42 STANDS FOR FORTITUDE
On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson (played by Chadwick Boseman) took the field at Ebbets Field as the first African American major league baseball player. Brooklyn Dodger manager Branch Rickey (played by Harrison Ford) decided that the time had come to break the color line in sports for several reasons, as indicated in the film 42, directed by Brian Helgeland. A devout Methodist, growing up in Ohio, he wanted to make up for an incident in his youth where an African American was mistreated; he wanted the Dodgers to win the pennant and World Series; and he looked at the files of several capable African American ballplayers in the minor leagues whom he later hired. He was trying to find someone who could stand up to the inevitable pressure in a game heavily populated by Southern ballplayers. Evidently what impressed him about Robinson was that he refused while a soldier to move to the back of a military bus in the South. The film then provides a sampling of the harassment, even from members of his own team, until his fortitude wins over even those who found the experiment difficult to stomach. The film ends with what happened to several of the principal characters later in life. The jersey 42, for example, was retired when Robinson retired, the only number thus such honored in baseball history. Although the film does not depict the enormous civil rights pressure to desegregate baseball leading up to Robinson’s appearance in Ebbets Field, that story can be found in an essay by Peter Dreier.* Nevertheless, the Political Film Society has nominated 42 as best film on human rights of 2013. MH
*http://www.laprogressive.com/jackie-robinson-42/?utm_source=Hollywood%20Progressive%20News&utm_campaign=38c557e61c-Hollywood_Progressive_24_August_20118_24_2011&utm_medium=email