Letters to the editor in a 1955 edition of Sports Illustrated demonstrated how difficult the process of integrating the sport really was.
The very idea was “disgusting,” wrote one man, appalled at a picture taken by Sports Illustrated photographer Hy Peskin that showed three happy-looking people, two with light skin and one with dark skin, in front of an outfield fence.
“Let me say to you, Sir, the most appalling blow ever struck at this country, the most disastrous thing that ever happened to the people of America, was the recent decision of the Supreme Court declaring segregation unconstitutional.”jpg “Sports Illustrated,” wrote Mays biographer James S. Hirsch, “had shattered a great taboo: a white woman was touching a black man, surely a first for the front of any mainstream national magazine. White supremacists had long raised the spectre of predatory black ‘savages’ deflowering helpless white women as grounds for segregation, incarceration, and violent oppression.”
“Chapman,” wrote then-Dodgers publicist Harold Parrott, “mentioned everything from thick lips to the supposedly extra-thick Negro skull, which he said restricted brain growth to almost animal level compared to white folk. He listed the repulsive sores and disease he said Robbie’s teammates would become infected with if they touched the towels or the combs he used.
“I care nothing about these three people as individuals, but I care a heck of a lot about the proof the picture gives that SI is part of the giant plan to flaunt all decency, so long as the conquered of 1865 can be reminded of their eternal defeat. This is the kind of sporting instinct SI has!” “I have never written to a magazine before,” wrote Steve Kraisler, “but I consider it my duty to do so at this time. I was disgusted at the letters concerning the cover of Willie Mays and Mrs. Leo Durocher. I may be only 15 years old but I have more common sense than any adult with those ideas.”
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