A strange bit of Dayton history and race relations
Apparently, being a Dayton cop and beating up African Americans was a punchline in 1938- and the perception still remains that this is what cops do- all the way 70 years later.
The thing is- it was manufactured then- and now, it is still hinted at.
Read the entire story on the NYT site- it turns out, that Powell wasn’t a cop, and died a common criminal-but that his comments, helped start the integration of pro baseball.
No plaque or distinction will ever be accorded Jake Powell — nor should they — but his racist comment 70 years ago broke the conspiracy of silence that protected segregated baseball.
Jake Powell, claiming to be an off-season police officer, said he used a nightstick on blacks.
During a pregame interview at Comiskey Park in Chicago on July 29, 1938, the WGN Radio announcer Bob Elson asked Powell, a Yankees outfielder, what he did during the off-season. Powell replied that he was a policeman in Dayton, Ohio. When Elson asked him how he stayed in shape, Powell, using a common racial slur, replied that he cracked blacks over the head with his nightstick.
A Public Slur in ’38 Revealed Baseball’s Racism – NYTimes.com.
The real question is why, after all these years, we still have a public that believes that our department is full of racists who want to beat or shoot African Americans?
David, you can’t be serious about discussing the history of race relations here by hanging your hat on the tale of this wierdo ballplayer.
I agree with your point that times have changed, but there is a history here, too, that isnt fabricated like this guys off-season job.
Jeff-
I just found it interesting- esp. since we’ve just had this recent event. Thought I’d share.
I had a class at WSU with a federal agent of some sort. Anyway he was a fairly conservative guy but he said that the vast majority of the people he had worked with had some type of predisposition to see a black male and think a higher level of threat than a white male.
Anyway, once we except that all of America is racist we can understand these things more. Racism exists everywhere and in everyone and it isn’t always a bad, evil grotesque thing.