Leading the League

When asked to name the fastest rising Negro businessman in the U.S., many Negro leaders answer as quickly as they can say Jackie Robinson. The former Brooklyn baseball demigod, now greying and widening at 47, holds high executive positions in a bank, an insurance company and a professional football team, also earns money as a popular speaker at Jewish community centers (usual subject: how minority groups can help each other) and as an accomplished political aide.

All this means lots of jack for Jack. He lives in a $75,000 house in Stamford, Conn., with his wife, who is an assistant professor of nursing at Yale, and his three children, one of whom is a Purple Heart veteran of Viet Nam. Robinson drives a greenish-grey Lincoln: he rejects Cadillacs as "too ostentatious." He has a net worth of at least $200,000. And his career clearly means more than affluence to the man who, in 1947, broke baseball's color bar. "After the marches and the demonstrations," says he, "the next frontier for the Negro is the ballot box--and business."

Opening the Doors. Last week Robinson advanced to a new base by being elected co-chairman and a director of Manhattan-based Hamilton Life Insurance Co., which has $527 million worth of policies in force throughout the U.S. Friends brought Robinson together with Hamilton's chief, Philip J. Goldberg, who owns 40% of the company's stock. Goldberg offered him quite a deal: Robinson could name four directors for Hamilton's 17-man board--including himself and his brother-in-law, Schenley Vice President Charles T. Williams--and the Robinson group could buy 30,000 of Goldberg's roughly 225,000 shares in the company at a price "under" its current over-the-counter value of $14.50. Robinson intends to open a string of agencies in Negro neighborhoods, says that "so often Negroes pay more for insurance than others do." He has already talked to such fellow celebrities as Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Hank Aaron and Elston Howard, wants them to become partners in local Hamilton agencies, make the rounds with salesmen "to open the doors."

Already he has opened many doors for Harlem's Freedom National Bank, of which he is chairman (TIME, Jan. 28). Though his title is mostly honorific and the position pays him only $6,000 yearly, Robinson spends three mornings a week at the bank, also attends monthly board meetings. His other major business activity is as general manager, executive vice president and board member of the Brooklyn Football Dodgers in the Continental League. His main chore is to persuade rookies to sign up, and he has had remarkable success among Negroes.

Politics Ahead? One of Robinson's most interesting roles is that of budding Republican politician. Two years ago, he quit his $50,000-a-year vice-presidency of the Chock Full O' Nuts restaurant chain to help Governor Nelson Rockefeller in his bid for the presidential nomination. Today Rockefeller has five private telephone lines in his office--one of which runs to the office of Robinson, who is his special assistant for community relations, on Rocky's personal payroll. Many of his associates believe that not business but politics will be the major future pursuit of Jack Roosevelt Robinson.*

Robinson's appeal is more than that of a friend of politicians, a folk hero, or even a hard-working figurehead. He is seldom a decision maker, but he is, by all accounts, a persuasive negotiator and a savvy businessman, hep to all the details of his companies. "I know that others regard me as window dressing," he says. "But after I'm around a while, they find that 1 have something to contribute."

*The middle name is for Theodore, not Franklin.

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