Rudy Carmenaty, Deputy Commissioner of the Nassau County Department of Social Services
“THE CONTRACT THAT CHANGED BASEBALL: BRANCH RICKEY, JACKIE ROBINSON, BROOKLYN, AND AMERICA"
Wednesday, February 12, 3:30-5:00pm
American Studies Conference Room
Ruth M. Adams Building (RAB 018)
12 Chemistry Drive
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Before 1947, baseball, like much of the nation itself, was segregated by race. On April 15th of that year, Major League Baseball took a dynamic step forward, attempting to address past injustices. At Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier playing first base for the Dodgers. The man who orchestrated Robinson’s debut was Brooklyn General Manager and Club President Branch Rickey. This talk examines two contracts that forever altered the landscape of baseball and America. Rickey and Robinson took on entrenched attitudes and long-standing prejudices, and Robinson’s shattering of the color line heralded a new age. But it did not come with the mere stroke of a pen. It was an ordeal of epic proportions. Rickey’s resolve and Robinson character and courage would be tested as was the nation’s founding ideal that “all men are created equal.”
Rudy Carmenaty is the Deputy Commissioner of the Nassau County Department of Social Services. An attorney by profession, he is a member of the New York State Bar and the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.