Long Island man recalls the lasting impact of Jackie Robinson during the Civil Rights movement
Herb Landman walked into Citi Field's Jackie Robinson Rotunda for the first time in his life this past summer. His eyes widened as he took in the blown-up photos of his old friend, and he marveled at the architecture that is so similar to the Ebbets Field of his youth.
Landman, 84, was growing up in Brooklyn and rooting for the Dodgers when he first learned about Robinson as a player, the larger-than-life future Hall of Famer who broke baseball's color barrier in 1947. It was nearly two decades later, as his personal assistant in 1964, when he learned about Robinson as an activist — the man whose fight for civil rights only grew larger after his retirement.
"There was electricity in the stadium when Jackie came up. You could feel it, you could hear the buzz," said Landman, now a Floral Park resident. "But people probably have no idea not just what a great player he was, but that he was a true hero . . . He was always a fighter [and] I don't think he left anything on the table."
Landman worked with Robinson for five months during a pivotal time in the ballplayer's civil rights activism. The job involved late nights, a few dangerous situations and helping Robinson in his commitment to those affected by racism.
“I feel so fortunate that I had that time with him and friendship with him,” Landman said. “It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, to spend time with a man that I worshipped, I loved, a hero, and find out he’s a real humanitarian."
Landman was there in the summer of 1964 when Robinson gave a speech for desegregation in a church in St. Augustine, Florida. Robinson was a late addition after Martin Luther King Jr., the scheduled speaker, had been jailed for asking to be served at a restaurant for white people only. Landman said the day came with threats both implied and overt, and Robinson worried that he also would be arrested. He had diabetes and wondered if extended time in a jail cell could kill him, Landman said.
But it also further galvanized Robinson in his purpose.
A desegregation march was scheduled after the speech and many in the crowd planned to attend, including JoeAnn Anderson and Audrey Nell Edwards, two teenaged girls who had been released from jail months earlier after taking part in a protest. Anderson and Edwards stood out, though, because they were part of the "St. Augustine Four" — a group of four teens who, after a 1963 sit-in, refused plea deals that would keep them out of jail.
Robinson was touched by the girls' bravery, Landman said.
Edwards recounted what happened after in an interview with The Washington Post last year: "Suddenly a friend raced out and shouted, 'Jackie Robinson . . . wants to meet you all!' " the article said.
It was Landman who told them they were invited to spend all of August with Jackie and his wife, Rachel, at their six-acre estate in Connecticut.
“We had the time of our lives,” Edwards said.
When they returned to New York, Robinson and Landman worked at the election headquarters of then-New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, who was vying for the Republican nomination for president. Robinson believed Rockefeller could steer the party away from Barry Goldwater, a senator who voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The work didn't stop there.
Landman recalls Robinson giving him specific instructions.
"I want you to answer every phone call, find out who it is, what they want, and I’ll call everybody back,” Landman said, recalling what Robinson told him. “And I’m thinking to myself, yeah, he says that, but is that going to happen? Well, it did happen . . . Whether it was a stranger or someone he knew, he would return every call.”
Robinson also tried to change things from inside the political system — typified by his friendship with Rockefeller, who, according to a number of historical sources, was a moderate conservative with liberal social leanings (an ideology that defined the Rockefeller Republicans).
"[Robinson] took the approach that he had a responsibility to speak out and use his position to make sure that things continued to move forward in the civil rights movement," said Leslie Heaphy, a professor at Kent State and a historian who writes about the Negro Leagues. "I think it was difficult for him and for many others [to grapple with the knowledge] that creating a new system just wasn’t going to happen. So, in most cases, they had to work within the system."
Robinson worked closely with King and Andrew Young, King’s aide, and a future United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Robinson raised more than $1 million for the NAACP and King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, gave speeches, wrote a syndicated column on race relations, was chairman of the Youth March for Integrated Schools, and founded Harlem’s Black-owned Freedom National Bank.
Robinson also championed the need for Black men in baseball’s highest offices. Landman said Robinson lamented turning down a 1956 trade to the New York Giants that would have paved the way for him to become baseball’s first Black manager. It was one of the very few times they talked baseball.
"He certainly appears to have been well-respected by other civil rights activists because here’s someone who understood the importance of the position that he had and chose to use it instead of sitting back and be silent," Heaphy said. "That was not Jackie’s personality, to sit back and be silent."
Still, not everyone agreed with his methods. Having honed his activism as a player, he often replied to taunts and threats with quiet resolve rather than overt anger. Some in the movement felt it was time for another approach.
"He was criticized by a lot of people inside of sports and outside of sports," Landman said. "Some thought he wasn’t militant enough. Others thought he shouldn’t talk so much. But Jack was the type that would express his opinion, but he wouldn’t do it in an angry way.”
Once Rockefeller lost his bid to become the Republican nominee for president, Landman's tenure as Robinson's assistant ended.
Old friends he loved, and saying goodbye
Landman was working as a court reporter in Manhattan in 1972, and though he intended to contact Robinson, he held back, not wanting to bother the man so many sought out. But Robinson tracked Landman to a courthouse and called him.
“He said, ‘I’m just touching base with my old friends who I love and saying goodbye,’ " Landman said. “He said, ‘My heart condition, my diabetes. The doctors tell me I don’t have much longer.’ I told him I loved him, too. It was so painful to hear him say this because, in the back of my mind, it was always, next week I’m going to call him and Rachel. He had no idea how much I treasured my friendship and valued it.”
Robinson died soon after, on Oct. 24, 1972, at the age of 53.
“I was devastated,” Landman said.
Robinson's legacy "not only affected me for years after, it still affects me,” Landman said.
“He’s changed my life in terms of inspiring me and filling me with courage to do the things that are sometimes difficult to do when it comes to race, to speak up.”
It’s with that that Landman takes a book into his hands called “Baseball Has Done It,” written by Robinson. On the inside page, there’s an inscription and a date: “4-7-64,” a month after they met.
“To Herb Landman with my thanks for being a great guy,” it reads. “In the few weeks that I have known you I have come to admire and respect you. It’s so good to work with someone so devoted to the principles this country was founded on.”
“Best wishes always, Jackie Robinson.”
Herb Landman walked into Citi Field's Jackie Robinson Rotunda for the first time in his life this past summer. His eyes widened as he took in the blown-up photos of his old friend, and he marveled at the architecture that is so similar to the Ebbets Field of his youth.
Landman, 84, was growing up in Brooklyn and rooting for the Dodgers when he first learned about Robinson as a player, the larger-than-life future Hall of Famer who broke baseball's color barrier in 1947. It was nearly two decades later, as his personal assistant in 1964, when he learned about Robinson as an activist — the man whose fight for civil rights only grew larger after his retirement.
"There was electricity in the stadium when Jackie came up. You could feel it, you could hear the buzz," said Landman, now a Floral Park resident. "But people probably have no idea not just what a great player he was, but that he was a true hero . . . He was always a fighter [and] I don't think he left anything on the table."
Landman worked with Robinson for five months during a pivotal time in the ballplayer's civil rights activism. The job involved late nights, a few dangerous situations and helping Robinson in his commitment to those affected by racism.
“I feel so fortunate that I had that time with him and friendship with him,” Landman said. “It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, to spend time with a man that I worshipped, I loved, a hero, and find out he’s a real humanitarian."
The speech in St. Augustine
Landman was there in the summer of 1964 when Robinson gave a speech for desegregation in a church in St. Augustine, Florida. Robinson was a late addition after Martin Luther King Jr., the scheduled speaker, had been jailed for asking to be served at a restaurant for white people only. Landman said the day came with threats both implied and overt, and Robinson worried that he also would be arrested. He had diabetes and wondered if extended time in a jail cell could kill him, Landman said.
But it also further galvanized Robinson in his purpose.
A desegregation march was scheduled after the speech and many in the crowd planned to attend, including JoeAnn Anderson and Audrey Nell Edwards, two teenaged girls who had been released from jail months earlier after taking part in a protest. Anderson and Edwards stood out, though, because they were part of the "St. Augustine Four" — a group of four teens who, after a 1963 sit-in, refused plea deals that would keep them out of jail.
Robinson was touched by the girls' bravery, Landman said.
Edwards recounted what happened after in an interview with The Washington Post last year: "Suddenly a friend raced out and shouted, 'Jackie Robinson . . . wants to meet you all!' " the article said.
It was Landman who told them they were invited to spend all of August with Jackie and his wife, Rachel, at their six-acre estate in Connecticut.
“We had the time of our lives,” Edwards said.
A man on the run, and every call returned
When they returned to New York, Robinson and Landman worked at the election headquarters of then-New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, who was vying for the Republican nomination for president. Robinson believed Rockefeller could steer the party away from Barry Goldwater, a senator who voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The work didn't stop there.
Landman recalls Robinson giving him specific instructions.
"I want you to answer every phone call, find out who it is, what they want, and I’ll call everybody back,” Landman said, recalling what Robinson told him. “And I’m thinking to myself, yeah, he says that, but is that going to happen? Well, it did happen . . . Whether it was a stranger or someone he knew, he would return every call.”
Robinson also tried to change things from inside the political system — typified by his friendship with Rockefeller, who, according to a number of historical sources, was a moderate conservative with liberal social leanings (an ideology that defined the Rockefeller Republicans).
"[Robinson] took the approach that he had a responsibility to speak out and use his position to make sure that things continued to move forward in the civil rights movement," said Leslie Heaphy, a professor at Kent State and a historian who writes about the Negro Leagues. "I think it was difficult for him and for many others [to grapple with the knowledge] that creating a new system just wasn’t going to happen. So, in most cases, they had to work within the system."
A life of service
Boxer Floyd Patterson, left, and former baseball player Jackie Robinson, right, discuss Birmingham race relations with civil rights leaders, Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, second from left, and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Birmingham, Ala., May 14, 1963. Credit: AP
Robinson worked closely with King and Andrew Young, King’s aide, and a future United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Robinson raised more than $1 million for the NAACP and King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, gave speeches, wrote a syndicated column on race relations, was chairman of the Youth March for Integrated Schools, and founded Harlem’s Black-owned Freedom National Bank.
Robinson also championed the need for Black men in baseball’s highest offices. Landman said Robinson lamented turning down a 1956 trade to the New York Giants that would have paved the way for him to become baseball’s first Black manager. It was one of the very few times they talked baseball.
"He certainly appears to have been well-respected by other civil rights activists because here’s someone who understood the importance of the position that he had and chose to use it instead of sitting back and be silent," Heaphy said. "That was not Jackie’s personality, to sit back and be silent."
Still, not everyone agreed with his methods. Having honed his activism as a player, he often replied to taunts and threats with quiet resolve rather than overt anger. Some in the movement felt it was time for another approach.
"He was criticized by a lot of people inside of sports and outside of sports," Landman said. "Some thought he wasn’t militant enough. Others thought he shouldn’t talk so much. But Jack was the type that would express his opinion, but he wouldn’t do it in an angry way.”
Once Rockefeller lost his bid to become the Republican nominee for president, Landman's tenure as Robinson's assistant ended.
Old friends he loved, and saying goodbye
Herb Landman, who served as an assistant to Jackie Robinson for five months and became his close friend, joining him in his Civil RIghts fight, and was the only person to accompany him for a speech in St. Augustine in 1964. Credit: Newsday/Thomas A. Ferrara
Landman was working as a court reporter in Manhattan in 1972, and though he intended to contact Robinson, he held back, not wanting to bother the man so many sought out. But Robinson tracked Landman to a courthouse and called him.
“He said, ‘I’m just touching base with my old friends who I love and saying goodbye,’ " Landman said. “He said, ‘My heart condition, my diabetes. The doctors tell me I don’t have much longer.’ I told him I loved him, too. It was so painful to hear him say this because, in the back of my mind, it was always, next week I’m going to call him and Rachel. He had no idea how much I treasured my friendship and valued it.”
Robinson died soon after, on Oct. 24, 1972, at the age of 53.
“I was devastated,” Landman said.
Robinson's legacy "not only affected me for years after, it still affects me,” Landman said.
“He’s changed my life in terms of inspiring me and filling me with courage to do the things that are sometimes difficult to do when it comes to race, to speak up.”
It’s with that that Landman takes a book into his hands called “Baseball Has Done It,” written by Robinson. On the inside page, there’s an inscription and a date: “4-7-64,” a month after they met.
“To Herb Landman with my thanks for being a great guy,” it reads. “In the few weeks that I have known you I have come to admire and respect you. It’s so good to work with someone so devoted to the principles this country was founded on.”
“Best wishes always, Jackie Robinson.”
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
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