I Never Had It Made: An Autobiography of Jackie Robinson Read online

  Malcolm attacked so-called moderate blacks as well as “the white man devil.” Late in 1963 both Malcolm and Adam Clayton Powell blasted Dr. Ralph Bunche, the dedicated Undersecretary to the United Nations. Adam sneered publicly that Dr. Bunche had failed to speak out on racial issues, and Malcolm accused the distinguished black international diplomat of making statements to please whites. He described Dr. Bunche as a man who was not free to talk “because of the job the white man gave him.”

  I was outraged. I considered Ralph Bunche one of the finest men in this country. I was fed up with people who did not really understand or appreciate him and who insinuated that he was an “Uncle Tom.” I wrote in my syndicated column that Malcolm and Adam were leaders who talked one hell of a civil rights fight, but who, in recent years, had done very little to back up their statements. I accused them of making speeches and taking positions to gain sensational headlines.

  I expressed my deep respect for Dr. Bunche and said that in spite of holding a job that obligated him to remain aloof from the internal problems of the United States, Dr. Bunche had—on a number of occasions—let the world know his intense personal feelings about racial prejudice in the United States.

  I pointed out that it had been a long time since blacks had heard from Congressman Powell in a real crisis. “When we have heard from him, it has usually been in the form of some grandstand publicity—a conscious barrage of wild promises that the Congressman failed to keep.”

  The column ended by saying that Dr. Bunche, notwithstanding his diplomatic ties, had made forthright statements during the Martin Luther King–Birmingham crisis and we had heard nothing about that from Adam or Malcolm. Dr. Bunche attended the Medgar Evers funeral in Jackson, Mississippi, and joined other leaders in that tense and dangerous city in a statement of denunciation of the murder. Adam and Malcolm were not there.

  Malcolm responded to the column by letter. Below are excerpts from it:

  DEAR GOOD FRIEND JACKIE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON:

  You became a great baseball player after your white boss (Mr. Rickey) lifted you to the major leagues. You proved that your white boss had chosen the “right” Negro by getting plenty of hits, stealing plenty of bases, winning many games and bringing much money through the gates and into the pockets of your white boss.

  You let yourself be used by the whites even in those days against your own kind. You let them sic you on Paul Robeson.

  You let them use you to destroy Paul Robeson. You let your white boss send you before a congressional hearing in Washington D.C. (the capital of Segregationville) to dispute and condemn Paul Robeson, because he had these guilty American whites frightened silly.

  In your recent column you also accused me and Dr. Powell of misleading our people. Aren’t you the same ex-baseball player who tried to “mislead” Negroes into Nixon’s camp during the last presidential election?

  You stay as far away from the Negro community as you can get, and you never take an interest in anything in the Negro community until the white man himself takes an interest in it. You, yourself, would never shake my hand until you saw some of your white friends shaking it.

  If whites were to murder me for the religious philosophy that I represent and stand for, I would die KNOWING that it was at the hands of OPEN ENEMIES OF TRUTH AND JUSTICE!

  I replied to Malcolm, saying I would cherish his reply and that I was honored to be placed in the distinguished company of Dr. Bunche whom he had also attacked. I wrote, in part:

  I am proud of my associations with the men you chose to call my “white bosses.” I am also proud that so many others whom you would undoubtedly label as “white bosses,” marched with us to Washington and have been and are now working with our leaders to help achieve equality in America.

  I will not dignify your attempted slur against my appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee some years back. All I can say is that if I were called upon to defend my country today, I would gladly do so. Nor do I hide behind any coat-tails as you do when caught in one of your numerous outlandish statements. Your usual “out” is to duck responsibility by stating: “The Honorable Elijah Muhammad says. . . .”

  Personally, I reject your racist views. I reject your dream of a separate state.

  I do not do things to please “white bosses” or “black agitators” unless they are the things which please me. You say I have never shown my appreciation to the Negro masses. I assume that is why NAACP branches all over the country constantly invite me to address them and this is the reason the NAACP gave me its highest award, the Springarn Medal.

  You mouth a big and bitter battle, Malcolm, but it is noticeable that your militancy is mainly expressed in Harlem where it is safe. I have always contended for your right—as for that of every American—to say and think and believe what you choose. I just happen to believe you are supporting and advocating policies which could not possibly interest the masses. Thank God for our Dr. Bunche, our Roy Wilkins, our Dr. King and Mr. Randolph.

  The column and letter-writing duel was only one of several encounters between Malcolm and me. Even when I sharply disagreed with what I thought was his philosophy of hatred and his taunting of other leaders who disagreed with him, I consistently gave him credit as a man who said what he believed. When we clashed, Malcolm stuck to his guns and I to mine. Many of the statements he made about the problems faced by our people and the immorality of the white power structure were naked truth. It was in our approach to solutions that we differed radically.

  The 1965 assassination of Malcolm was a tragedy of the first order. Word that he had been killed by a hail of bullets came to me while we were vacationing and playing golf in Miami. A lot of blue went out of the sky and some warmth from the sun when the sinister news came. Death had not taken Malcolm unaware. As Dr. King later predicted his own slaying, Malcolm, in his last days, had warned the country that his days were numbered.

  Minister Elijah Muhammad had “suspended” Malcolm for saying that white America’s “Chickens had come home to roost” in the slaying of President Kennedy. For months after his suspension Malcolm worked to organize his own movement. He was disillusioned with the Muslim hierarchy and openly stated that he had been misled by the man to whom he had so consistently pledged allegiance, Elijah Muhammad. His death was deeply tragic because Malcolm, toward the close of his life, had seemed to be groping for and stumbling into a new religion, a different point of view. His travels in Africa convinced him that the chart to freedom for black America lay not in the setting up of a segregated state within America’s borders, not in an approach of hate and violence, but in a grand, international coalition with African brothers. His travels in Mecca turned him sharply from the narrow view that all nonblacks were enemies. He had begun to see that it was possible to make strong alliances around the globe—white alliances as well as black—in order to solve common problems.

  Malcolm made his hajj, which is what the historic pilgrimage to Mecca is called, after his banishment from the world of Elijah Muhammad. In a remarkable letter from that part of the world, the man who had so often been accused of hating all whites and who had consistently castigated people of pale skin in harsh language revealed an astounding change. He says in his book:

  I knew that when my letter became public knowledge back in America, many would be astounded—loved ones, friends and enemies alike. And no less astounded would be millions whom I did not know—who had gained during my twelve years with Elijah Muhammad a “hate” image of Malcolm X.

  Even I was myself astounded. But there was precedent in my life for this letter. My whole life had been a chronology of changes. Here is what I wrote . . . from my heart:

  Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this Ancient Holy Land, the home of Abraham, Muhammad and all the other prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the grac
iousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors.

  I have been blessed to visit the Holy City of Mecca. There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blonde to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and the non-white.

  America needs to understand Islam because this is the one religion that erases the race problem from its society. During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug)—while praying to the same God—with fellow Muslims whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the “white” Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan and Ghana. We were truly all the brothers. If white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man. . . .

  This was a powerful tribute and testimony to the power of the practice of brotherhood for real brotherhood in action. And a revealing spiritual close-up of a man who had grown to such bigness that he could feel the healing and cleansing power of a new vision. He had the strength to confess himself mistaken and misguided. It was ironic that, just as he seemed rising to the crest of a new and inspired leadership, Malcolm was struck down, ostensibly by the hands of blacks. His murderers quieted his voice but clothed him in martyrdom and deepened his influence. In death Malcolm became larger than he had been in life.

  XVII

  The Freedom Bank

  Aside from my fund-raising efforts with the NAACP, the seven rewarding years I spent as vice-president of Chock Full O’Nuts taught me much of the inner workings of the world of finance. I became fascinated with the way big business was conducted, with the operation of the stock market and the power which exists in the board rooms of banks and corporations. Black people were coming to the point where they would be crying out in behalf of Black Power, but it was pathetic to realize how little we knew of money. The financial establishment of America was as much of a mystery to us as we were to the establishment. I recall that when I first joined Chock, after leaving baseball, my picture was used on the financial pages of the New York Times, and a very knowledgeable newsman told me that it was the first time a black man’s picture had been featured in that section.

  During the post-baseball years, I became increasingly persuaded that there were two keys to the advancement of blacks in America—the ballot and the buck. If we organized our political and economic strength, we would have a much easier fight on our hands.

  For some months, prior to 1964, Dunbar McLaurin, a businessman prominent in the Harlem community, had been trying to convince me that I should associate with him in his dream of creating a bank in the black community which would be owned and operated predominantly by black people. I knew McLaurin to be a brilliant man in the field of economics and finance.

  At first I resisted McLaurin’s suggestion that I become involved with his project. After all, what did I know about banking? But Rachel and I felt that my decision to join the business world put me into the center of the black business community and I had to go all the way. Also, McLaurin was a very persuasive man. He convinced me that there was a great need for the kind of bank he envisioned if for no other reason than to set up a competition with the white-owned and -operated banks. The white-owned banks were not doing very much to fulfill the needs of Harlem people. By and large, in the banking business, blacks were considered bad credit risks, not only because of their median low income as compared to that of whites, but because of the stereotype which had existed for many years that they were not to be trusted.

  George W. Goodman, a Harlem leader, was quoted in a newspaper interview in the early sixties as saying that he remembered listening to a white bank president in Connecticut who said, in his presence, that “he had never known a Negro in whom he had confidence for more than a $300 loan.”

  This was an attitude that was widespread in the financial community. When it came to mortgages to buy homes, business loans to enable blacks to become entrepreneurs, blacks were discriminated against. Yet they faithfully and religiously deposited their savings in white banks.

  Dunbar worked on me persistently, and when I realized what effort he was putting into the project and the distinguished people he had involved, I reluctantly agreed to serve on the organizing committee. Reluctantly—because something in my personal radar told me to be cautious about my involvement with McLaurin.

  The concept under which we planned to organize was a fine one. We were to capitalize at $1.5 million. In a letter that went out over my signature as chairman of the board, I emphasized that Freedom National Bank would be “a community enterprise which will in every way belong to the people it is to serve. . . . Moreover, it is intended that these people shall be represented in the formation and administration of the policies of this bank to assure its role in helping to eradicate those financing practices that restrict the economic growth of the community and erode the money power of its members.”

  The letter also said that 60,000 shares of capital stock would be offered and that no controlling block would be permitted to emerge from the sale. Priority of purchase was to go to Harlem residents. The organizing committee was limited to 20 percent of the offering. To prevent any individual from gaining control, we limited the sale of shares to 1,000 for any single person. We had a really difficult job getting blacks to purchase stock. One reason was that we, as blacks, have had so little experience with investing and some of us have had bad experiences. Many of us are afraid to trust each other. To increase the skepticism in the black community, there were negative memories of an instance in the past when there had been an attempt to establish what Harlem people believed to be an interracial bank. This was the Dunbar National Bank organized by John D. Rockefeller on West 150th Street and Eighth Avenue in 1928. Dunbar closed after ten years of operation. What the public did not recognize was that the “interracial” character of this bank was that blacks were hired and black money was solicited. But the bank was controlled by Mr. Rockefeller, and the top five executives, including the president and the cashier, were white.

  It was ironic that during the early years of Freedom, because I was politically involved with Governor Rockefeller, the rumor, in many different parts of the country where I campaigned for him for the Republican Presidential nomination, was that Freedom was really my bank and that the governor had given it to me as a present. Maybe I should have wished that was true. It wasn’t.

  As we got further into the organizing stages of Freedom National Bank, I began to feel very uncomfortable with the way Dunbar McLaurin was performing his duties. There wasn’t really anything I could put my finger on except that he began making a number of trips and submitting bills for them, which, I suspected, had nothing to do with the bank’s operation.

  There was an interracial organizing committee; included were Judge Samuel Pierce, a black attorney now General Counsel for the United States Treasury Department; Herb Evans; Irv Altman; Alva Hudgins; myself; Frank Schiffman, the astute owner of the Apollo Theater on 125th Street; Jack Blumstein, a veteran businessman from 125th Street who heads Blumstein’s Department Store; and Dunbar McLaurin.

  The plan was that McLaurin would be president of the bank. I told some of my fellow-organizers about my uneasiness about McLaurin. In my opinion, unless the bank was to be operated with absolute dedication and integrity, it would fail. I had no basis, except for personal qualms, to doubt that McLaurin would supply those qualities. Yet something told me that I would be wisest to withdraw if he was going to be allowed to be president. I brought this up at a committee meeting of several members of the organizing committee in McLaurin’s presence. I had hardly got
my words out of my mouth when McLaurin produced resignation papers for me, already drawn up, indicating my withdrawal from the organizing committee and the proposed board of the bank. I was about to sign the papers when someone—I think it was Alva Hudgins—advised that I wait. He said that no one person controlled the whole organizing committee and that the whole committee should discuss whether I should resign. I agreed. We held a few more meetings and the majority of the committee members finally voted that Mr. McLaurin could not be president of the bank. He took his case to the newspapers, accusing me of stealing his idea for the bank, then having him ousted. Not long after we had rejected him as president, we all went to Washington, McLaurin included, and met with the United States Comptroller of the Currency. He told us that under no circumstances would his office allow Mr. McLaurin to be president. Having no other alternative, McLaurin resigned and the rest of us carried on.

  Our next problem was the selection of a black president, and, of course, the history of black expertise within the financial community being such a sparse one, we had a difficult time finding a capable man. But we were determined that the president be a black man.

  Looking over the field, we settled on a very successful real estate executive and businessman, William R. Hudgins. Mr. Hudgins had been connected, for some years, with the black owned and operated Carver Federal Savings and Loan Asso- ciation, which had been established in 1949 on East 125th Street. In 1964 Bill was chairman of the board of Carver. The Carver operation was a sound one. Under the dogged leadership of its late president, Joseph E. Davis, by 1964 the organization had made close to $50 million in loans and had extended many mortgages to people in the black community, most of whom could not have received them elsewhere. Bill Hudgins, for whom I had real respect in terms of his business acumen and who was also a personal friend, agreed to resign from Carver to run Freedom National Bank. Like the other organizers of Freedom I had great confidence that, under Hudgins, Freedom could enjoy a highly successful career.