3 R's of Racial Reconciliation

 

 There are many definitions for racial reconciliation.  At one point some people at Wheaton College asked their students, staff and alumni to define it in 6 words or less. My favorite of these definitions was ...

"Pursuit of equal partnership in relationships"

By that definition my 3 R's who were living in 1921 epitomized that definition in their greatest achievements.  Those 3 people are Branch Rickey, Jackie Robinson and Rosa Parks.  Each of these people in their own way pursued an equal partnership in relationships and in doing so they shaped 20th century America.

 

                                                           Branch Rickey

                                                            Years lived before 1921: Forty

                                                            Years lived after 1921: Forty-four

Branch Rickey was a professional football and baseball player but was best known for being am innovative manager and general manager in Major League Baseball.  Among his innovations were the minor league system, spring training, and the use of advanced statistics.  

As a general manager, Rickey was a shrewd businessman. One example of this was is found in one of the innovations he brought to baseball.  He was the first general manager to mandate that all his players wear batting helmets. It turns out that Rickey owned stock in the company manufacturing those helmets.  

Rickey was also a devoted and vocal Christian. In 1965 according to Wikipedia Rickey's last audible words were "Now I'm going to tell you a story from the Bible about spiritual courage" .  These were his last words as he collapsed in the middle of a speech  , went into a coma for 26 days before dying on 12/9/1965.

Rickey's courage, Christian character and business acumen were all combined in his greatest lifetime achievement orchestrating the breaking of the color line in major league baseball.

Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey make baseball history.

Jackie Robinson

Years lived before 1921: Two

Years lived after 1921: Fifty-one

On April `15, 1947 Jackie Robinson made his debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers.  Becoming the first African American on a Major League Baseball (MLB) team in the 20th century.  Exactly fifty years later on 4/15/87 the MLB  retired #42 (Robinson's Jersey #) throughout the league.  Rickey had handpicked the four sport (baseball, football, track and basketball) UCLA standout to desegregate baseball.  One of the reasons Rickey picked Robinson aside from his obvious baseball prowess was his character.  Rickey thought Robinson had what it took to withstand the abuse that would be heaped on the first black baseball player.  

Robinson proved Rickey right and between his determination and his skill he successfully bridged the color gap in the National League.

One way Robinson demonstrated to Ricker that he was the right person to the job happened when Jackie was in the army.  Robinson had been drafted in 1942 and was serving in a tank division.  In 1944 he was on a desegregated Army bus but the bus driver ordered him to go to the back of the bus anyway.  Robinson refused, was arrested, and there was an attempt to get him court-martialed.  Robinson was acquitted.

Rosa Parks

Years lived before 1921: Eight

Years lived after 1921: Eighty-four

On December 1, 1955 a seamstress from Birmingham Alabama  refused to give her seat up to a white passenger.  This seamstress was of course Rosa Parks.  Like Robinson 15 years prior she was not legally obligated to give up her seat as she was sitting in the colored section at the time.  She was arrested, beginning a 1 year bus strike which eventually led to the end of segregation on public busses.

When I think of Rickey, Robinson and Rosa I think of ordinary people willing to take a stand for what is right.  I hope 100 years from now there r more people like that to celebrate.  For more A to Z challenge click here. 

If you are visiting from the road trip, you can get to the rest of my a to z posts by clicking here. 

 1921 Index In Progress 

Theme Reveal

A 

B

C

1921: A Tale of 13 Presidents

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R (This Post)

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

A To Z Reflection Post

                                                             

                                                            

Q is for Queens Consort

The first thing I checked when I decided that my theme would be  people alive in 1921 was to see who was born in 1921.  The second thing I did was to see if anyone famous who was born in 1921 was still alive in 2021. 

So when I noticed that Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh was approaching his 100th birthday, I tried to find a way to get him in my list.  When it came down to fit people letters I realized quickly that I could fill the dreaded Q spot by Philip's title.  

                Prince Philip

                                                                                 Years Lived Before 1921: Zero   

                                                                                 Years lived after 1921: One-hundred 

Born a Greek and Danish prince on a dining room table on the island of Corfu in June of 1921, Prince Philip left Greece 18 months later in a cot made from a fruit box when his family was exiled.  These fairy tale beginnings led to a very public life as the longest royal consort in the history of the British monarchy.  

He married his third cousin (through Queen Victoria) Princess Elizabeth of  England in 1947.  They were married 73 years.  Princess Elizabeth and he exchanged letters in 1939 when he was 18 and she was 13.  Philip joined the Royal Navy and served in the Navy during World War II. In 1952 when Princess Elizabeth became Queen upon the death of her father Philip became the Queen consort.  

Prince Philip dies on April 9, 2021 twelve days before the Queen's 95th birthday and two months and a day before he would have turned 100.

For more A to Z challenge click here.  

                                                 

P is for Prokofiev

Last year in my A to Z challenge on my blog Random Acts of Roller. My theme was State Capitals.  I stated in my introduction ...

My Theme will be Capitals. Due to the random nature of my blog, and specifically my mind, each entry may only be somewhat related to the capital mentioned. For example, it is entirely possible that Friday April third's entry will feature the Krispy Kreme themed love song I wrote in 1995 because I wrote it while living in Columbia, South Carolina where I encountered my first  Krispy Kreme.

I mention that here. because today's post about Sergei Prokofiev will tell you probably a lot more about me than Prokofiev. But let's at least start with Prokofiev.

Sergei Prokofiev

Years lived before 1921: Thirty

Years lived after 1921: Thirty Two

Sergei Sergyevich Prokofiev was born in April of 1891 in the Ukraine. . Sergei and I have something in commo that we both share the first name of our father but not our grandfather.  The way you can tell this with Prokofiev is that according to his Wikipedia page his father's name is Sergei Alexeyevich  Prokofiev. In Russian the 2nd name is the patronymic name which means it is derived from the father's name.  Boys names end in -ovich or -evich  and girls  patronyms  end in -ovna or -evna.  So Prokofiev's Dad's name was Sergei and  his paternal grandfathers name was Alexei. The way you can tell it with me, is cause I'm telling you. You'll have to take my word for it, as I don't have a Wikipedia page. 

I first became aware of the music of Prokofiev was when I was a kid watching the Disney version of Peter and the Wolf. It is narrated by actor Sterling Holloway best known as the original voice of Winnie The Pooh. Different instruments play different characters in the folk tale.

                                                    Sterling Holloway

                                                    Years lived before 1921: Fifteen

                                                    Years lived after 1921: Seventy-one

                                                    Winnie The Pooh aka Edward Bear

                                                    Years lived before 1921: zero

                                                    Years lived after 1921:100+

My family watched a lot of Disney, but we also listened to a lot of Alan Sherman also to a lot of the Boston Pop's conducted by Arthur Fiedler. In 1964 Sherman, Fiedler and the Pops produced an Album called Peter and the Commissar which is a parody of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf.  This was a family favorite and I was overjoyed to see it available on Spotify.  

The next time I encountered Prokofiev was in the early 1990's I was living in Russia as a Southern Baptist missionary.  My job was to teach English classes and help start a student ministry.  In that capacity I got a lot of invitations from my students to experience traditional Russian culture.  I got invited to a a concert one afternoon and it was some sort of adaptation of Rome and Juliet.  As I watched the performance I realized that the instruments were kind of telling the story not exactly like Peter and the Wolf but there were some similarities.  At the break I looked again at the program and read in Russian that the composer had also writeen something called Peotr y Volk which in English is Peter and the Wolf.  

Here is the London Symphony Orchestra playing a famous selection from Romeo and Juliet ...

Well that was a more random look at Prokofiev.  I hope you enjoyed it.  Tomorrow we'll have to mind our p's and q's as we are dealing with royalty.  For more of the A to Z challenge click here.  

O is for Oskar.

 I don't know a lot about cancel culture, but I seem to hear and read a lot about it.  My best understanding of it is that with cancel culture people can be reduced to the worst thing (or most recent bad thing) that you've done and  other positive achievements are overlooked or forgotten in light of the bad.

Oskar Schindler was not a product of cancel culture.  He seemed to be more of the opposite.  Nazi, serial philanderer, spy, war profiteer are labels that could easily mar any good  you could otherwise accomplish.  But in Schindler we find an extremely flawed man remembered and revered for his greatest accomplishment.

Oskar Schindler

Years lived before 1921: Thirteen

Years lived after 1921: Fifty Three

I personally was raised thinking that life was like a moral bank ledger where you hoped your black ink outweighed your red.  I no longer feel that way.  In some ways like the hundreds of Jews that Schindler saved from death in concentration camps I was saved  by a conscious choice not of a flawed man but by a perfect God.  

For more A to Z challenge click here.

N is for Nevins: Guest Post

 

My youngest daughter when she heard about my a to z challenge theme this year asked if she could write about one of the Radium girls.  Since I don't know very much about the radium girls I asked her if she's be willing to write a guest post about one of them.  She chose Charlotte Nevins Purcell who she will be portraying in her high schools spring play, These Shining Lives.  

Charlotte Nevins Purcell

Radium Girl 

                                                                Years lived before 1921: Fifteen

                                                                Years lived after 1921: Sixty-seven

Charlotte Nevins Purcell was one of the dial painters who worked at the now infamous Radium Dial company in Ottawa, Illinois. She was one of the many women working at the company (now known as the 'Radium Girls') who painted watch faces with radium powder, which wasn't widely known to be harmful at the time. Because of this, she was also one of the many women who suffered from radium poisoning as a result of their work. Charlotte had to have her arm amputated because of the radium, which allowed her to live longer than many of the other women whos poisoning had taken effect in more vital areas. 

" A relative said: ‘She was pretty outspoken. She told people what she thought about things ... she spoke her mind about a lot of things.’ That perhaps explains why Charlotte played such an important role in the Illinois lawsuits. She and Catherine Donohue were ‘spokesmen for the other women’." - Kate Moore, author of The Radium Girls, wrote about Purcell

Charlotte Purcell was evidently the kind of person who would not give up and would not stand for injustice.  According to family members, she once tied one end of a jump rope to a fence in order to be able to jump rope with only one arm, because of her amputation. This shows how she never let anything stop her, which is truly inspiring.

Thanks daughter! For more A to Z challenge click here.