“When folks want to romanticize Jim Crow… the living legend Reggie Jackson reminds us of what it looked like and how it felt to be Black during that period (1973). If this amazing man was treated in this manner, just think about how poor Black folks with no money, no fame, and no notoriety were treated.” – Jaime Harrison
Q: How emotional is it for you to come back to a place where you played with one of the greatest teams around?
REGGIE JACKSON, June, 2024: When people ask me a question like that… it’s like… coming back here is not easy. The racism that I played here, when I played here, the difficulty of going through places where we traveled… Fortunately, I had a manager and I had players on the team that helped me get through it, but I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. People say to me today, ‘Do you think you’re a better person… do you think you “won” when you played here and conquered?” I said, “You know, I would never want to do it again. I walked into restaurants and they would point at me and say, “The nigger can’t eat here.” I would go to a hotel and they say, “The nigger can’t stay here.” We went to Charlie Findlay’s Country Club for a Welcome Home dinner, and they pointed me out with the N word. “He can’t come in here.”
Finley marched the whole team out. Finally, they let me in there. He said, “We’re going to go to the diner and eat hamburgers! We’ll go where we’re wanted!” Fortunately, I had a manager, and Johnny McNamara said that if I couldn’t eat, if I couldn’t eat in the place, nobody would eat, we’d get food to travel. If I couldn’t stay in a hotel, they’d drive to the next hotel and find a place where I could stay. Had it not been for Raleigh Fingers, Johnny McNamara, Dave Duncan, Joe and Sharon Rudy… I slept on their couch three, four nights a week for about a month and a half. Finally, they were threatened (saying) they would burn our apartment complex down unless I got out. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. The year I came here, Bo Connor was the sheriff the year before, and they took Minor league baseball out of here because in 1963, the Klan murdered four black girls, children 11, 12, 14 years old at a church here, and never got indicted. Clan Life Magazine did a story on (the murderers) like they were being honored. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. At the same time, had it not been for my white friends, had it not been for a white manager and Rudy Fingers and Duncan and Lee Myers, I would’ve never made it. I was too physically violent. I was ready to physically fight someone. I’d have got killed here because I’d have beat someone’s ass and you’d have seen me in an oak tree.
