Reggie Jackson Gives Raw, Heartbreaking Answer About Racism He Faced While In MLB

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Reggie Jackson is one of the best players to ever step onto a baseball field, but even that didn’t exempt Mr. October from dealing with the disgusting racism that faced black players in Major League Baseball.

The MLB went to historic Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama on Thursday night as a tribute to the Negro Leagues.

When Alex Rodriguez asked how emotional it was for Jackson to return to Rickwood Field, where he played minor league ball in 1967, Jackson didn’t sugarcoat things.

Reggie Jackson Gives Honest Answer About Racism He Faced In Baseball

“Coming back here is not easy,” Jackson told Rodriguez. “The racism when I played here, the difficulty of going through different places where we traveled. Fortunately, I had a manager and I had players on the team that helped me get through it. But I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. People said to me today, I spoke, and they said, ‘Do you think you’re a better person, do you think you won when you played here and conquered?’ I said, ‘You know, I would never want to do it again.’

“I walked into restaurants, and they would point at me and say, ‘The n— can’t eat here.’ I would go to a hotel, and they would say, ‘The n— can’t stay here.’ We went to [Kansas City Athletics owner] Charlie Finley’s country club for a welcome home dinner, and they pointed me out with the N-word: ‘He can’t come in here.’ Finley marched the whole team out. Finally, they let me in there. He said, ‘We’re going to go to the diner and eat hamburgers. We’ll go where we’re wanted.'”

“Fortunately, I had a manager in Johnny McNamara that, if I couldn’t eat in the place, nobody would eat. We’d get food to travel. If I couldn’t stay in a hotel, they’d drive to the next hotel and find a place where I could stay. Had it not been for Rollie Fingers, Johnny McNamara, Dave Duncan, Joe and Sharon Rudi, I slept on their couch three, four nights a week for about a month and a half. Finally, they were threatened that they would burn our apartment complex down unless I got out. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”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 — children 11, 12, 14 years old — at a church here and never got indicted. The Klan — Life Magazine did a story on them like they were being honored.

“I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. At the same time, had it not been for my white friends, had it not been for a white manager, and Rudi, Fingers and Duncan, and Lee Meyers, I would never have made it. I was too physically violent. I was ready to physically fight some — I would have got killed here because I would have beat someone’s ass, and you would have saw me in an oak tree somewhere.”

It was a startling, yet important answer from Jackson and a reminder that we’re not all that far removed from those times.

Jackson played 114 games for the Birmingham A’s before he was called up to the Kansas City Athletics. He then went on to become a superstar in Oakland and New York.

But it wasn’t an easy road, and it’s important that he was open and honest about what he faced.

Because as much as it’s a story about triumph, it’s also a sobering reminder of how far we have yet to go.