Reggie Jackson, on live TV, recalls racism in Alabama

Thursday’s game between the Giants and Cardinals at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama was billed as a celebration of the Negro Leagues. And it was. But on live TV, the painful memories of racism in the Jim Crow South were on display, too. 

Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson did not hold back during Fox’s pregame show as described the bigotry he experienced in Birmingham as a minor league player in the A’s organization. 

“I would never want to do it again,” Jackson said somberly as he recalled the abuse he experienced in 1967, including threats to burn down the apartment complex where he was staying on teammate Joe Rudi’s couch. Jackson was 21 at the time and just two years removed from the Arizona State campus.

“Coming back here is not easy,” Jackson, 78, said during the live interview. “The racism when I played here, the difficulty of going through different places where we traveled, fortunately I had a manager and players on the team that helped me get through it. But I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.”

Jackson, who is Black, played for the Birmingham A’s in 1967 as a 21-year-old. The minor league team was the Double-A affiliate of the Kansas City Athletics at the time. 

Thirteen years after Brown v. Board of Education formally outlawed segregation in schools, Alabama still adhered to Jim Crow laws and attitudes during Jackson’s time in the city. 

“I would walk into restaurants and they’d point at me and say “The (n-word) can’t eat here,” Jackson said. “I would go to a hotel and he’d say ‘The (n-word) can’t stay here.’

“We went to (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 and finally they let me in there. He said we’ll go to the diner and eat hamburgers or 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 and 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.”

Hall of Fame baseball player Reggie Jackson stands on the field before the Oakland Athletics game against the New York Yankees at the Coliseum in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2019. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)
Hall of Fame baseball player Reggie Jackson, shown here in a file photo, played in Alabama in 1967 (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group) 

Jackson recalled a time when he, along with his white teammate Joe Rudi and Rudi’s wife Sharon were threatened after it became known that the young player was rooming with them.

“I’d slept on their couch four nights a week for about a month and a half,” Jackson said. “Finally they were threatened that they’d burn the apartment complex down unless I got out. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

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