Integration Wasn’t the Whole Story

What Baseball, Education, and Jackie Robinson West Taught Me About Power

I have hesitated to write about this but here goes… on April 15th, Major League Baseball honors Jackie Robinson, and this year, like every year, I thought about what Robinson accomplished. But I also found myself thinking about what wasn’t honored - the Black teams, Black owners, Black fans, and Black institutions that were left behind.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about some of this in The Cost of the Dream: The Pay-to-Play Paradox. I said something that upset people:
"I don’t think the white power structure of Little League, of baseball parents, approved of what that team [Jackie Robinson West] represented."

I lost readers over that line. I knew I would. But I don’t regret writing it.

This afternoon, driving home from Chicago, listening to Malcolm Gladwell’s I Hate the Ivy League podcast series, it finally all connected for me. Gladwell was talking about Brown v. Board of Education - about how integration often meant Black individuals were included, but Black institutions were erased.

And it…