'HE LIVED IT'
MLB icon Reggie Jackson leaves interviewers stunned with raw answers as baseball great recalls sickening racism he faced
Fans noted that Jackson's experiences weren't too long ago
BASEBALL Hall-of-Famer Reggie Jackson left his interviewers stunned as he opened up about the extreme levels of racism he experienced at the beginning of his career.
Appearing live on Fox Sports from Rickwood Field in Alabama on Thursday night, the MLB great revealed how returning to the iconic stadium "is not easy," as he spoke about his early playing days.
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The historic ballpark, located in Birmingham, used to serve as the home field to the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro League.
And on Thursday, the MLB made history as the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals played the league's season opener at the field.
Jackson , on the media team commentating for the game, reflected on how it felt to return to Rickwood, where he played as a member of the Birmingham A's in 1967 after being drafted second overall.
Former MLB star Alex Rodriguez, told Jackson on air that if it were not for him, Willie Mays, and Jackie Robinson, that "the three of us wouldn't have had an opportunity to play," referring to himself, David Ortiz, and Derek Jeter.
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"How emotional is it for you to come back to a place where you played with one of the greatest teams around?," Rodriguez asked the Hall-of-Famer.
“Coming back here is not easy," Jackson reflected.
"The racism I experienced when I played here, the difficulty of going through different places where we traveled..."
Jackson opened up about how the team would travel together to different restaurants and hotels, oftentimes being kicked out and called slurs due to his presence.
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"I would walk into restaurants and they would point at me and say 'that ni***r can't eat here, I would go to a hotel and they'd say 'that ni***r can't stay here,'" Jackson reflected.
"Fortunately, I had a manager and I had players on the team that helped me get through it," he said.
Willie Mays Obit
"But I wouldn't wish it on anybody."
"Had it not been for Rollie Fingers, Johnny McNamara, Dave Duncan, Joe and Sharon Rudi," he said, "I would've [gotten] killed here."
"You would've found me on an oak tree," he said bluntly.
Jackson recalled how he slept on the Rudi's couch three to four nights a week over a span of about a month and a half.
But towards of his time there, he said "[the Rudi's] were threatened that they would burn our apartment complex down unless I got out."
Jackson also talked about Bull Connor, who served for 22 years as the commissioner of public safety in Birmingham.
Connor was known for his vehement opposition to civil rights and violent tactics, such as the use of police dogs and fire hoses that he would use against protestors.
He even ordered police not to intervene as they allowed members of the Ku Klux Klan to attack arriving buses of the Freedom Riders, according to The National Park Service.
"The year I came here, Bull Connor was the sheriff the year before, and they took Minor League Baseball out of here because in 1963 the Klan murdered four Black girls, 11, 12, and 14-years-old, at a church here, and never got indicted" Jackson said.
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'AMERICA NEEDS TO HEAR IT'
Fans who saw the clip felt the Hall-of-Famer's words, pointing out that his experience did not take place too long ago and that racism is still very prevalent in today's society.
"I need y'all to understand something," said one fan, Darryn Briggs, on X, formerly Twitter.
"This isn't Willie Mays. This isn't Satchel Paige. This isn't Josh Gibson," his post continued.
"This is REGGIE JACKSON. He played when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s. THIS. IS. RECENT," he said.
"Reggie Jackson is 6 years younger than my mom," Briggs continued.
"People try to pretend this stuff didn't happen while I grew up the son of survivors of Jim Crow," he concluded.
"And they love to tell us 'it was a long time ago,'" commented someone else under his post.
"If this wouldn’t move your soul - I don’t know what would," wrote user Kiona Sinks.
Others were upset at Fox Sports for censoring Jackson's use of the slurs they called him.
"Why did you bleep his words?," one fan asked.
"Don't sanitize how it was to be Black in the Jim Crow south. Shame," he continued.
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"You dismiss the impact it had on him, and players like him, by censoring his words," another fan, Nick Paredes, commented.
"America has heard it. America needs to hear it. His story is American history," he said.
Timeline of the Civil Rights Movement
A very rough timeline of significant moments throughout the civil rights movement:
July 26, 1948: President Harry Truman issued an Executive Order to end segregation in the Armed Services.
May 17, 1954: Brown v. Board of Education, a consolidation of five cases into one, is decided by the Supreme Court in a 9-0 ruling, effectively ending racial segregation in public schools.
August 28, 1955: Emmett Till, a 14-year-old from Chicago is brutally murdered in Mississippi for allegedly flirting with a white woman, who later admitted she lied on her deathbed. His murderers were acquitted, and the case brought international attention to the civil rights movement after Jet magazine publishes a photo of Till’s beaten body at his open-casket funeral.
December 1, 1955: Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Her defiant stance prompts a year-long Montgomery bus boycott.
January 10-11, 1957: Sixty Black pastors and civil rights leaders from several southern states—including Martin Luther King Jr.—met in Atlanta, Georgia to coordinate nonviolent protests against racial discrimination and segregation.
September 4, 1957: Nine Black students known as the “Little Rock Nine” were blocked from integrating into Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent federal troops to escort the students, however, they continue to be harassed.
September 9, 1957: Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1957 into law to help protect voter rights. The law allows federal prosecution of those who suppress another’s right to vote.
February 1, 1960: Four African American college students in Greensboro, North Carolina refuse to leave a Woolworth’s “whites only” lunch counter without being served. The Greensboro Four—Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Joseph McNeil—were inspired by the nonviolent protest of Gandhi. The Greensboro Sit-In, as it came to be called, sparks similar “sit-ins” throughout the city and in other states.
November 14, 1960: Six-year-old Ruby Bridges was escorted by four armed federal marshals becoming the first student to integrate in New Orleans.
1961: Throughout 1961, Black and white activists, known as freedom riders, took bus trips through the American South to protest segregated bus terminals and attempted to use “whites-only” restrooms and lunch counters.
May 2, 1963: More than 1,000 Black school children marched through Birmingham, Alabama in a demonstration against segregation. The goal of the non-violent demonstration, which became known as the "Children’s Crusade," was to provoke the city’s leaders to desegregate. Law enforcement brought out water hoses and police dogs. Journalists documented the young demonstrators getting arrested and hosed down by the Birmingham police, causing national outrage. Eventually an agreement was made to desegregate lunch counters, businesses and restrooms and improve hiring opportunities for Black people in Birmingham.
June 11, 1963: Alabama Governor George C. Wallace blocks a doorway at the University of Alabama to block two Black students from registering. The standoff continues until President John F. Kennedy sends the National Guard to the campus.
August 28, 1963: Approximately 250,000 people took part in The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Martin Luther King gives his “I Have A Dream" speech.
September 15, 1963: A bomb at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama kills four young girls and injures several other people prior to Sunday services.
July 2, 1964: President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, preventing employment discrimination due to race, color, sex, religion or national origin. Title VII of the Act established the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to help prevent workplace discrimination.
February 21, 1965: Malcolm X is assassinated during a rally by members of the Nation of Islam.
March 7, 1965: Bloody Sunday. In the Selma to Montgomery March, around 600 civil rights protestors marched from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery in protest of Black voter suppression, leading to violent clashes with police.
August 6, 1965: President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to prevent the use of literacy tests as a voting requirement. It also allowed federal examiners to review voter qualifications and federal observers to monitor polling places.
April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated on the balcony of his hotel room in Memphis, Tennessee. James Earl Ray is convicted of the murder in 1969.
April 11, 1968: President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, also known as the Fair Housing Act, providing equal housing opportunity regardless of race, religion or national origin.
May 2024: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas issued a strong rebuke of the Brown v. Board of Education, suggesting the court overreached its authority in the landmark decision that banned separating school children by race.
Source: History.com