Rickey's Noble Experiment

Rickey's Noble Experiment

Charles Thomas

"In [1903] Branch Rickey was a coach for Ohio Wesleyan. The team went to South Bend, Indiana for a game. The hotel management registered the coach and team but refused to assign a room to a black player named Charley Thomas... Mr. Rickey came up with a compromise. He suggested a cot be put in his own room, which he would share with the unwanted guest."-Jackie Robinson, I Never Had It Made, 1972

Charles Thomas, Ohio Wesleyan Baseball, 1904

"I vowed that I would always do whatever I could to see that other Americans did not have to face the bitter humiliation that was heaped upon Charles Thomas" - Branch Rickey

Jackie Robinson's Beginning

Jackie Robinson Family Portrait, CNN, 1925

"Six months after I was born in 1919, my father told my mother he was going to visit his brother in Texas...My mother was afraid that my father would not come back, and her fears were justified. Later she learned that he had left home and gone away with the neighbor's wife...After my father left, my mother had the choice of going home to live with her people or trying to pacify the irate plantation owner...She decided she would sell what little she had and take her family out of the South. She had a brother, Burton, in California, and she planned to take us there... Almost immediately she found a job washing and ironing."- Jackie Robinson, I Never Had It Made, 1972

"Robinson’s mother was the force that held the family together and instilled the values that made Jackie and his brother Mack (an Olympic athlete himself) successful. She was the one who moved the family across the country from Cairo, Georgia to more progressive and cosmopolitan California after Jackie’s father left."- Rick Swaine, Interview with Carter May, February 2, 2022

Jackie Robinson was an amazing athlete, and got a letter in four different sports at UCLA. He also met his future wife, Rachel Isum. He left UCLA after two years and was drafted into the military in 1942.

Jackie Robinson as a U.S. Army Lieutenent, Jackie Robinson Foundation, 1943

Jackie Robinson playing football for UCLA, NCAA, 1939

Jackie was court-martialed and then acquitted because of this bus incident:

"I started back toward the bus to return to the hospital and met the wife of one of my fellow lieutenants. She was returning to her home, which was halfway between the hospital and the Army post. We sat down together in the bus, neither of us conscious of the fact that it made any difference where we were sitting. The driver glanced into his rear view mirror and saw what he thought was a white woman talking with a black second lieutenant. He became visibly upset, stopped the bus, and came back to order me to move to the rear. I didn't even stop talking, didn't even look at him." - Jackie Robinson, I Never Had It Made, 1972

This experience opened Jackie Robinson's eyes to the amount of segregation in the South. He left the military soon after.

Rickey and Robinson Restart the Debate

"Years later [Rickey] remembered that [Charles] Thomas couldn't sleep...'Its my hands,' he sobbed,'They're black. if only they were white, I'd be as good as anybody then, wouldn't I, Mr. Rickey? If only they were white.' 'Charley,' Mr. Rickey said, "the day will come when they won't have to be white.'"-Jackie Robinson, I Never Had It Made, 1972

Branch Rickey, Missouri Sports Hall of Fame

Branch Rickey became boss of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1943. Remembering the night he witnessed the misery of Charles Thomas, he decided that the time for racial equality in baseball had come. After much debate, Rickey was ready to push towards integration in baseball; Jackie Robinson was the solution. 

"[Rickey] was convinced he was morally right, and he shrewdly sensed that making the game a truly national one would have healthy financial results. He took his case before the startled directors of the club, and using persuasive eloquence, he won the first battle in what would be a long and bitter campaign. He was voted permission to make the Brooklyn club the pioneer in bringing blacks into baseball...Next, he had to find the ideal player for his project, which came to be called 'Rickey's Noble Experiment.' This player had to be one who could take abuse, name calling, rejection by fans and sportswriters and by fellow players not only on opposing teams but on his own. He had to be able to stand up in the face of merciless persecution and not retaliate. On the other hand, he had to be a contradiction in human terms; he still had to have spirit." - Jackie Robinson, I Never Had It Made, 1972

"Unknown to most people and certainly to me, after launching a major scouting program, Branch Rickey had picked me as that player...In August, 1945, at Comiskey Park in Chicago, I was approached by Clyde Sukeforth, the Dodger scout...He told me the Brown Dodgers were looking for top ballplayers...I agreed to meet him that night. When we met, Sukeforth got right to the point. Mr. Rickey wanted to talk to me about becoming a Brown Dodger...I shrugged and said I'd make the trip. I figured I had nothing to lose." - Jackie Robinson, I Never Had It Made, 1972

Both Rickey and Robinson were prepared by early experiences to fight for what they believed in.

Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey, Getty Images, 1950

"'Mr. Rickey,' I asked, 'are you looking for a Negro who is afraid to fight back?' I never will forget the way he exploded. 'Robinson,' he said, 'I'm looking for a player with guts enough not to fight back.'" - Jackie Robinson, I Never Had It Made, 1972

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