The San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals met Thursday at Rickwood Discipline, the game’s oldest ballpark, to honor the historical past of the Negro Leagues.
Nonetheless, beforehand, Corridor of Famer Reggie Jackson, who’d performed there as a minor leaguer, shared the center wrenching recollections that flooded again in his return.
“Coming again right here just isn’t straightforward,” Jackson mentioned on the Fox pre-game present. “The racism once I performed right here — I would not want it on anyone.”
Maybe probably the most enlightening matter Jackson touched on was the concept that he “gained” by thriving within the face of bigotry. Most who overcome horrible conditions say they would not change a factor.
Nonetheless, after highlighting the slurs, violence and hatred he encountered in Birmingham and whereas touring, Jackson mentioned that he’d “by no means wish to do it once more.”
Jackson performed the 1967 season with the then Kansas Metropolis Athletics Double-A affiliate in Birmingham through the peak of the civil rights motion. Solely 4 years earlier, the city was the location of two horrific occasions that gained nationwide consideration.
In Could 1963, an organized group dubbed the “Kids’s Campaign,” together with greater than 1,000 Black youngsters, marched in opposition to segregation peacefully. As a substitute, police used hearth hoses and Okay-9s to quell the resistance.
