Hbo Chronicles African-American Athletes
Among the recurring themes of Ken Burns’ PBS documentary “Baseball” was the progression of the Negro Leagues and the injustice done by prohibiting most of the players from going on to the majors.
But that will only be part of the wide-ranging examination in the HBO documentary, “The Journey of the African-American Athlete.”
Part 1 premieres today, with Part 2 airing Feb. 19.
The presentation is billed as “HBO’s most comprehensive documentary undertaking to date.” Ross Greenburg is the executive producer, perhaps best remembered for “When It Was a Game.” If this production is anything near as good as that or even as good as HBO’s most recent documentary on the American Football League it will be well worth watching.
HBO Sports vice president Rick Bernstein, the senior producer on the project, said “The Journey of the African-American Athlete” centers on personal stories, struggles and achievements.
Part 1 focuses on the period from 1875 to 1950, while Part 2 deals with the period from 1950 to the present.
In addition to the Negro Leagues, Part 1 will explore the early days of basketball and horse racing (when black jockeys won 11 of the first 20 Kentucky Derbies before being driven out of the sport), and it will profile Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson.
It will recall Robinson’s entry into major league baseball in 1947 as a member of Brooklyn Dodgers.
Pitcher Don Newcombe, one of Robinson’s teammates, says in the program that Dodger president Branch Rickey had Robinson sign a three-year contract with provisions that dictated his behavior. It stipulated that Robinson could not show any public displeasure for any actions taken against him during the length of the contract.
“Branch Rickey would say to Jackie, ‘If you can’t do it my way, there will be no way at all.”’ says Newcombe.
Newcombe also ponders with amazement at how long it took baseball to integrate.
“If baseball was the great All-American pastime, why wasn’t it that all Americans were given a chance to play the game?” he said.
Marion Motley, one of the African-Americans who integrated pro football in the ‘40s, was not under the same restrictions as Robinson when he played both offense and defense for the Cleveland Browns.
“If a player knocked my helmet off, I’d turn him around and say ‘I’m getting your number. We play you twice. If I don’t get you today, I’ll get you the next time.”
Grambling football coach Eddie Robinson says in the documentary that he drew much of his inspiration from Louis, who became heavyweight boxing champion in 1938.
“I really believe that Joe Louis had the greatest impact on my life, on the kind of person that I wanted to be,” Robinson said. “Louis was the first person to show me that he could do anything equal to anybody else in his profession.”
Athletes spotlighted in Part 2 will include Althea Gibson, Wilma Rudolph, Arthur Ashe, Jim Brown, Bill Russell, Muhammad Ali, Hank Aaron and 1968 Olympic athletes John Carlos and Tommie Smith.
Others profiled in the documentary include basketball greats Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Robinson and Cheryl Miller, baseball’s Curt Flood and Frank Robinson and tennis player Zina Garrison.
Commentators include sports historians and biographers Gerald Early and Randy Roberts, sociologist/professor Harry Edwards, writers Sam Lacy, Nelson George and Frank Bolden and broadcaster/author Dick Schaap.