Rename Fort Hood in Honor of Civil Rights Pioneer (and fmr. US Army 2Lt.) Jackie Robinson

Rename Fort Hood in Honor of Civil Rights Pioneer (and fmr. US Army 2Lt.) Jackie Robinson

Started
July 15, 2020
Petition to
US Senate Armed Services Committee and 1 other
Signatures: 642Next Goal: 1,000
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Why this petition matters

Started by GWU Jackie Robinson Project

***This petition was created by the GWU JACKIE ROBINSON PROJECT.***

The purpose of this petition is to recommend that the military base now named Fort Hood be renamed THE JACKIE ROBINSON ARMY BASE.

Jackie Robinson is arguably the most significant American to have ever been stationed at Fort Hood.  The discrimination he encountered there needs to be publicly acknowledged.  Renaming Fort Hood in Jackie Robinson’s honor would be an important step in racial reconciliation and the advancement of civil rights.

BACKGROUND

Jackie Robinson was transferred from Fort Riley in Oklahoma to Fort Hood in Texas on April 13, 1944.

Robinson’s biographer, Arnold Rampersad, has described Jack’s experiences at Fort Hood in his biography of Robinson published in 1997.  These experiences were devastating and culminated in Robinson’s court martial for refusing to move to the back of a military bus on July 6, 1944 (Army law forbade segregation on a military bus).  After his discharge from the military, Robinson was quoted as saying, “I learned I was in two wars; one against a foreign enemy and one against discrimination at home.”

SPECIFIC CITATIONS

Among the many passages from Rampersad’s biography that illustrate Jackie Robinson’s experiences at Fort Hood are these:

1) “Jack quickly found that his lieutenant’s bars meant little to whites at Camp Hood.”

2) “Black soldiers and civilians had to deal with raw aspects of Jim Crow.  Black soldiers, quartered in the least desirable part of the camp, in makeshift housing, lived segregated lives at every turn, with a separate USO and a separate officers’ club; venturing off the base, they faced a hostile, narrow-minded local population backed by stringent Jim Crow state laws and customs.  Segregation there was so complete, a Black officer said, ‘I even saw outhouses marked White, Colored, and Mexican;’ this was on federal property.”

3) “In summing up (at Robinson’s court martial), the defense insisted that the case involved no violations of the Articles of War, as charged, but simply a situation in which a few individuals sought to vent their bigotry on a Negro they considered ‘uppity’ because he had the audacity to seek to exercise rights that belonged to him as an American and as a soldier.”

3) “The war was a time of sacrifice for countless Americans, but for Robinson it had been deeply frustrating.  With the potential to become an excellent soldier and a leader of soldiers, he had been barred from making something substantial of his talents; the Army had come close to destroying him.”

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

On April 6, 2016, a plaque acknowledging Jackie Robinson’s association with Fort Hood was placed at the entrance to the base’s softball field.  The inscription on the plaque reads:

                                              Lieutenant

                                       Jackie R. Robinson

                       761st Tank Battalion Fort Hood, TX

                                              1919-1972

                            United States Army, 1942-1944

                                    Army Sports Program

                                   Major League Baseball

                               Baseball Hall of Fame, 1962

The plaque’s wording is ironic for two reasons.  First, the inscription  says nothing about the discrimination Jackie Robinson encountered at Fort Hood.  It sanitizes his experiences and ignores history the way it really happened.  Second, placing the plaque at the entrance to a baseball field is especially problematic since it ignores the fact that Jack refused to participate in baseball (and football) at both Fort Riley and Fort Hood because the teams were racially segregated.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

Renaming Fort Hood THE JACKIE ROBINSON ARMY BASE would be an important step in racial reconciliation and the advancement of civil rights.  It provides the United States Army with the opportunity to honor an American icon, a military veteran who served his country as an officer with honor and distinction and who deserves to be remembered as a true American hero.

CONCLUDING NOTES

This recommendation is being submitted on behalf of the George Washington University Jackie Robinson Project (JRP) and the Jackie and Rachel Robinson Society.  The JRP began in 1996 to commemorate the then upcoming 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s breaking of Major League Baseball’s color barrier.  The JRP’s objective is to preserve and promote the Robinson legacy with special emphasis on Jack’s role as an informal civil rights leader and his social and community activism.   The Jackie and Rachel Robinson Society is a student organization founded in 2000.  The Society’s members assist the senior staff of the JRP in educating students and the general public about Jackie Robinson’s impact on and off the baseball field.

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Signatures: 642Next Goal: 1,000
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Decision Makers

  • US Senate Armed Services Committee
  • US House Armed Services Committee