland in 1776, forty years ago,
which lord was in the Navy; and the present gentleman is also in
that employment, about twenty-six or twenty-seven years of age;
his father living and an admiral. I soon found that he was a firmly
established Christian, ready to converse on the good subject,
which he did with good sense and no inconsiderable energy.
He is in mourning for General Pakenham, and the Duchess of
Wellington is his first cousin. Mentioning Miss Francis, he said he
met her twice at Mr. Wilberforce’s, and speaking in
commendation of her, I told him that she was to dine with me at
five o’clock, and that it would give me much pleasure if he would
meet her; this he readily complied with, and came accordingly.
I have not had so much religious conversation for an age past;
and had not Dr. Halliday from Moscow called between seven and
eight, expecting to see my son, this conversation would have
been uninterrupted. I wish he had come on some other day.
Remarking that I had some apprehension of the ensuing war,
because we should be, in fact, fighting for the restoration of the
Pope, the Jesuits, and the Inquisition, Mr. P. replied, that Lord
Liverpool had informed Mr. Wilberforce that Bonaparte was
reconciled to the Pope, pretending to be a most dutiful son of the
Church. It seems agreed by all that the first victory gained on
either side will have most decisive consequences. I hope I shall
hear more of this young man, whose determined avowal of his
religious principles pleases me much.
May 15.—Breakfasted at Mr. Wilberforce’s. General Macaulay
there; he told me that in his late tour in France, travelling from
Lyons to Geneva, he met with a Monsieur Michaud, who,
speaking much of his farm and offering to show it, the general
accompanied him to view it, and found everything in the highest
state of management, and so much superior to all the rest of the
country, that he enquired into the origin of such great superiority.
The answer was, ‘My cultivation is entirely that of Monsieur
Arthur Young, whose recommendations I have carried into
practice with the success you see.’
Much conversation about Bonaparte; the general is well
persuaded that the allies will be entirely successful, as B. is, and
must be, very badly provided to resist them, and that the first
campaign will carry them to Paris.
May 17.—Last night, being at West Street Chapel, Mr. Gurney,
after the sermon, came into the pew, when I told him he had not
performed his promise, by calling, on which he came home with
me, and gave us a long account of his life and conversion,
beginning at four years old with a magpie which his father found
in a nest, in a haunted wood, where he went at night in search of
a reputed ghost, and which proved to be only a white pony. This
magpie was, by a strange series of little events, his introduction
to Drummond, the banker, and to procuring himself a school and
college education, a knowledge of several of the nobility, and
eventually, through Lord Exeter, the appointment to the Rectory
of St. Clement Danes; and all this from having been no more
than a poor country labourer’s son, and one of twenty-two
children. The detail was very interesting, from being not only well
told, but, from the providence of God, clearly marked in many
little circumstances, and attended by what to him were great
events. These were so remarkable as to induce him to make
many memoranda, and to think at times that they ought to be
published, but on this point he does not seem to be at all
determined. I urged it strongly as a sort of duty. He is
uncommonly lively and animated in conversation, and contrived
to talk with little interruption, from drinking tea and smoking
several pipes, till twelve o’clock at night. I much hope that we
shall see him often.
1816.—This was a very barren year, for the memoranda made
are uncommonly few, but among them is the preparation for the
publication of ‘Oweniana.’[249] The extraction from my religious
papers of those published under the titles of ‘Baxteriana’ and
‘Oweniana’ has greatly diminished the mass, but the remainder
is considerable, and increases every year.
February.—Last Tuesday se’nnight Sir John Seabright, coming
up to me, said: ‘Mr. Young, the Archdukes of Austria desire to be
introduced to you,’ and the Archduke John, who Seabright said
was the farmer, began a conversation on agriculture which, as
many persons were around, was very short. Some days
afterwards Mr. Ackerman, of the Strand, called to inform me that
his Imperial Highness Archduke John desired to have more
conversation with me, and in three or four days he called and
made many enquiries into those points upon which, I suppose,
he had most doubts, contrasting many circumstances with the
system of Austrian peasants, who, by his account, are in general
the proprietors of their little farms even to the amount of as little
as three or four acres. In the conversation I took occasion to
mention my son being in the Crimea, and intending to return to
England by Vienna. In a most obliging manner he desired me to
write to him to tell him to be sure not to pass Vienna without
making himself known to him (the Archduke), as he would show
him everything worth attending to in agriculture. The
conversation was in French, for he speaks no English. It is a pity
that he will go away without seeing anything of Norfolk or Suffolk.
Sir J. Sinclair just come from Paris. He saw Sylvestre[250] there,
the secretary to the Royal Society of Agriculture, who told him
that agriculture saved his life in the Revolution. He was in prison
and brought to trial, and told that his life should be saved if he
could show that he had ever done anything really useful to the
Republic. He replied that he had unquestionably done good, for
Arthur Young’s ‘Travels through France’ contained much highly
important information, and in order to spread it through the
Republic in a cheap form, ‘I published a useful abridgement,’ he
said, ‘which has been much read, and has had important effects.
I was pardoned and set at liberty,’ and then, turning to Sir John,
he said, ‘Tell your friend, Mr. Young, that he was thus the means
of saving my life.’
February 17.—The Board met for the first time last Tuesday,
but had no business whatever before them. I suggested the
propriety of sending a circular letter throughout the kingdom, in
order to ascertain by facts the real state of the farming world.
They approved the proposal, observing that not a moment
should be lost, and I retired in order to draw out a letter with
Queries. This they examined and altered to their mind; it was
immediately despatched to the printer, and all the rest of the
week has been employed in drawing out lists of persons from the
reports, to whom these letters have been addressed, post paid,
to the amount of 12l., and many yet to despatch on Monday.
The replies have just begun to come in; by two valuable ones
from Maxwell, near Peterborough, and from Page, of Cobham,
the probability is that much important information will be gained,
and a basis laid for a very interesting publication, but I greatly
question whether they will permit any public use to be made of
the information, and I suspect that it will disclose so lamentable a
state of distress, that it may prove somewhat dangerous, or, at
least, questionable to make it public. What are we to think of the
infatuation of Government in laying on a property tax at such a
moment, rather than borrow a few millions to avoid the necessity,
one of the great evils resulting from our Government being in all
money matters little better than a Committee of the Bank?
Answers to the circular letter of the Board, which was
despatched throughout the kingdom the first week in February,
flowed in rapidly till about April 10, and they describe such a
state of agricultural misery and ruin as to be almost
inconceivable to those who do not connect such a defect with the
utter want of circulating medium; the ruin of the country banks,
and the great want of confidence in those that remain, with an
issue of Bank of England notes utterly insufficient to fill up the
vacuity thus occasioned, has made the want of money so great
as to cripple every species of demand.
It is difficult to pronounce what the consequence of the present
ruined state of agriculture will prove, but I must confess that I
dread a scarcity, which must have dreadful effects, coming at a
period when such multitudes are almost starving for want of
employment, even with such cheap bread. What must be their
situation should it be dear? To my astonishment, Government
seems utterly insensible of the danger, and has not taken one
single step to prevent it, or to meet it should it come.
March.—Lord Winchilsea, who I have not seen for some time,
called on me yesterday and mentioned his having been long
absent in France, Spain, &c. He was at Marseilles when
Bonaparte landed from Elba, in Provence; every circumstance
was previously arranged. Messina, at Marseilles, kept everything
quiet on his left, and the [garrison?] at Grenoble was prepared to
receive him; of all this there was no doubt. Uncertain of what
might be the event in France, his lordship embarked instantly for
Barcelona; from thence he crossed Spain to Lisbon, and
throughout the whole of his Spanish journey he did not pass
through a town that was not in a state of ruin and desolation. He
everywhere enquired the cause, and was always told ‘that the
French had done all the mischief,’ with many expressions of
cordial detestation. He would not have conceived a country to be
in a more wretched and deplorable state.
April 24.—Miss Way and Miss Neve, daughter of the late Sir
Richard Neve, both high Calvinists and constant hearers of Mr.
Wilkinson, called on me the other day in order to converse on
religion. They appear to me to be perfectly sincere, but seem
wedded to the high Calvinistic notions of that preacher. Miss Way
lent me two manuscript sermons of his full of predestination, and
the impossibility of falling from grace; her sister took them in
shorthand. This day Miss Neve called on me again, bringing with
her a Miss Johnson, another Calvinistic lady, who, being in Italy
with some relations, went to Elba to see Bonaparte, and had
much conversation with him. He had told somebody, who told the
Johnsons, that he wanted to see my ‘Travels in France,’ which
he had often thought of reading, but came to Elba without them.
Mr. Johnson had these ‘Travels,’ and took them with him to Elba
and presented them to the Emperor, who expressed much
pleasure at receiving them, and Mr. Johnson afterwards heard
that he had read them eagerly and with much approbation. His
countenance indicates a steadfast, resolute, determined mind,
and he is known to abhor all doubtful and hesitating answers that
do not come immediately to the point in question. In the very
short interview that took place he was standing with his hands in
his breeches pockets clinking the money in them; but she
observed that his nails as well as his teeth were dirty. He
enquired, when they were in Provence, and especially on the
coast, whether there were troops at Antibes or at Nice. This
conversation took place on the Thursday, and he left the island
on the Sunday following. He asked her name, and on the reply of
Helen, ‘Oh! I am to be sent to St. Helena,[251] this is ominous of
my voyage.’ The interview was very short with him, but with the
Bertrands the conversation was rather longer.
I have finished reading the first volume of ‘Gibbon’s
Miscellaneous Works,’ published by Lord Sheffield. Of mere
worldly production, it is the most interesting that I have read for
many years, more especially Gibbon’s own memoirs of himself. I
have been acquainted with Lord Sheffield above forty years, and
more than once met Gibbon at his house; and, if I remember
rightly, the first time I was at Sheffield Place, which, I think, was
in 1770, being invited by him on my advertising the intentions of
the Eastern tour. Mr. Foster and Lady Elizabeth his wife,
daughter of the Earl of Bristol, were there. I thought her a most
fascinating woman—an opinion many times afterwards
confirmed by often meeting her at Ickworth. I was not therefore
surprised to find such advantageous mention made of her by
Gibbon, but, alas! the whole volume has not one word of
Christianity in it, though many which mark the infidelity of the
whole gang. Lord Sheffield never had a grain of religion, and his
intimate connections with Gibbon would alone account for it. Of
course he took no pains to instil it into his family, and if Mrs.
Clinton and Lady Stanley have any, they are not indebted for it to
their father or to his friend. A great number of persons of high
rank, extraordinary talents, and great celebrity thus passing in
review, and all of them (Burke alone excepted) without the least
suspicion of religion attaching to their characters, yield a
melancholy impression on the mind of a Christian. Nineteen in
twenty of the persons mentioned are gone to their eternal state,
and of what account is it at present whether they were
celebrated authors, splendid orators, great ministers, or
successful generals or admirals? Whatever might be their
worldly greatness how little are they to be compared at present
to the case of a poor Christian whose employment was sweeping
the streets! Without doubt the propriety of such observations
depends entirely on Christianity being true; but what a dreadful
situation is that man in whose safety is attached solely to the
falsehood of that religion. The reflection makes my blood almost
run cold, and old and blind as I am, and scarcely exchanging in
six weeks a single word with more than one or two persons out
of my family, I feel a comfort and consolation, and I will add a
measure of happiness, not one atom of which would be found in
my bosom if I were not most perfectly convinced of the absolute
truth and importance of that blessed religion which forms the
sole enjoyment of my life.
June.—Lord Winchilsea called here and chatted with me upon
cottagers’ land for cows, which he is well persuaded, and most
justly, is the only remedy for the evil of poor rates.
1817.—The death of the Princess Charlotte this year created
the greatest sensation ever known.
1818.—On coming to London in February, five-and-twenty
claims for the premium on the [summary of] the state of the poor,
the causes of their distress, and the means of remedying it, were
received, and it afforded me continued employment for many
weeks in reading and giving a character of them. Much the
greater part of the authors who drew up these memoirs were of
the same opinion as to the cause of the national distress,
attributing it to the peace having thrown a vast number of men
out of employment who were in the Army or Navy, or working in
the manufactures immediately supported by military demands;
and this evil concurring with a general stagnation from the failure
of a multitude of country banks, had materially affected the
industry of the whole kingdom. The remedies proposed were
various, and many of them visionary; the most rational advised
the issuing of Exchequer Bills in payment of various sorts of
public works, such as canals, roads, harbours, fisheries, and
many other employments. Such suggestions had been proposed
to Government, but unfortunately the ministers in England have
very rarely indeed listened to any such propositions. My friend
Mr. Attwood, of Birmingham, in a work publicly addressed to me,
wrote upon the subject with great ability, and most justly
remarked upon dismissing at once both the Army and the Navy,
and turning such numbers loose upon the public when it was
perfectly well known that they could not find employment was
highly mischievous. This ought to have been done slowly and
gradually, as the expense would have been an evil far less
deplorable than that which was insured by a contrary conduct. It
was the beginning of 1818 before the kingdom was decidedly
found to be in a reviving state, and in the mean time the infinite
number of offences against the peace and property of the people
arose to an alarming height in every part of the kingdom. The
first week in January I received half a year’s rents, and it was a
great comfort to me to find that the tenants continued their
regular payments without running the least in arrears, and this at
a time when complaints on the non-payment of rents were very
general over the greater part of the kingdom. I attributed this
effect, which was very general around Bury and through all
Suffolk, to the stability and flourishing state of our country banks,
whose paper passed readily current, and formed a perfect
contrast to the deficiencies and distress so generally felt in
various other countries; nor can anything be more lamentable
than for gentlemen of small estates finding their tenants running
in arrears of rent.
This was much experienced in the counties of Cambridge,
Huntingdon, and part of Bedford. Sir George Leeds informed me
that he had farms in the former counties abandoned and lying
absolutely waste.
ARTHUR YOUNG’S TOMB AT BRADFIELD.

Here ends the diary. Arthur Young died in Sackville Street on
April 20, 1820, and was buried at Bradfield. The following letter
from Mary Young to her brother in Russia gives some details
about his last years. The letter (undated) apparently belongs to
1818: ‘My father talks of going to Bradfield in June with Miss
Francis and Mr. St. Croix. He is fearful lest Miss Francis (who is
a granddaughter of Dr. Burney, and a daughter of Mrs. Broom by
her first husband) will join the Wilberforces at Brighton, and leave
him. When at Bradfield she sleeps over the servants’ hall, with a
packthread tied round her wrist, and placed through the keyhole,
which he pulls at four or five times, till he awakens her, when she
gets up and accompanies him in a two hours’ walk on the
turnpike road to some cottage or other, and they take milk at
some farmhouse; and she distributes tracts (religious ones), and
questions the people about their principles, and reads to them
and catechises them. They return at half-past six, as that is the
hour Mr. St. Croix gets up (his secretary), who finds it quite
enough to read and write two hours and a half before breakfast.
After breakfast they all three adjourn to the library till one, when
Mr. St. Croix takes his walk for an hour; she and my father read,
or write, or walk till three. Before she went to Bradfield, Mr. St.
Croix had but one hour. She has a table and great chair filled
with books in all languages, as she reads in every language
every day to keep them up—Greek, Latin, Italian, Hebrew,
Arabic, German, Spanish, French, Dutch, &c. &c. &c.
‘My father puts children to school at Cuckfield, Stanningfield,
and Bradfield. Every morning, summer or winter, she inspects
and teaches at these schools. Every Sunday they all meet in the
hall and read, and are catechised; and every Sunday night a
hundred meet, when St. Croix reads a sermon and a chapter,
and my father explains for an hour, after which a prayer
dismisses them! Last summer they went to church at Acton or
Ampton every Sunday, each church ten miles out and ten home,
besides teaching the schools and the meeting at night in the hall.
‘He has taken out a licence for the hall, as there is an
assembly of people which would have been otherwise liable to
an information.
‘Adieu, my dear Arthur. Are we ever to meet any more?
‘Yours affectionately,
‘M. Y.’
The following is added by Mr. St. Croix:—
‘Mr. Young’s benevolent exertions for the poor in his own and
the adjoining parishes, and constant plan for welfare and relief of
their necessities, was very beautiful, and I believe and fear very
uncommon. To women this attention is natural.
‘H. More truly says, “Charity is the employment of a female;
the care of the poor is her profession;” but to see this extend to
the other sex, to witness the same solicitude for the distresses of
the ignorant, unextinguished by business or by ingratitude, in a
man of such activity of genius as Mr. Y., was indeed an
impressive sight. At one time he established spinning matches; a
cap was the prize, and several young girls contended for it, the
best spinner being victorious. This occasioned industry and
emulation, certainly; but even this was not without its attendant
evil, and Mr. Y. finally abandoned it, from the dread of
encouraging vanity, and appropriated the money to winter feasts.
‘In this cold, unproductive season, there were amongst the
poor constant endeavours and constant failure at repletion.
Every Sunday after church a set of poor people, chiefly children,
were invited, and a plentiful dinner provided for them, Mr. Y.
waiting on them and carving himself.
‘But this he was at last obliged to relinquish. The Sunday
cooking was certainly a grand objection; and some neighbouring
ladies who had (charity) schools remonstrated at the absence of
the children, who were crazy if they were not allowed to forsake
everything in order to attend Mr. Y.’s dinners. But another
scheme, more extensive and more useful, succeeded this—
namely, the introduction of straw-plaiting among the young
cottagers.’
INDEX
Abercorn, Marquis of, 347

Aldworth, Richard, 72
Allen, Alderman (father-in-law of Arthur Young), 32
— —(son of the above), 60
— Mrs., 36, 38
Althorp, Lord, 313
Amorette, Abate, 176
Anson, Mr., 394
Arblay, Madame d’, 23 note 12, 32 note 29, 61 note 52, 100 note
74, 135 note 99, 196, 214, 216
Arbuthnot, Mr. (son of Viscount Arbuthnot), 66, 92, 97, 98, 124
Armstead, Mrs., 260
Ashby, Rev. George, 104 and note 79, 114, 129
Aspin, Miss, 15
Attwood, Mr., 471
Auckland, Lord, 314
Augusta of Saxe Gotha (Princess of Wales), 16
B., Countess of, 29

Baker, Whyman, 88, 111
Bakewell, Robert, 135 and note 101
Balgrave, Rev. —, 355
Banks, Sir Joseph, 150, 151, 163, 165, 167, 174, 201, 224, 321,
339, 350
Baroude, A. F., 464 note
Barrington, Dr. (Bishop of Durham), 254, 348, 352, 358, 376
Barry, James (painter), 115-118
Bayley, Butterworth, 59
Bedford, fifth Duke of, 172, 206, 244, 245, 246, 254, 256, 273,
276, 301, 313, 318, 330, 351, 360, 363, 372, 374, 375
Bedford, sixth Duke of, 372, 373 note, 374, 383, 384, 396, 444
Bentham, Jeremy, 247, 249, 308, 341
Bentinck, Lady Mary, 327
— Lord Charles, 328
Berchtold, Count Leopold, 167 and note, 168-170, 180
Bernard, Mr., 376
Berry, Edward, 323
— Miss Jane. See Young, Mrs. Arthur, daughter-in-law of Arthur
Young
Bolton, M.P., Cornelius, 75, 80
Boswell, 191
Boulainvilliers, Comte de, 32 and note 30
Boyd, Hugh, 92-97
Bristol (Bishop of Derry), Earl of, 101, 102, 103-105, 113, 128-
131, 228
— Countess of, 225, 227, 243
Brudenell, Mr., 18
Brunswick, Duke of, 355, 356
Bryant, Jacob, 245 and note, 291
Buccleugh, Duke of, 245, 256, 261
Bukaty, M., 159, 180 and note
Bulkeley, Lady Frances, 52
Bunbury, Sir C., 412
Burdett, Sir Francis, 345, 449, 451
Burgoyne, Montague, 418, 419
Burke, Edmund, 67, 93, 174, 232, 256-261, 302, 345, 428
— W., 257, 428
Burney, Dr. Charles, 23 and note 12, 51, 65, 92, 100, 101, 115,
144, 181, 194, 196, 197, 214, 232, 250, 299, 326
— Fanny. See Arblay, Madame d’
Burney, Hester, 51, 100 note 74
—Sarah, 215 and note
Burrell, Sir Peter, 164
Burton, Colonel (afterwards Lord Cunningham), 67, 68
Bute, Lord, 192, 355, 412
Cadell (the publisher), 395

Cadogan, Lady, 313
Caldwell, Sir James, 69, 70, 75
Camden, Lord, 304
Canham, the elder, Bartholomew, 2
Canning, Mr., 327, 362 note
Carew, Pole, 202
Carnot, M., 307 and note
Carrington, Lord, 314, 315, 319, 333 note, 351, 356, 360, 361,
363, 370, 379, 393, 407, 413
Cartier, M., 157
Cartwright, Dr., 367, 373, 374, 396
Castiglioni, Count di, 176
Castries, Marshal de, 240
Catherine, Empress, 124
Charlemont, Earl of, 75
Chester, Bishop of, 97, 98
Chesterfield, Lord, 33, 34, 49
Chevalier, Rev. M., 14
Cibber, Mrs., 15
Clermont, Lord, 211
Clive, Lord, 49
Cobbett, William, 442
Cocks, Sir Charles (afterwards Lord Somers), 52
Coke, J. W., 212, 384, 385, 386, 400, 432, 444
Cole, Charles, 243, 245, 255, 290, 297, 304, 368
Colhoun, Mr., 363
Collier, Joseph and Mary, 27 and note 15
Cornwallis, Archbishop, 139
— Marquis of, 205
Cotton, Lady, 338
Coulter, Rev. Mr. (Master of Lavenham School), 7, 8, 23
Courtenay, Sir W., 192
Cousmaker, John, 103
— John de, 3, 126
— Miss, 102, 103
— — Anne Lucretia de. See Young, Mrs. (mother of Arthur
Young)
Coventry, Lady, 20
Cowper’s ‘Letters,’ quoted, 410
Coxe, Archdeacon, 236
Crewe, Mrs., 214, 233, 259, 260, 327
— Mr., 326
Crosse, Lady, 17
Cullum, Sir John, 104 and note 78, 114, 134
Cumberland, Duke of, 4, 6, 16 note 10
Danby, Mr., 50, 55, 76

Darnley, Earl of, 245
Dartmouth, Lord, 236
Day, Thomas (author of ‘Sandford and Merton’), 166 and note
Derry, Bishop of. See Bristol, Earl of
Doddington, George Bubb, 12, 161
Dolmein (geologist), 368 and note 209
Douglas, Bishop, 236, 304
Dryden (quoted), 35
Ducket, Mr., 172
Dundas, Lady Jane, 327
— Mr., 261, 327
Dundonald, Lord, 160
Dunstanville, Lord de, 245
Durham, Bishop of. See Barrington, Dr.
Edward Augustus, Prince. See York, Duke of

Egremont, Lord, 111, 179, 244, 245, 275, 299, 313, 315, 317,
324, 352, 358, 360, 363, 434
Elizabeth, Princess (daughter of George II.), 16
Ellerton, Mr., 50
Erne, Lady, 267
Estissac, Duchess d’, 175
Euston, Lord, 365
Fawcett, Sir William, 329

Fielding, Sir John, 69
Fife, Lord, 112
Folkes, Sir Martin, 2, 11
Folkestone, Lord, 59 note 49
Forbes, Mrs., 252, 253
Fordyce, Lady Margaret, 338
— Sir William, 147
Forster, Lord Chief Baron, 75
Foster, Lady Elizabeth, 468, 469
Fox, Charles James, 202, 227, 233, 234, 259, 424, 425
— Henry (afterwards Lord Holland), 16, 134, 164
Francis, Miss, 457 and note 247, 460, 461, 472
Freeman, Miss, 20
Frere, J. H., 362 note
Fry, Mr., 391, 395, 398, 407
Gage, Sir Thomas, 191
Garrick, 10, 15, 22, 31, 32
— Mrs., 245
George II., 16
— III., 112, 132, 138, 160, 178, 190, 224, 237, 268, 321, 322
George, Prince (afterwards George III.), 16
— — (afterwards George IV.), 192
Gibbon, Edward, 258, 259, 468
Gifford, W., 362 note
Gloucester, Duke of, 371
Gordon, Duchess of, 334
Gough, Captain, 5
Grafton, Duchess of, 139, 140
— Duke of, 139, 140, 141, 193, 201, 211, 239, 254, 305, 325,
361, 362, 372, 382, 426, 438, 454 note
Granby, Marquis of, 355
Gray, Thomas (the poet), quoted, 89, 90
Green, Valentine, 59
Grenville, Lord, 360, 435
Grey, Sir Charles (afterwards first Earl Grey), 327
— — — (afterwards second Earl Grey), 233, 234, 235, 424
Grigby, Joshua, 390
Guerchy, Comtesse de, 186, 187
Gurney, Rev. Mr., 462
Halifax, Dr., 372, 376

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ARTHUR YOUNG’S TOMB AT BRADFIELD.

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Danby, Mr., 50, 55, 76

Edward Augustus, Prince. See York, Duke of

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Halifax, Dr., 372, 376

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