Denver Catholic

22 APRIL 22-MAY 12, 2017 | DENVER CATHOLIC Perspectives The importance of Jackie Robinson I n the history of the modern American civil rights movement, three iconic moments are typi- cally cited. May 17, 1954: The U.S. Supreme Court hands down its decision in Brown v. Board of Edu- cation of Topeka, declaring segregated – "sep- arate but equal" – public schools unconstitutional. August 28, 1963: Two hundred thousand Americans participate in the March on Washington and hear Martin Luther King, Jr., proclaim his dream of a country in which his chil- dren will be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin; ten months later, Con- gress enacts the 1964 Civil Rights Act. March 3, 1965: Civil rights march- ers are assaulted by police tear gas and billy clubs on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama; fi ve months later, President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law the Voting Rights Act, vindicating the Selma marchers' cause. These were noble moments, worth remembering; I certainly cherish my memories of encounters with Bayard Rustin, who organized the March that made Dr. King a national eminence. Yet I also believe there was a fourth iconic moment in America's journey from a land fouled by segregation to the most racially egalitarian nation on the planet. The man at the center of that fourth dramatic moment was an American legend whose accom- plishments should rank as high as anyone's in the pantheon of civil rights heroes. On April 15, 1947, the Brooklyn Dodgers opened their National League season against the Boston Braves at Ebbets Field. The Dodger fi rst baseman that day was Jackie Robinson: the fi rst African-American to play in a major league game since the infamous "color line" was drawn in the 1880s. At UCLA in 1939-41, Robinson was perhaps the greatest amateur athlete in the country, a star in track-and-fi eld, football, and bas- ketball. After service as an Army oŽ - cer in World War II, he was playing shortstop for the Kansas City Mon- archs of the Negro American League when he was signed to a minor league contract by "The Mahatma," Branch Rickey, a cigar-chomping Methodist and the Dodgers' general manager. Rickey was determined to break the color line, and he deliberately chose Jack Roosevelt Robinson to do so. And not because Jackie Robinson was a mild-mannered wallfl ower. But precisely because he was a warrior who, in the words of Leo Durocher, "didn't just come to play, he come to shove the [expletive deleted] bat..." (I'll leave the rest of the quote to your imagination). Robinson was to be a warrior with a di" erence, however: Rickey, an adept psychologist who believed in the essential fairness of the American people, wanted a man with the courage not to fi ght back against the racist slurs, beanballs, and spikings that were sure to come his way – except by giving an unforgetta- ble performance on the fi eld. Which is what Jackie Robinson, the immortal Number 42, delivered. Grainy black-and-white videos today remind us of a truth the baseball world learned seventy years ago this month: there has never been anything more exciting in baseball, including the majestic home run and the overpowering no-hitter, than 42 stealing a base, especially home. Rather than hollering back at bigots during his rookie year, Robinson beat them with a slashing, attacking style of baseball that helped lift the Dodg- ers to the National League pennant and brought them within one game of a World Series victory over the lordly Yankees (who didn't sign an African-American player until Elston Howard in 1955). It was a performance for the ages. And it changed America. In this entertainment-saturated twenty-fi rst century, it may be hard to recall the grip baseball had on the national emotions and imagination in 1947. But as the late Columbia University cultural historian Jacques Barzun (an immigrant from France) used to say, whoever wants to under- stand the heart and mind of America had better understand baseball. On April 14, 1947, that nation-defi ning pastime still embodied the nation's original sin. The next day, Jackie Rob- inson began to accelerate a change in America's heart and mind. That change made possible Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act. On the sapphire jubilee of his fi rst game in the majors, America owes 42 an enormous round of applause and a prayer for the repose of a noble soul. The Catholic Di£ erence George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. GEORGE WEIGEL Bishop Barron's 7 ways to become a great evangelist B ishop Robert Barron is argu- ably one of the best mod- ern-day evangelists, and there's a reason why. But it's not a science only some are able to master — it's the basic frame- work of every Chris- tian's life. If you want to evangelize in the most e" ective way, here are the building blocks you need straight from the bishop himself, taken from an interview with Our Sunday Visitor. 1 "First, you must have a relation- ship with Jesus Christ. To evan- gelize is not just to share ideas — any theologian or historian could do that. It's to share a relationship, and you can't share what you don't have. Therefore, you've got to be in a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ." 2 "Second, and this is piggybacking on Pope John Paul II, you've got to be a person of ardor. I cited that line from Aristotle where he said, 'Finally, people only really listen to an excited speaker.'" 3 "Third, you've got to know the story of Israel. Here I'm working with people like N.T. Wright and others who say that at the heart of evangelization is the good news that the story of Israel has come to its fulfi llment — that the promises of God, as Paul said, have all met their 'Yes!' in Jesus. When you abstract Jesus from Israel, you get the bland, spiritual teacher, the contemporary guru-Christ. 4 "Fourth, you've got to know the culture. When Pope John Paul II called for 'new expressions,' he was looking for new ways to express the faith to a secular society that has grown rather cold to the Gospel, and that has lost a sense of the transcendent. "This requires you to look for 'seeds of the word.' Within the secular culture, there will always be signs, seeds and indications of the Gospel. So fi nd these seeds, latch onto them, and engage the culture." 5 "Fifth, you've got to love the Great Tradition. We Catholics don't subscribe to sola Scriptura. We don't operate by Scripture alone. Scripture is the heart of theology, yes indeed, but as Blessed John Henry Newman said, it 'unfolds across space and time.' It's like a great river that continually broadens and deep- ens. We know Christ better because we know him through Augustine, Aquinas, Newman, Chesterton, and through Michelangelo and Dante. To know the great Catholic theological and artistic tradition is key to being a new evangelist." 6 "Sixth, you've got to have a mis- sionary heart. I told my Munde- lein students, 'It should bother everyone in this room that 75 percent of our own Catholic people are not going to Mass.'" 7 "Last, you've got to know and use the new media. This explosion in technology is really unprec- edented, at least since the time of Gutenberg. I tell my seminary stu- dents: 'Know it; use it; it's in your blood. Your generation grew up with this. You grew up with computers, so use them and don't be afraid of technology.'" Guest Column Therese Aaker writes for Denver Catholic and would probably beat you in pop culture trivia. THERESE AAKER

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