Jackie Robinson and Moses Fleetwood Walker: The Integration of Baseball

"A life is not important except on the impact it has on other lives." No person personifies the meaning and power of this quote like the man himself who gave it, Jackie Robinson. Yet the moment Robinson spoke these words, unbeknownst to him, he was giving tribute to a man who's ordinary statistics but level-headed passion and desire impacted Robinson on a more significant socio-political level than any player before him. Moses Fleetwood Walker dug into homeplate on the afternoon of May 1st, 1884 in a day of forgotten history, truly epitomizing the literal interpretation of Robinson's quote; no accolades or special tribute was given to Walker on the day he integrated baseball, the barrier he broke was given no recognized significance. Yet the impact his presence as a player and, later in life, an author meant everything to the life of the man who took the field with deepened resolve amid brutal hatred sixty years after Walker.

From a historical precedent, historians today who have researched "Fleet" Walker's life have bestowed much praise upon Walker's success, yet given his family background, his achievement is not without precedent. As reknown African-American History professor Nudie E. Williams writes in his article in the Journal of American Culture titled "Footnote to Trivia: Moses Fleetwood Walker and the All-American Dream," Walker's father became the first African-American doctor in Walker's hometown of Steubenville, Ohio, which had a monumental impact in transitioning public perception of African-American's from that of slavery to a qualified and contributing memeber of American society. Walker's father, Moses Fleetwood Walker Sr., was successful in his ventures as a doctor and allowed Walker to shield his fifth oldest son "Fleet" from the horrors of slavery, Civil War, and Reconstruction. Such an upbringing facilitated Walker's academic success as he attended the University of Michigan Law School and allowed him to dream beyond the realities of racial injustice during the postbellum era and partake in a game that was growing in popularity throughout the country. This allows Walker, with his unique upbringing in comparison to most African-Americans at this time, the unparalleled ability to break into the ranks of the professionals and break the non-binding law which was effective in barring African-Americans the ability to play professional baseball. Walker's ability to break the socially suffocating "Gentlemen's Agreement" was only temporary in that it would be 63 years before another African-American could truly break the vice of social injustice surrounding baseball.

Inevitably, comparisons between the man who truly integrated baseball and the man who the baseball world recognizes will be made to see if any connection can be made to link the two men to one of sports greatest accomplishments. Yet, symbolic meaning is what links Moses Fleetwood Walker and Jackie Robinson to the integration of baseball, and what makes "Fleet Walker" the perfect, unassuming complement to what baseball recognizes as "Jackie Robinson Day." Robinson, who grew up in the poverty and racial bigotry of the South before moving westward to California, represents all that Moses Fleetwood Walker was not. Whereas Walker lived a comparitively priveleged childhood with a strong mother and father figure in his life while excelling academically, Robinson lived in poverty stricken rural Georgia with only a mother who worked multuiple jobs to just get her kids through school. Analysis of both Walker's and Robinson's backgrounds reveals why the American public became so enamored with annointing Robinson as the integrator of baseball, for his story signified the "American Dream;"a man who became a four sport athlete in college and an eventual Hall-of-Famer that had nothing but will and desire to help realize his dreams. Yet Walker, with his contrast in background, had his childhood most resemble whites during his time period and, in political, social and economic terms, had more in common with the average white ballplayer than he did with Jackie Robinson. Yet, as Nudie E. Williams later reiterates in his article, "Walker's upbringing was the perfect catalyst for social change" during the Gilded Age. Walker faced just as many, if not more, culturally and racially induced barriers in his rise to the professional ranks than Robinson yet his academic upbringing allowed him to adjust to social norms and his intelllectual abilities allowed him to alleviate and break social norms not with prodigious skill, like Robinson, but with social perception.
Life after baseball, an idea that haunts many ballplayers who have had their life consumed by singular love for a sport for so long, proved to haunt Fleet Walker on a much different level. Walker's life after baseball was personified by a social struggle unique to Walker in that his experiences on the field resulted in his deep rooted belief that racial intolerance made it impossible for America's "melting pot" of cultures to live together in equilibrium. This prevailing notion had its origins to the prejudice he faced on the field, but were magnified by an event in April of 1891 in which Walker was charged with 2nd degree murder after being attacked by a group of white men in Syracuse, New York. Due to his presence in a largely white restaurant, the group of men attacked Walker and in an act of self-defense he stabbed one man to death. Though many in the media called for Walker to be found guilty, he was later acquited when the defense clearly showed that Walker was attacked first and stabbed the men in fear of his own life. Such a traumatic event only furthered Walker's commitment to writing his 47-page pamphlet titled Our Home Colony: A Treatise on the Past, Present, and Future of the Negro Race in America. In that pamphlet he recommended African Americans emigrate to Africa: "the only practical and permanent solution of the present and future race troubles in the United States is entire separation by emigration of the Negro from America." He warned "The Negro race will be a menace and the source of discontent as long as it remains in large numbers in the United States. The time is growing very near when the whites of the United States must either settle this problem by deportation, or else be willing to accept a reign of terror such as the world has never seen in a civilized country." Such extreme, militant sentiment is a sad reflection upon a man who's act of bravery and courage to play the game he loved became an afterthought as the intellect he possesed to break the color barrier became focused on the separation of races as the only true means for equality in America.