Breaking the Color Line: Mayor LaGuardia and the Fight to Desegregate Baseball

Ebbets Field, ca. 1949. Tax Photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The NYC Municipal Archives has launched a new project, Processing and Digitizing Records of the New York City Commission on Human Rights. It is funded by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission of the National Archives as part of their Documenting Democracy initiative. The collection spans 268 cubic feet and covers the years 1944 to 1976, bringing together the records of the New York City Human Rights Commission (1962–1976) and its predecessor organizations—the Mayor’s Committee on Unity (1944–1954) and the Committee on Intergroup Relations (1955–1961). It provides a comprehensive record of the research, policymaking, investigations, legal actions and studies that shaped New York City’s efforts to address discrimination over three decades.

Mayor LaGuardia throwing out the first ball of the 1937 World Series at Yankee Stadium, October 6, 1937. Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia records, NYC Municipal Archives.

On October 24th, 1945, newspapers announced that the Brooklyn Dodgers had signed Jackie Robinson to their Montreal farm team, effectively ending segregation in professional baseball. General manager Branch Rickey did not participate in the signing ceremony, but he quickly made sure that the press knew he was the one behind it.

What went underreported at the time were the behind-the-scenes efforts of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and the City’s Committee on Unity, led by Dan Dodson, a professor within the Educational Sociology Program at NYU. Dodson, the son of a Texas sharecropper, had a youthful awakening to the racism he was raised in and became a fierce opponent. The Mayor’s correspondence files and the records of the NYC Commission on Human Rights in the Municipal Archives help tell the little-known story of the political pressure at play in breaking the color line in baseball.

Announcement of the Mayor’s Committee on Baseball, Herald Tribune, August 12, 1945. Mayor LaGuardia scrapbooks, NYC Municipal Archives.

In 1944, Mayor LaGuardia created the Mayor’s Committee on Unity by Executive Order in response to citywide concerns about race relations following riots in Harlem during the 1930s and early 1940s. In August 1945, right at the end of World War II, newspapers reported that LaGuardia had formed a new committee to study integrating professional baseball. LaGuardia and others saw the contradiction between celebrating a war fought against the forces of fascism and the racism black troops would face upon returning home to America. Not only that, but on March 12, 1945, New York State had passed the first state law (the Ives-Quinn Act) to ban discrimination in the workplace. Was not a baseball club a workplace too?

Although integrated teams played in the early days of baseball, beginning in 1888 a “gentleman’s agreement” among team owners kept black players out of professional baseball. This led to the establishment of the “Negro Leagues,” which became extremely popular in the first decades of the 20th Century. Despite their popularity, black sportswriters and communist groups had long raised the question of ending segregation in America’s Pastime. Since the mid-1930s, the International Workers Order (IWO) had petitioned for the integration of baseball and in 1940 the Trade Union Athletic Association protested at the New York World’s Fair.

Flyer for a protest planned for August 12, 1945 by the End Jim Crow in Baseball Campaign. Mayor LaGuardia papers, NYC Municipal Archives.

Black troops returning from the war, especially those that has served in mixed units, were part of the push for integration on the home front as shown in this article from the New York Post, August 15, 1945. Mayor LaGuardia scrapbooks, NYC Municipal Archives.

Brooklyn Dodger’s General Manager Branch Rickey, as reported to the press in numerous interviews, had long been an advocate for desegregation, and had received permission to sign black players from the owners when he joined the team in 1942. Team leadership saw opportunities to pick up talent and to increase their fan base, making it a financial win, not just a moral win. Despite scouting for black talent in Latin America and in the Negro Leagues, by 1945, Rickey had still not signed a player. He knew he would meet fierce resistance from the other teams’ owners and from the baseball commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, and may have been waiting for the political moment to be right. The death of Landis in November 1944 and his replacement by Benjamin “Happy” Chandler followed by the passage of the Ives-Quinn Act gave him a more receptive commissioner and the political cover he needed, but other events forced his hand.

Letter to Mayor LaGuardia from the New York Giants management asking him to help stop a protest planned for the 19th at the Polo Grounds, August 9, 1945. Mayor LaGuardia papers, NYC Municipal Archives.

Letter from Ben Goldstein of the Metropolitan Interfaith and Interracial Coordinating Council to Mayor LaGuardia, asking him to be honorary chairman of the “End Jim Crow in Baseball Committee,” July 18, 1945. Mayor LaGuardia papers, NYC Municipal Archives.

On July 18, 1945, Ben Goldstein of the Metropolitan Interfaith and Interracial Coordinating Council (MIICC) wrote a letter to Mayor La Guardia asking him to become the honorary chairman of the “End Jim Crow in Baseball Committee.” The Council was heavily involved in left-wing politics and many of the members were also members of the Communist Party of America. They had also asked Eleanor Roosevelt to be a member. Probably to avoid being outflanked on the left, Mayor LaGuardia announced on August 11th the formation of his own task force, “The Mayor’s Committee on Baseball,” to study the question. The timing was not coincidental. The End Jim Crow in Baseball Committee was calling for major demonstrations on August 12th (later apparently moved to the 18th and 19th) to interrupt a Giants’ game at the Polo Grounds and a Dodgers’ game at Ebbetts Field. Mayor LaGuardia wrote back to the MIICC and asked them to call off the demonstrations, citing the potential for a riot and stating his belief that demonstrations would turn the fans against integrating baseball. Besides, he was going to appoint his own committee to study and solve the issue. The protests were called off. Establishing his own committee allowed LaGuardia to control the pace of the movement. After some back and forth, documented in his correspondence, he committed himself to ending segregation before the end of the year.

Letter from Mayor LaGuardia to Ben Goldstein asking him to halt the protests planned for the 18th at the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field, August 14, 1945. Mayor LaGuardia papers, NYC Municipal Archives.

Letter from Ben Goldstein to Mayor LaGuardia, stating they will call off the planned protests, but implying the threat of future protests if progress is not made, August 17, 1945. Mayor LaGuardia papers, NYC Municipal Archives.

Letter from Mayor LaGuardia to Col. MacPhail, President of the New York Yankees, asking him to sit on the Committee on Baseball, August 11, 1945. Mayor LaGuardia papers, NYC Municipal Archives.

The Rev. Dr. John H. Johnson was named chairman, but Dan Dodson, Executive Director of the Committee on Unity, although nominally the secretary of the baseball committee, was the driving force and conduit to Mayor LaGuardia. In addition to religious and business leaders, judges, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, and Times’ sportswriter Arthur Daley, LaGuardia invited Branch Rickey of the Dodgers and Col. Larry MacPhail, Club President, co-owner and General Manager of the New York Yankees to join the Committee. A colorful character known for having a loose tongue when drinking, which was often, MacPhail had been President of the Dodgers before being fired in 1942 (he claimed he had resigned to serve in World War II). The Dodgers replaced him with his teetotaling former mentor Branch Rickey. As the war ended MacPhail returned to New York and took one-third ownership of the Yankees. Rickey’s response to the invitation was short and positive. MacPhail, wrote a longer, more measured response saying he would sit on the committee if it was clear he did not represent the Yankees or the American League. The Giants were not invited because LaGuardia wanted one representative from each of the two leagues. The Yankees were from the American League, the Dodgers the National. To add the Giants would have been two teams from the National League and he knew the Dodgers were more receptive to his plan.

Reply to Mayor LaGuardia from Branch Rickey, President of the Brooklyn Dodgers, August 14, 1945. Mayor LaGuardia papers, NYC Municipal Archives.

Reply to Mayor LaGuardia from Col. MacPhail, President of the New York Yankees, August 22, 1945. Mayor LaGuardia papers, NYC Municipal Archives.

Letter from Dan Dodson inviting Jackie Robinson to a dinner, September 8, 1947. New York City Human Rights Commission, NYC Municipal Archives. Although Dodson says he doubts Robinson would remember him, showing the distance from the committee in the Dodgers’ affairs, he states that he and fellow committee member John Johnson were there for an initial meeting with Robinson.

The formation of the Committee pushed Rickey forward. Rickey cultivated his public image and wanted to be out in front of the issue. He met with Jackie Robinson less than two weeks later, on August 29th and asked him if he was willing to be the first player to break the color line. A recently discovered letter in the Committee on Unity files reveals that also present at this meeting, or at another early meeting with Robinson, were Dan Dodson and Dr. Johnson.

The Mayor’s Committee on Baseball sent their first confidential report to the Mayor on September 28, 1945. It thoughtfully laid out many of the issues that would arise. In 1945, all Major League teams were located outside of the Jim Crow South, but many teams had their off-season training in the Southern states and many of the white players came from those states. Also, the Committee knew that the Negro Leagues were extremely important to the black community and employed thousands of people. What would happen to them? The Committee concluded “There was never a more propitious moment than the present, when we are just concluding a terrible World War to suppress the theory of racial superiority, to put our own house in order.”

Letter sent by Col. Larry S. MacPhail, President ot the American League, and manager and part owner of the New York Yankees, September 14, 1945. New York City Human Rights Commission, NYC Municipal Archives.

Before they could release their final report, their committee came under scrutiny. On September 14, 1935, Col. MacPhail had sent a four-page memo to the Committee outlining the reasons he did not plan to integrate the Yankees and why he thought integrating baseball was a bad idea. Amongst many statements regarding the skill of the black players, statements he may not have even believed, there are two points he probably did believe, that a) the Yankees and other clubs derived a lot of revenue renting ball parks to the Negro Leagues, and b) that if the Major Leagues started to poach the best players from those leagues they would not long survive.

McPhail’s memo and his public statements—during one it was reported that he had used a racial slur—caused outrage from proponents of integration. LaGuardia received numerous letters and petitions from prominent New Yorkers, including Oscar Hammerstein, Stella Adler, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, and future mayors Vincent Impellitteri and William O’Dwyer, calling for the removal of MacPhail. LaGuardia responded to one petition on November 12th: “I do believe that it might be better to have Mr. Larry McPhail [sic] on the committee. It seems that we could do more work on him and lead him to the light rather than just dropping him.” He promised to forward the report when it was completed. LaGuardia had in truth already received the formal report of the Committee on October 31, 1945, but by that time Rickey had upstaged him.

Memo from Dan Dodson regarding the issue of preserving the Negro Leagues, September 14, 1945. New York City Human Rights Commission, NYC Municipal Archives.

On October 23, with reporters and photographers present, his son, Branch Rickey, Jr., who oversaw the Dodgers farm leagues, signed Jackie Robinson to the Montreal Royals. Rickey, Sr., oddly, was not present, but he made sure he was given credit for breaking the color line. In interviews the following day, he made it clear that “I have not been pushed into this.... I signed Robinson in spite of the pressure-groups who are only exploiting the Negroes....” as reported by the New York Times on October 25th, the day he quit the commission. He also answered charges that he had “raided” the Negro leagues of one of their best players, saying that “They are not leagues and have no right to expect organized baseball to respect them. They have the semblance of a racket.” Clark Griffith, owner of the Washington Senators, disagreed, saying the best way forward was to consider the Negro teams to be minor league teams and to bring them into organized baseball. Dan Dodson and Dr. Johnson agreed with Griffith as the Committee also examined how the Negro leagues could be folded into the existing white leagues.

Letter from Don Dodson to Branch Rickey congratulating him after the Cleveland Indians became the second Major League team to field a black player, July 7, 1947. New York City Human Rights Commission, NYC Municipal Archives.

Robinson soon went to train with Montreal and Rickey contracted two more black players to the farm leagues, Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe. After Jackie Robinson proved himself in the spring of 1947, other black players soon arrived. Larry Doby played his first game for the Cleveland Indians on July 5, 1947, Hank Thompson and Willard Brown started on July 17th and 19th for the St. Louis Browns, and Dan Bankhead joined Robinson with the Dodgers on August 26, 1947. Five black players in total played in the majors in the 1947 season, and only two more in 1948—Roy Campanella moved up from the minors and the already legendary Satchel Paige joined the Cleveland Indians. By 1951 there were only 20 black players in the Major Leagues, but the writing was on the wall.

Whatever his motivations, Col. MacPhail had been right, integration spelled the end of the Negro Leagues. There had been seven Negro Leagues now considered “Major” leagues by Major League Baseball. In 1947 two still existed, the Negro National League and the Negro American League. In 1948, the Negro National League played its last season, leaving the Negro American League as the only “major” Negro League in 1949. Although its last season was 1958, by the end of 1951 it had been reduced to minor league status, so many consider 1951 to be the end of the Negro Leagues.

As for the Committee on Unity, they continued to advocate for saving the Negro Leagues and to apply pressure on the New York teams to progress. Dan Dodson and Branch Rickey seemed to have had friendly correspondence over the years, with Dodson apologizing to Rickey in 1947 for doubting his decision to place Robinson in the minors for a year before moving him to the majors. From his correspondence, Dodson seemed happy to let Rickey take all the public credit. As he alluded to a reporter, the public was not in favor of “social planning.” Dr. Johnson would become the President of the Negro National League in 1947, the last person to hold that position.

Although still reluctant in 1947, the New York Giants did catch up, adding their first black player, Monte Irvin, in 1949 and three more in 1951 including Willie Mays. Irvin was, at the time of his death in 2016, 96-years-old, the oldest living member of the Negro Leagues. Bill Greason, now 101, and Ron Teasley, 98, are now older and the last surviving pre-1949 Negro League players.

The Dodgers won the National League Pennant in 1947 but lost the World Series to the Yankees. The 1949, 1952, and 1953 seasons ended similarly, but in 1955 they won it all. The New York Yankees resisted integration until the 1955 season, when Elston Howard played his first game on April 14th.The records don’t show what Mayor LaGuardia thought about being upstaged by Branch Rickey, and although he was very ill in 1947 with the pancreatic cancer that would kill him, he lived long enough that he may have listened to that first April 15, 1947, Dodgers game when Jackie Robinson took the field.

“Brooklyn Borough Hall Reception for Pennant Winning Dodgers,” October 1949. Brooklyn Borough President photograph collection, NYC Municipal Archives. 

In September 1947, Dan Dodson apparently pitched the Branch Rickey / Jackie Robinson story to the Reader’s Digest. New York City Human Rights Commission, NYC Municipal Archives.

Letter from Dan Dodson to Ben Solomon, editor of Youth Leaders Digest, showing how Dodson pushed for the story to center on Rickey, August 6, 1947. New York City Human Rights Commission, NYC Municipal Archives.

Letter from Dan Dodson to Branch Rickey apologizing for doubting his strategy of having Robinson play one year in the integrated minors, September 12, 1947. New York City Human Rights Commission, NYC Municipal Archives.

Letter from Dan Dodson to Branch Rickey following the publication of the Reader’s Digest article, January 28, 1948. New York City Human Rights Commission, NYC Municipal Archives.

Letter to Dan Dodson from Branch Rickey, February 6, 1948. New York City Human Rights Commission, NYC Municipal Archives.

Sources: 

The story of desegregating baseball is much larger than I could cover in this blog. In addition to original source materials listed, there are some excellent articles here for further reading:

Federal support for Documenting Democracy was provided by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission of the National Archives.