All Brooklyn news
Neighborhood Map
Bay Ridge
  • Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights
Brooklyn Heights
  • Downtown, DUMBO
Carroll Gardens
  • Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Boerum Hill
Fort Greene
  • Clinton Hill, Crown Heights
North Brooklyn
  • Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick
Park Slope
  • Prospect Heights, Windsor Terrace, Greenwood Heights
GO Brooklyn
Dining Guide
Where to GO
Events calendar
Classifieds
The Brooklyn Wire
Not Just Nets
Police Blotter
Perspective
Parenting
Politics
Transit
Podcasts
Brooklyn Cyclones
Special sections
About The Paper
Mobile site
Twitter
Facebook
RSS Feeds

Jackie Robinson’s widow endorses the non-black, non-Brooklynite mayoral candidate

By Gersh Kuntzman
The Brooklyn Paper
Enlarge this image
The Brooklyn Paper / Gersh Kuntzman
Home run: Mayor Bloomberg got the endorsement of Rachel Robison, the widow of legendary Brooklyn Dodger and civil rights pioneer Jackie Robinson, in his race against black Brooklynite Bill Thompson.
Enlarge this image
Ed Weintrob
Meanwhile, Comptroller Bill Thompson sought the endorsement of three teenagers too young to vote at the annual pre-Election Day breakfast at Junior’s.

Tools

Print this story
Facebook this
Tweet this
Digg this
Del.icio.us

The widow of Jackie Robinson — the great Brooklyn Dodger and civil rights pioneer — endorsed Mayor Bloomberg for re-election on Friday morning, chosing the white, non-Brooklynite over a black native of the borough where her husband made his historic stand.

Rachel Robinson joined Bloomberg for breakfast this morning at Tom’s Diner in Prospect Heights and praised the mayor for his leadership.

Pedulla Tile

“I am endorsing him with a feeling of confidence and hope,” she said. “He has demonstrated that he has prepared to lead the nation — I mean New York.”

Interrupted by laughter over the gaffe, Robinson then continued: “I’m particularly interested in education, and I love the fact that … the children are beginning to benefit. And that’s just one area of his leadership in these critical times.

“I wholeheartedly, and with great pride, endorse him,” she added.

Later, The Brooklyn Paper asked her what her husband — who broke baseball’s color barrier in 1947 and remained committed to civil rights for blacks for the rest of his life — would think about her choice of Bloomberg over Comptroller Bill Thompson, a Brooklyn native.

“Race and social status does always play a part, but Jack always believed that you have to get the best person for the job,” she said.

©2009 Community Newspaper Group

←Page 1: Yet another collector’s edition — now!
→Podcast: Muessig, crackerjack reporter, is now dead to us!

Reader Feedback

bob moncrief from california says:
It's nice to see that Rachel Robinson continues to contribute to the causes her husband Jackie espoused. For anyone who has followed her career, she is also highly relevant in her own right as an advocate for the education of our young people through the Jackie Robinson Foundation, and as an idividual leader in the field.
Oct. 30, 2009, 12:35 pm
Pacholo from Red Hook says:
Her endorsement is like the PBA's, both of them can't vote because none of them live in NYC!
Oct. 31, 2009, 2:59 am
Native Brooklynite from Brooklyn says:
What a headline! By implication, whites must only vote for white candidates, blacks only for black candidates, and if you're the child of a bi-racial marriage, you either vote twice, or live a continuous schizophrenic existence.

And Brooklynites can only vote for Brooklynites! So if none of the candidates live in your borough you don't vote?

And doesn't anyone remember that Jackie Robinson was a supporter of Republican candidates? He endorsed Nixon over John Kennedy (although he had his reservations later), and supported Nelson Rockefeller (another Republican) for Governor of NYS.

While he considered himself an independent, he was more a Rockefeller Republican than a liberal democrat. And yes, he did support Humphrey in 1968 (considered more a Johnson pro-Viet Nam war advocate than the other democratic candidates) over Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy.

So enough of the articles based on the premise that there is one white political voice, one black political voice, and that all others must be wrong. As if one particular white person speaks for all whites, and Rachel Robinson speaks for all blacks. How stupid!

Please - let's have some independent thought here.

I personally think that Bloomberg knows as much about Brooklyn as he does about being a real New Yorker (Boston, wasn't it?), and that Thompson is an empty suit waiting to be filled by anything resembling a thought, and that anyone who seeks and accepts an endorsement from Giuliani is only courting extremism and racism. Rachel Robinson is welcome to her opinion.

As for the article, what a asinine headline!
Oct. 31, 2009, 8:09 pm
DD from Fort Greene says:
wasn't jackie a REPUBLICAN? … are all black people by definition LIBERAL DEMOCRATS??? i don't think so!
Oct. 31, 2009, 8:20 pm
Fourth Estate from DUMBO says:
No matter how many nauseating banner ads are displayed, no matter how any endorsements are paraded, no matter what questionable polls say and no matter what racially questionable headlines come from the great minds of the New York Post insert.

Nov 3 I am supporting term limits.
Nov. 1, 2009, 11:21 am
jerry from brighton beach says:
After seeing Marty Markowitz stumping for Bloomberg on Sunday I really vomited. This guy is the worse kind of Democrat, a real Turncoat Democrat who can be bunched together with the likes of Councilmen Recchia & Nelson. But there is an old saying... what goes around comes around. I hope they sleep well at night, knowing that they are all BUMS & dissed the people they are suppose to represent and you know what for MONEY.
Nov. 2, 2009, 10:10 am
Clark from Bay Ridge says:
Thank you 'Native Brooklynite'! Spot on.
Nov. 5, 2009, 9:46 am

Enter your comment below

By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms:

You agree that you, and not BrooklynPaper.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynPaper.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.

First name
Last name
Your neighborhood
Email address
Daytime phone

Your letter must be signed and include all of the information requested above. (Only your name and neighborhood are published with the letter.) Letters should be as brief as possible; while they may discuss any topic of interest to our readers, priority will be given to letters that relate to stories covered by The Brooklyn Paper.

Letters will be edited at the sole discretion of the editor, may be published in whole or part in any media, and upon publication become the property of The Brooklyn Paper. The earlier in the week you send your letter, the better.

East River Ferry

Links