Whoever stole Jackie Robinson from a Wichita park and burned him in effigy attempted to send a hateful message to the community, that equality and justice and even the power of dreams matter not.
Whatever the motive for the crime — whether it was premediated racial hate or an opportunistic act of vandalism — the theft of the statue and its subsequent fiery destruction have struck at the heart of the community. But the city’s calm and measured response, and the outpouring of support from nearly every quarter, provide us with hope that Robinson’s legacy lives on in the collective heart of Wichita.
Six months after Kansas garnered international attention over the bone-headed police raid on the tiny newspaper at Marion, the theft of the Jackie Robinson statue from its homebase-shaped plinth at McAdams Park in Wichita is again bringing unwelcome attention to Kansas.
The news made the Guardian in the UK and the Times of India and the Japan News. Well, that last probably is less surprising because Japan takes its baseball as seriously as we do; just ask any fan of the Hiroshima Toyo Carp.
But this story is different because it has provoked not just outrage, but a lingering concern that the statue was stolen not to be melted down for a few bucks but instead to make a statement. The theft was from a park in a historic Black neighborhood, one split down the middle by the construction of Interstate 135 in the 1970s. The crime also occurred a few days before what would have been Robinson’s 105th birthday, Jan. 31, and close to the start of Black History Month, which began Feb. 1.
The statue was also the symbol for League 42, for kids ages 5-14. The league is a nonprofit, serves more than 600 children in the community and pays homage to Robinson’s number, which is the only number ever retired by all clubs in Major League baseball.
League 42 founder Bob Lutz said the organization strives to instill in future generations a love of baseball and the values that Robinson embodied. I don’t ordinarily grow emotional about sports, but hearing Lutz talk about baseball and the trailblazing legacy of Jackie Robinson was like listening to a believer deliver a sermon.
“The mission of our league is to inspire us to dream big,” he said, “and to not give up and to not succumb to any kind of pressure to take the wrong path. Because the wrong path leads to things like this, right? So we’re trying to deliver hope. And we’re trying to make our kids aware of the legacy of Jackie Robinson and how he overcame adversity.”
Did he think there was a racial component?
“I don’t go there yet,” Lutz said, “because I don’t want to play the guessing game. We’ll wait until these folks are apprehended and hopefully learn more about the potential motive at that time. We certainly hope that’s not the case. We hope it’s ignorant people doing ignorant things.”
There’s no arguing that plenty of ignorance was involved.
Consider that somebody — three somebodies, actually — plotted to steal a statue of a revered major league player and activist. Before dawn Jan. 25, this trio of masterminds cut the bronze sculpture off at the ankles, leaving only the shoes, and then clumsily backed a pickup truck over a curb and threw the statue in the bed before taking off. All of this was captured by a surveillance camera across the street from the park.
Any hope the statue might be recovered undamaged above the ankles was dashed when, five days later, Wichita firefighters were called to extinguish a burning trash can at Garvey Park. Once the flames were out, they found what was left of the Robinson statue, broken into pieces and scorched by the fire. Garvey Park is about seven miles from McAdams, so it’s anybody’s guess where the thieves had stashed the bronze Robinson before attempting to dispose of him in a flaming trash can.
In 1947, the flesh-and-blood Robinson was the first Black player to break the major league color line when he was chosen to play first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers. In addition to his talent, part of the reason the Dodgers picked Robinson is because they knew his temperament was equal to the task of being the first Black major leaguer, somebody who would stand up to racism but not throw punches.
Robinson, who was born in Georgia, previously played for the Kansas City Monarchs, among the most famous of the Negro League teams. After his stint with the Monarchs, Robinson was the first Black player with the Montreal Royals, a Dodgers farm team. He was promoted to the Dodgers on April 15, 1947.
Even before he shattered the baseball color line, Robinson had been an activist. Robinson had served in the U.S. Army during World War II and was court-martialed (but exonerated) for failing to give up his seat and move to the back of a segregated military bus.
He was Rookie of the Year in 1947, MVP in 1949, and in 1955 helped the Dodgers win their first World Series. In 1962, he became the first Black player inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
After baseball, he had a successful career as a businessman and political activist. He was a frequent speaker at Civil Rights rallies and in 1963 was part of the March on Washington.
Robinson died of diabetes in 1972. He was 53.
In Wichita, as with the rest of the country, baseball became a national obsession during the 20th Century, and Black teams have been an important part of the city’s history. On June 21, 1925, the Monrovians — a Black semi-pro team — played the Ku Klux Klan at Island Stadium.
The stadium was located on a broad sandbar called Ackerman’s Island in the middle of the Arkansas River, about where Exploration Place is today. The river was much broader than today, and the island so large that it had not only the stadium but an amusement park featuring what was billed as “the world’s longest roller coaster.”
The Monrovians were to play against Klan No. 6, a local “klavern” that was so heavily involved in local politics at the time that it took out ads in the newspapers endorsing candidates for local offices. “Strangle holds, razors, horsewhips and other violent implements of argument will be barred” from the game, the Wichita Beacon cautioned, according to a book about integrated baseball in Kansas by Mark E. Eberle.
The Monrovians won, 10-8.
“The contest received little press coverage,” Eberle dryly notes.
The League 42 statue, in contrast, received wide coverage when it was placed at the entrance to the ballfields in 2021. It was the work of local sculptor John Parsons, a fireman who suffered a broken back and embarked on a second career as an artist. Parsons died in 2022. The statue, which cost the league $50,000, was cast at Art Castings of Loveland, Colorado, a firm that still has the original mold and is ready to help create an exact copy of the original.
“It’s a setback,” Lutz, the youth league founder, said. “You never want something like this to happen. I’m a proud Wichitan, proud of the statue, proud of League 42 and proud of our involvement in making the statue happen. It was a symbol of what we do and our mission.”
Lutz spent nearly 43 years as a journalist for the Wichita Eagle, retiring in 2017. He said the coverage reminded him of what he read in the aftermath of the Marion raid because his phone has not stopped ringing since the news broke.
“It’s a little bit of a black eye on the community,” Lutz said. “But the way we respond will be the final story. I’m elated by the way law enforcement has gone about this investigation. And I think we’ll have a good ending in terms of that. I’m sorry, I have to take this call. Here goes my phone again. Yeah, I can’t talk to anybody without getting two or three more calls.”
Lutz said he was encouraged by the outpouring of support from the community and across the country, including donations that are more than what is needed to cast a new bronze. Major League Baseball and its roughly 30 clubs have pledged to replace the statue, and an additional $158,000 in donations have been received by League 42. After the statue is replaced, the additional funds will be used for improvements to the league’s facilities.
If Lutz could talk face-to-face with the thieves, what would he say?
“I’m a former reporter myself,” he said. “And I guess, once you’re a reporter, you’re always a reporter. So I’m more interested in the why. And the character study, wanting to learn as much about them as possible. I’d like to know what their upbringing was like, to talk to them about how they ended up in a place where they could do something like this.”
Amen, Bob Lutz.
Max McCoy is an award-winning author and journalist. Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.
Excerpts or more from this article, originally published on Kansas Reflector appear in this post. Republished, with permission, under a Creative Commons License.
