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Press Box Red: The Story of Lester Rodney, the Communist Who Helped Break the Color Line in American Sports by Irwin Silber (Temple University Press: Philadelphia, 2003)
Ive been told that Im the only sportswriter still perpendicular who was at that fightsince the fight in question is the 1938 Joe Louis-Max Schmeling heavyweight championship bout in Yankee Stadium, Lester Rodney probably has that right. Rodney, who then constituted the Daily Workers one-person sports department, has outlasted not just his peers on the sports beat, but also the long silence that enveloped the history of his and his papers campaign to integrate Major League Baseball.
In 1958, after concluding that both institutions were irreformable, Rodney and three other Daily Worker editors publicly resigned from the newspaper and the Communist Party that published it. From there Rodneys career as a communist sportswriter went from present improbable to past unmentionable and essentially disappeared from the printed record until the publication of Jules Tygiels Baseballs Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy 25 years later. It has taken an additional 20 years for the whole story to finally appear in print in Irwin Silbers Press Box Red: The Story of Lester Rodney, the Communist Who Helped Break the Color Line in American Sports.
When Rodney saw his first copy of the Daily Worker in 1936 he was a 24-year-old New York University night student from a conservative Republican family, but moving leftward. Having always played and followed sports, he naturally turned to look for the papers sports page, but found that it ran an odd little sports section only once a week.
So when Rodney took the trouble to mail his opinions on the matter to the Workers editor, he wasto his great surpriseinvited to discuss his letter, and soon afterwards asked if hed like to edit the sports section, which meant writing the entire section. With baseball then the countrys number one sport, Rod- ney gave it the most attention and for the next eleven years, he brashly posed the questions of the whys and wherefores of blacks exclusion from the national pastime.
On the 50th anniversary of Robinsons 1947 Brooklyn Dodger debut, the New York Times acknowledged, Black weeklies...as well as the Daily Worker...had pushed hard for baseballs intransigent hierarchy to sign worthy Negro Leaguers since the 1930s, but at the time the Times, along with the rest of the press, said just about nothing on the topic.
He asked white players if they would play with blacks. Usually they said they would and Rodney quoted them. Many had already faced blacks in some of the hundreds of games played between informal black and white all-star teams, but the silence about these barnstorming games was so much the norm that when Joe DiMaggio stunned a group of sportswriters by telling them that Negro League great Satchell Paige was the best pitcher he had ever faced, Rodney remembers, We had a huge headline the next day. The other papers never mentioned it, and the Sporting News, then known as the bible of baseball, could claim, There is not a single Negro player with major league possibilities. The Worker also played up Paiges challenge to the World Series winner to take on a black all-star team and eventually covered the Young Communist Leagues campaign to gather nearly two million signatures in support of blacks right to play in the Majors.
Author Irwin Silber devotes half the book to situating Rodneys efforts within the larger scene and lets his subject talk for the rest. The result is a pleasure to read. Rodney is particularly interesting on some of the early black players. He finds Dodger president Branch Rickeys choice of Jackie Robinson as the pioneer somewhat surprising in that Robinson was a known militant, having been court-martialed in the army for refusing to sit in the back of a bus in Texas. But he was probably the only college man among the possible candidates, presumably leading Rickey to consider him the best equipped for the challenge. Rodney thinks that Roy Campan- ella, who followed Robinson to the Dodgers, often did not get his due because of his softer-spoken nature, but reminds us that the Hall of Fame catcher was a member of the executive board of the New York NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and maintained a broader view of the importance of baseballs integration than most, insisting that it had paved the way for the Supreme Court ruling against school segregation. Willie Mays, on the other hand, Rodney thought, was just a ballplayer. Campy (Campanella) never thought too much of him because Willie would never say anything with content.
Another thing the nonagenarian Rodney may have outlived in the two-thirds of a century since he started the job is the widespread appreciation of just how strange a thing it was to be the Communist Partys sportswriter. Dick Young of the Daily News told him, I hate the guts of the Commies and what they stand for but if they were all like you... and later gave him an item that he knew his own paper would not let him print, in the hope that Rodney would run it in the Worker. But perhaps Dodger manager Leo Durocher, known for his deft use of the profane, best captured the wonder of Rodneys career with his quip, For a fucking Communist, you sure know your baseball.
Tom Gallagher is an activist and freelance writer based in California.
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LABOR - May 1 is May Day. Workers of the world will celebrate the 124th anniversary of International Worker’s Day. Born out of a call for an 8-hour workday in the United States, this day is an opportunity for all workers to show their solidarity with one another, as well as to renew the call for labor rights.FARM CONFERENCE - The Farm Conference on Community and Sustainability will be held May 24-26 in Summertown, TN, in partnership with the Fellowship of Intentional Communities. Tour green homes, see sustainable food production, learn about solar installations, alternative education, midwifery, and more.
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MOUNTAINTOP - The 2013 Mountain Justice Summer Activist Training Camp will be held May 19-27 in Damascus, VA. It will be a week of workshops, field trips to view Mountain Top Removal coal mines, direct actions, and service project.
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FEMINIST SCI-FI - The feminist science fiction convention WisCon 37 is scheduled for May 24-27 in Madison, WI.
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LABOR - The International Labor Rights Forum will present: Down the Supply Chain, Driving Corporate Accountability, on May 22 in Washington, DC. The Labor Rights Awards Ceremony and Reception will honor pioneers in supply chain worker organizing, working solidarity and international labor rights policy.
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MULTICULTURE - The 26th annual National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE) will take place May 28-June 1, in New Orleans.
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ADC CONFERENCE - The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) holds its annual conference June 13-16, in Washington, DC, with panel discussions and workshops on civil rights, media and other topics.
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IWW - The North American Work People’s College will take place July 12-16 at Mesaba Co-op Park in northern Minnesota. The event will bring together Wobblies from branches across the continent to learn new skills and build One Big Union.
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CHILDREN’S DEFENSE - July 15-19, join clergy, seminarians, Christian educators, young adult leaders and other faith-based advocates for children at CDF Haley Farm in Clinton, Tennessee, for five days of spiritual renewal, networking, movement building workshops, and continuing education about the urgent needs of children at the 19th annual Proctor Institute for Child Advocacy Ministry.
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ACTIVIST CAMP - Youth Empowered Action (YEA) Camp will have sessions in July and August in Ben Lomond, CA; Portland, OR; Charlton, MA. YEA Camp is designed for activists 12-17 years old who want to make a difference in the world.
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LA RAZA - The annual National Council of La Raza (NCLR) Conference is scheduled for July 18-19 in New Orleans, with workshops, presentations and panel discussions.
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LABOR - The Eastern Conference For Workplace Democracy: Growing Our Cooperatives, Growing Our Communities, will be held at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA, July 26-28.
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WOMEN/LYNNE STEWART- Radical Women is asking for support letters and cards to be sent to Lynne Stewart. Stewart is a civil rights attorney and political prisoner who is currently in jail. She has breast cancer and authorities have denied her request for transfer from her Texas prison to the New York City hospital where she received medical attention during a prior bout of breast cancer. Send messages and cards to: Lynne Stewart 53504-054, Federal Medical Center Carswell, P.O. Box 27137, Fort Worth, TX 76127.
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HAITI/WOMEN - Haiti’s government is considering a legal reform measure that would prohibit and punish all sexual assault, including marital rape. MADRE and the International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict are launching a petition to raise international support for this push to address violence against women in Haiti.
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SYRIA/MIDDLE EAST - The Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) is currently seeking funds to assist more than 200,000 refugees fleeing violence in Syria.
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FOLK FESTIVAL - The Falcon Ridge Folk Festival will be held August 2-4, in the Berkshires, NY.
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WAR RESISTERS - The War Resisters League will hold its 90th anniversary conference, Revolutionary Nonviolence: Building Bridges Across Generations and Communities, August 1-4, at Georgetown University. The event will focus on the U.S.’ long history of antimilitarism.
Contact: 339 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012; 212-228-0450; wrl@warresisters.org; http://www.warresisters.org.
POPULAR ECONOMICS - The Center for Popular Economics is holding its 2013 Summer Institute August 4-9 at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. No background in economics is needed for this intensive training. This year’s theme is, The Care Economy: Building a Just Economy with a Heart.
Contact: Center for Popular Economics, PO Box 785 Amherst, MA 01004; 413-545-0743; programs@populareconomics.org; www.populareconomics.org.
VETERANS - Veterans for Peace is holding the 28th annual convention August 6-11 in Madison, WI. This year’s theme is, Power To The Peaceful.
Contact: http://www.vfpnationalconvention.org/.
DEMOCRACY - The Democracy Convention will take place August 7-11 in Madison, WI. The convention brings together nine conferences including topics such as media, education, defense, race, environment and others.
Contact: https://democracyconvention.org/.
MEN - The 38th National Conference on Men & Masculinity: Forging Justice: Creating Safe, Equal and Accountable Communities, presented in partnership with HAVEN, will be held in Detroit, MI, August 8-10.
Contact: ccardinal@haven-oakland.org; http://www.nomas.org/.
OCCUPY - An Occupy National Gathering will be held in Kalamazoo, MI, August 21-25.
Contact: natgat2013@gmail.com; http://occupynationalgathering.net/.
COMMUNITIES - The Communities Conference is a networking and learning opportunity for co-operative or communal lifestyles, with workshops, events and entertainment; scheduled for August 30-September 2 at the Twin Oaks Community in Louisa, Virginia.
Contact: http://www.communitiesconference.org/.
LABOR DAY - The 29th annual Bread and Roses Festival, a celebration of the ethnic diversity and labor history of Lawrence, MA, will be held September 2, in honor of the 1912 Bread and Roses Strike. There will be music, dance, poetry, drama, ethnic food, historical demonstrations, walking & trolley tours.
Contact: PO Box 1137, Lawrence, MA 01842; 978-794-1655; http://www.breadandrosesheritage.org/.
OCCUPY WALL STREET - September 17 is the two-year anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Events are planned in New York City and worldwide.
Contact: http://occupywallst.org/.
TEACHERS - The 13th Annual Conference, “Teaching for Social Justice: The Politics of Pedagogy,” will be held October 12 in San Francisco, CA. The free event features workshops, resources, and free childcare.
Contact: 415-676-7844; teachers4socialjustice@yahoo.com; http://www.t4sj.org/.
HAITI - International Action, which brings clean water and chlorinators to Haiti, seeks office space capable of housing up to six people and their office equipment.
Contact: Zach Bremer, Zbrehmer@haitiwater.org; 202-488-0735; http://www.haitiwater.org/.
MEDIA - The Union for Democratic Communications and Project Censored are sponsoring a joint conference on media democracy, media activism and social justice to be held November 1-3 at the University of San Francisco. Proposals for presentations, workshops and panels from activists and critical scholars are invited.


