No Help Wanted

The witness had been called for just one purpose -- to answer, on behalf of other Negroes, Party-Liner Paul Robeson's assertion that the 15 million U.S. Negroes would never fight in a war against Soviet Russia. But, as many a big-league pitcher could have told the committee, Jack Roosevelt Robinson, organized baseball's first Negro and the National League's leading batter, was never a guy to bunt a fat pitch with the bases loaded. Testifying before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Jackie Robinson quickly dismissed Robeson's statement as "silly." But there was something else he wanted to say.

"I don't pretend to be an expert on Communism or any other kind of a political 'ism'," said Second-Baseman Robinson. ". . . But you can put me down as an expert on being a colored American, with 30 years' experience at it. And ... I know that life in these United States can be mighty tough for people who are a little different from the majority -- in their skin color, in the way they worship their God, in the way they spell their names."

Too many Americans, Jackie thought, are ready to cry "Communist" every time they hear a complaint about the Negro's status in the U.S. "The white public," he said, "should start toward real understanding by appreciating that every single Negro who is worth his salt is going to resent any kind of slurs and discrimination because of his race and he's going to use every bit of intelligence to stop it ... Negroes were stirred up long before there was a Communist Party, and they'll stay stirred up long after the party has disappeared--unless Jim Crow has disappeared by then as well . . .

"I am a religious man, therefore I cherish America where I am free to worship as I please . . . and I suspect that 999 out of almost any 1,000 colored Americans you meet will tell you the same thing. But that doesn't mean that we're going to stop fighting race discrimination in this country until we've got it licked . . . We can win our fight without the Communists and we don't want their help."

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