Teaching With Documents:
Beyond the Playing Field -
Jackie Robinson, Civil Rights Advocate
JACKIE ROBINSON TO E. FREDERICK MORROW
AUGUST 13, 1957
Jackie Robinson sent this message to Presidential assistant
E. Frederick Morrow in August 1957 as the first civil rights legislation since
Reconstruction was being negotiated between Congress and the Eisenhower administration.
Public citizen Robinson--along with race leaders such as Ralph Bunche, A. Philip
Randolph, and the publishers of the popular black newspapers--the Chicago
Defender, [Baltimore] Afro-American, and the [New York] Amsterdam
News--considered the emerging final version of the 1957 Civil Rights Act
too weak and urged Eisenhower to veto it. In the end, Eisenhower signed the bill.
Dwight D. Eisenhower Library