It’s not the first time in the era of MAGA that Robinson has been swept up in a cultural purge. In early 2023, two books about Jackie Robinson, including one authored by his daughter, were among those pulled from classroom shelves and school libraries in Florida. Technically, these books were not banned, but rather were under review by “media specialists” in various school districts across the state.
The review process was driven by a Florida state law instituted under the DeSantis administration, known colloquially as the STOP “Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees” (W.O.K.E.) ACT, CS/HB 7 – Individual Freedom. The act’s imprint is evident in the Library Media and Instructional Materials Training, which specifically calls for avoiding materials that use “unsolicited strategies that could be seen as indoctrination” or “contain divisive materials such as Critical Race Theory, culturally responsive teaching, social justice, and social emotional learning.”
The two books about Jackie Robinson complicate matters even further because they are not so much about Robinson as they are about intergenerational, interracial, and interreligious friendships. Thank You, Jackie Robinson (1974) is a work of fiction by Barbara Cohen with drawings by Richard Cuffari. Set in 1947 New Jersey, the novel narrates a friendship between a Jewish boy, Sammy, whose father has died, and Davy, a sixty-something African American cook hired by his mom to prepare meals for their inn. The two bond over their love of the Dodgers as they travel together with Davy’s adult daughter and husband to watch the team play. Racism is alluded to when they plan a trip to Pittsburgh and acknowledge that accommodations for a racially mixed party will be prohibitive. The book contains one use of the n-word, when the young narrator cautions against ever saying it, because doing so for “a middle-class Jewish boy whose folks had voted for Roosevelt four times was like using a really filthy swear word.” When Davy is hospitalized after a heart attack, Sammy journeys alone from New Jersey to Brooklyn to secure Jackie Robinson’s get-well wishes on a baseball for his friend, convinced of the healing properties of a team-autographed ball. While the gift lifts Davy’s spirits, it cannot prevent the inevitable.
In 1978 the book was made into an ABC Afterschool Special. A tearjerker, the short movie was shot in black and white, a period piece that makes seamless use of vintage game film of Robinson in action. Thematically the content of the book and film deals with the illness and death of a loved one. Today this alone may warrant a trigger warning; however, such experiences are not unfamiliar to children who have lost a grandparent or parent at a young age. Rationale for the book’s exclusion from school libraries is absent.