On this day in 1960

Jan. 1, 1960 

Jackie Robinson with the Brppklyn Dodgers, 1954. Credit: Photo by Bob Sandberg (Courtesy: Library of Congress)

Nearly 1,000 Black protesters marched 10 miles through the rain and sleet to the downtown airport in Greenville, South Carolina, to protest its segregation policies and its mistreatment of Jackie Robinson, the first Black player in Major League Baseball. 

Months earlier, Robinson had come to speak at an NAACP banquet, where he encouraged Black Americans. As he left the airport that night, he sat with NAACP leader Gloster Current in the “Whites-only” waiting room at the airport, where Robinson signed autographs. The airport manager ordered them to move to the “Colored” waiting room. They said no. 

When the manager brought a police officer, they responded that they had a legal right to stay where they were and refused to move. After the incident, Robinson complained to the NAACP’s Thurgood Marshall, whose office was already pursuing a case against the airport. In the future, Robinson said, “I hope that we can walk in the airport and sit down and enjoy ourselves.” 

During their march, protesters sang “America the Beautiful” and other songs in what they called their “prayer pilgrimage.” As they arrived at the airport, they were met by a 300-man white mob that included Klansmen. The protesters continued, and 15 of them entered the airport. 

“We will no longer make a pretense of being satisfied with the crumbs of citizenship while others enjoy the whole loaf only by the right of a white-skinned birth,” the Rev. C.D. McCullough of Orangeburg declared. 

The walls of segregation soon fell at both airports.

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