[ARETE] Review of David Naze, Reclaiming 42

Sun Jan 26 09:27:38 CST 2020

All,
Please find below and attached Jack Ryan's review of David Naze, *Reclaiming
42: Public Memory and the Reframing of Robinson's Radical Legacy*.

Naze, David. *Reclaiming 42: Public Memory and the Reframing of Robinson’s
Radical Legacy**. *Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 212 pp.

Reviewed by Jack Ryan

2019 marked the centennial of Jackie Robinson’s birth, and *Reclaiming 42: *

*Public Memory and the Reframing of Robinson’s Radical Legacy,* written by
David Naze, is a reminder that Robinson’s accomplishments should be
reexamined. Naze, an academic administrator trained in rhetorical studies,
uses Robinson’s writing, articles written about Robinson, two museums that
prominently feature Robinson, and Major League Baseball’s “Jackie Robinson
Day” as the essential texts for his rhetorical, theoretical lens.  Naze
believes that American culture failed to recognize Robinson’s “political
voice” both while he was a player and after his career ended. Using Ken
Burns’s take on Robinson in his documentary *Jackie Robinson* (2016) as his
foundation, Naze contrasts the hegemonic version of Robinson with the man
Martin Luther King once described as “a sit-inner before sit-ins, a freedom
rider before freedom rides.”

          Prominent among Naze’s criticisms is a general lack of knowledge
of “Robinson’s critique of the state of race relations in America” in front
of the House Un-American Activities Committee (27). Robinson was meant to
contrast dissenting remarks made by Paul Robeson at a left-wing conference
in Paris, France. Robinson did not agree with Robeson’s Communist views,
but he did admire his belief in social justice. As Naze maps it, Robinson’s
testimony, which he describes as a dissent from the political status quo,
was misinterpreted in most news accounts. Rather than speaking against
Robeson, Robinson warned the congressional committee that the greatest
threat to America was its failure to live up to the opportunities offered
by the Constitution of the United States. This rhetorical move is essential
to Naze’s thesis. Oddly, in his book’s introduction, Naze states that
Robinson's testimony occurred in 1947 (27) when the appropriate date was
July 18, 1947. While Naze’s approach to interpreting Robinson’s words and
image complicates his subject, he also tends to over theorize his subject
and repeats information, which creates confusion at times. For example, on
page thirty-six Naze provides the “four primary themes” that make up his
first chapter; on page forty-seven, he repeats these themes: “the battle
over legitimacy, the battle over agency, the battle over the mainstream,
and the battle over coalition building.” At times, this valuable book reads
like a dissertation.

          Still, Robinson is an ideal subject for the intersection of
sports and politics, which the Robinson-Robeson history highlights.
Robinson himself, according to Naze, was a political figure who also was
successful as a baseball player. Sharon Robinson, Jackie Robinson’s
daughter, writing in defense of the “Jackie Robinson Project,” housed at
George Washington University but now facing lack of budgetary support,
summarized her father’s values and commitment: “courage, determination,
teamwork, persistence, integrity, citizenship, justice, commitment, and
excellence…. a fighter for integration, civil rights, and fair play for
all” (Zirin). Naze’s work illustrates how Robinson publicly displayed these
values, and how his legacy has been commodified in both successful and
questionable ways.  Naze’s introduction contains a rather lengthy chapter
outline, a guide for readers who might want to sample select chapters, such
as Naze’s cultural and rhetorical analysis of the National Baseball Hall of
Fame and Museum, in Cooperstown, New York, and the Negro Leagues Baseball
Museum, in Kansas City, Missouri, one of the strongest portions of *Reclaiming
42*.

          Overall, the book contains four chapters and a conclusion, each
an inventory of an aspect of Robinson’s legacy. Each chapter is designed to
complicate Robinson’s history by contrasting popular assumptions with
evidence from his writing and speaking life. As a professional athlete,
Robinson spent his entire career with the Brooklyn Dodgers, leading the
team to six pennants and one World Series victory. In 1962 he was elected
to the Baseball Hall of Fame. The narrative of Robinson’s breaking the
Major League color barrier is legendary. After he retired from the game, he
did not remain in Major League Baseball as a coach, manager, or executive.
Rather, his name was attached to a variety of businesses: a construction
company and a bank. The bank was meant to combat the persistence of
redlining. Both businesses failed. According to Peter Drier, these business
failures “dimmed Robinson’s confidence in black capitalism as a strategy
for racial advancement and integration.” Robinson remained in the public
eye. As Naze notes, he supported political figures, argued with political
figures, and supported athletes, including John Carlos and Tommie Smith; he
also testified in federal court in support of Curt Flood’s challenge to
baseball’s reserve clause.  Robinson’s legacy, away from the baseball
field, demonstrates his unrelenting willingness to help others, especially
African Americans.

          Yet, as Naze alludes to, by the time of his death of a heart
attack at age fifty-three, Robinson was almost a forgotten man. He designed
a self-imposed boycott of professional baseball because of its poor record
in hiring minority candidates for managerial and executive positions. In
1972, nine days before his death, Robinson broke his boycott and attended
the second game of the World Series. He threw out the first pitch and
voiced his displeasure over the lack of representation in Major League
Baseball: “I’d like to live to see a black manager, I’d like to live to see
the day when there’s a black man coaching third base” (Naze 154). However,
according to Naze, Robinson’s radical voice faded but his symbolic
significance would be revived in 1997, the fiftieth anniversary of his
trailblazing year; this, according to Naze, illustrates how Robinson has
been commodified and revised by baseball’s embrace of his image but not the
man himself.

          Robinson’s biography is massive, complex. Utilizing a rhetorical,
theoretical lens and keeping a tight focus on specific areas of Robinson’s
history, both when he was alive and after his death, Naze has produced a
compelling book that examines how the past influences the present and also
how memories can be reconstructed to fit present needs. While his case
study approach makes the reading experience a bit pedantic, *Reclaiming 42*
makes a compelling argument in favor of Robinson’s complete legacy: “his
words, thoughts, and leadership are not to be carved in stone but rather
provided as an opportunity to discuss, converse, protest, and deliberate
the implications of today’s racial landscape not just in baseball but in
society on a larger scale” (187). Naze’s concluding note sounds the need
for looking at Robinson as more than a mythic figure, rather he asks that
every aspect of Robinson’s life be evaluated in the broader context of the
moment of history in which he lived and what his thinking then means to us
today.

Burns, Ken, *Jackie Robinson* (2016). PBS. Online:

https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pbs.org%2Fkenburns%2Fjackie-robinson%2Fabout-the-film&data=02%7C01%7Csport_literature_association%40lists.ku.edu%7C3a89d984158d45343a3f08d7a2744d83%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637156492875404571&sdata=lzYnm8nKxY8dAL9z10tDguSXsTvYMS1GVqhgivR0eRQ%3D&reserved=0

Dreier, Peter. “Half a Century Before Colin Kaepernick, Jackie Robinson
Said,

‘I Cannot Stand and Sing the Anthem.’” 18 July 2019. Online:
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenation.com&data=02%7C01%7Csport_literature_association%40lists.ku.edu%7C3a89d984158d45343a3f08d7a2744d83%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637156492875404571&sdata=mMjfMqWCbTbnysmW95bIvSI3dHxU%2FbtHWsWbiJFhbok%3D&reserved=0

Zirin, Dave. “Whither the Jackie Robinson Project?” *The Nation*.  24
September

2019. Online:
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenation.com%2Farticle%2Fwhither-the-jackie-robinson-project%2F&data=02%7C01%7Csport_literature_association%40lists.ku.edu%7C3a89d984158d45343a3f08d7a2744d83%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637156492875404571&sdata=znFJjIX7PF3qfykLj3gfsFOzrmRKWb%2Fy3fOSOPCrQkk%3D&reserved=0

Remember to smell the roses as you recumber past

Duncan R. Jamieson, Ph. D.
Professor of History
Book Review Editor
*AETHLON: The Journal of Sport Literature*
Ashland University
Ashland, OH  44805
USA
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