On This Day: Jackie Robinson

#Onthisday October 8, 1953, baseball player and U.S. Army veteran Jackie Robinson was banned from holding the All-Star interracial baseball game in Birmingham, Alabama. Birmingham Police Commissioner, Eugene “Bull” Conner, banned the game because the participants were black and white, and cited a city ordinance that prohibited mixed-race athletic events. During that time, Conner was known across the nation as a racist who had very close relations to the Ku Klux Klan. Robinson, however, did not cancel the event. Instead, he benched the white participants and the game was played by the African American teammates. This event was just one of the many progressive interracial stances that Conner would be against.