It was on this day in 1944 that Lieutenant Jackie Robinson refused to go to the back of the bus.
Wikipedia recounts the incident.
“While awaiting results of hospital tests on the ankle he had injured in junior college, Robinson boarded an Army bus with a fellow officer’s wife; although the Army had commissioned its own unsegregated bus line, the bus driver ordered Robinson to move to the back of the bus. Robinson refused. The driver backed down, but after reaching the end of the line, summoned the military police, who took Robinson into custody. When Robinson later confronted the investigating duty officer about racist questioning by the officer and his assistant, the officer recommended Robinson be court-martialed. After Robinson’s commander in the 761st, Paul L. Bates, refused to authorize the legal action, Robinson was summarily transferred to the 758th Battalion—where the commander quickly consented to charge Robinson with multiple offenses, including, among other charges, public drunkenness, even though Robinson did not drink. By the time of the court-martial in August 1944, the charges against Robinson had been reduced to two counts of insubordination during questioning.”
He was acquitted by a jury of nine offices.
It is worth noting two things. One, the young lieutenant stood up for what is right. Facing dire consequences in that stand. It may be hard to imagine those consequences at this time and place. But, dire is the word. And. And, that it was an all white jury that acquitted him. Certainly not a guaranteed outcome. In fact the odds were stacked against him when he made that great refusal.
And.
The synergy was already in place. The work of many hands bending that arc toward justice.
The ball, as one might say, was in the air.
And.
In the years that followed, showing that same moxie, Robinson would go on to other things…
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In