No Missouri Compromise: Bates Must Play

On page 34 of the November 1, 1940 edition of The New York Times, the following appeared in the middle of an article about New York University's football team [1] as it headed out by train for a game against the University of Missouri: 

This anodyne description of “terms of agreements involving NYU and Missouri and NYU and Bates” hid their true perfidy. The agreements, euphemistically called “Gentlemen’s Agreements,” consisted of the agreement to the informal demand of Southern colleges beginning in the early 20th Century that the gridiron be racially segregated.

“According to this unwritten understanding, northern universities were expected to keep any Black players on their team out of the game when competing against a southern team in order to avoid “embarrassing” the southerners.” In the 1930s, Black players were forced to sit out games at least 21 times, including players at many Big Ten schools (Michigan, Ohio State, Michigan State, Minnesota, Indiana, and Iowa), several Ivy League institutions, and numerous smaller northern colleges.” NYU was not only a party to the so-called Gentlemen’s Agreement,” they were made a condition of allowing Black players to join NYU’s  football team, including the subject of this Timepiece, Leonard C. Bates. [2]

 As further explained in Tackling Jim Crow: 

“As football was emerging as a major collegiate sport at the turn of the twentieth century, its role in American society was also becoming increasingly important. With racial tensions still brewing from largely unsuccessful Reconstruction efforts, many in the white community began to view football as a symbol of white superiority, both physically and mentally. The looming possibility of blacks becoming equal in society made many whites more resistant to the influx of blacks into mainstream society on all levels. It was with this in mind that W. Cameron Forbes, grandson of Ralph Waldo Emerson and a football coach at Harvard declared that “Football is the expression of the strength of the Anglo-Saxon. It is the dominant spirit of a dominant race, and to this owes its popularity and its hopes of permanence.” [3]

The benching frequently extended to games played in northern schools such as West Point so as not to offend players from the south on the West Point football team. However, an incremental change in the segregated sphere of college football began in 1936 and was led by Mt. Vernon, New York native Edward Willams who played for the NYU Violets: 

“The first example of this came in a game between the University of North Carolina and New York University in 1936. UNC was undefeated and in position to earn a lucrative bowl bid. UNC realized that enforcing their Jim Crow clause by forcing NYU to bench its starting running back Ed Williams could hurt its standing in the polls and thus affect their bowl chances. With this in mind, University of North Carolina president Frank Porter Graham, who would soon forge a reputation as a liberal southerner, approached the NYU administration to offer a concession. Williams would be allowed to play in the game. While no mention of this was made in the New York Times, the black papers of the time saw it as a step forward no matter what the university’s reasoning. The Pittsburgh Courier proudly declared on their front page: “N.Y.U. Star Plays Against North Carolina.” [4]

Nevertheless, the color line remained intact as the largesse shown by North Carolina (albeit, for less than pure motives) only permitted the limited breakthrough of allowing Black players to face southern teams on their northern home turf such as at Ohio Field at NYU’s University Heights (Bronx) campus or Yankee Stadium in New York City. [5] Otherwise, the Northern colleges continued to submit to the wishes of the Southern schools that Black players be left behind when Northern teams traveled south or to honor the Jim Crow tradition in collegiate sports against having an interracial game if one of the parties involved objected. [6]

For a variety of reasons, the opposition to the Gentleman’s Agreement “came to a head in the fall of 1940 when Leonard Bates, a black NYU football player, was benched for an upcoming game against the University of Missouri Tigers which was to be held at Memorial Field in Columbia, Missouri. [7]

As explained in Donald Spivey’s masterful telling of the story:

Students at New York University, however, raised a loud clamor that took the form of a mass movement against the gentlemen's agreement at their school. Their protest was profound, having a substantive sociopolitical impact, and educational, cultural, philosophical, historical value. The student action began at NYU in October of 1940 when it was learned that Leonard Bates, who was Black and the starting fullback on the "Violets'' football team, would not be allowed to accompany his teammates to Columbia, Missouri, and play in the slated game against the University of Missouri Tigers on November 2. Missouri, like most teams in the South, objected to playing against a Negro. What appalled the NYU students was that their University acquiesced to Missouri's request that Bates be excluded from the game. "Bates Must Play" became the rallying cry of some 2,000 students and sympathizers as they took to the streets on October 18, picketing the NYU administration building. The huge placards that the picketers bore made the demands clear: "Bates Must Play" "Don't Ban Bates" "Ban Gentlemen's Agreement" "End Jim Crow in Sports" "End Jim Crowism at NYU" "No Nazi Games'' and "No Missouri Compromise." [8]

 Source: Brooklyn College student handbills collection [9]

“Immediately after the demonstration, the students formed the All-University Committee on "Bates Must Play," headed by Argyle A. Stoute. Meeting on October 21, the committee passed four resolutions: that Len Bates be released from his gentleman's agreement and be allowed to make his own decision as to whether he will or will not play; that New York University never again enter upon any contract with Jim Crow schools; that the University administration make a statement clarifying its views on this issue; and that if the administration fails to comply with the aforementioned resolutions, there be a boycott of all the home games for the remainder of the season. Following the meeting, the committee distributed hundreds of buttons bearing in violet the slogan: "Bates Must Play." Over the next ten days they and their supporters orchestrated daily rallies, distributed several thousand flyers, and circulated petitions demanding that either Bates be allowed to play against Missouri or that the University cancel the game.”

Seven NYU students took the lead in a massive grassroots effort to convince NYU officialdom to reverse course on the Gentlemen’s Agreement. Known as “the Bates Seven,” all seven were ultimately suspended by the University for the alleged offense of passing out petitions without permission. [10] As Professor Spivey recounts, the Bates Seven protestors employed a wide range of innovative tactics which were adopted by campus activists a quarter century later in the 1960s, including mass leafleting, huge rallies, petitions with a vast number of signatures, sit-ins at the dean’s office, distribution of buttons with slogans, and the use of poignant catch phrases with historic parallels such as “No Missouri Compromise.” [11]

However, in the same way the Mighty Casey struck out, Bates did not play against the Tigers. [12] While the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” remained a fixed firmament at NYU, the ever-important University alumni took umbrage at the practice as in the following letter to the Sports Editor of The New York Times published on November 2, 1940, from Bernard E. Gerstner: [13]

Yet, the campaign by the Bates Seven to force NYU to end its acquiescence to the Gentlemen's Agreement was not uniformly admired. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who lived on Washington Square which is  adjacent to NYU’s Manhattan campus, rebuked the seven student activists as reported in The New York Times on April 4, 1941: [14]

Notwithstanding Rooselvelt’s criticism, at the end of her talk, she counseled the assembled students ``Never be afraid to change. Once you’re afraid to change you become a reactionary, even if it is on the left. You can be just as reactionary on the left as on the right.” [15]

Unlike the protests on today’s college campuses, which lack nuance,  the historical perspective exemplified by “No Missouri Compromise,” and often appears to rigidly adhere to the ideology of identity politics, [16] the issue of whether Bates should play was subjected to intense debate on the two NYU campuses: 

At Washington Square or the Heights, "Bates Must Play" was the leading topic of ethical and political debate. Was Jim Crow right? Most students answered emphatically - no. In a democratic and free society it was simply wrong to discriminate against another human being. Do we at NYU have a right to tell Missouri or any other school what beliefs or policy it must embrace with respect to the race question? Some answered yes. Others answered no. They wrestled with the moral imperative of collegiate athletics. Is competition in and of itself good? Does sports build character? Does it foster democratic principles or is it too militaristic? The students explored the concept of individualism versus teamwork. They intellectualized about the meaning of fair play in a capitalist society. Was sport a microcosm of society? They addressed questions of race, religion, and gender in their discussion of Jim Crowism and how the gentlemen's agreement had been used against Jews, Blacks, and women. Do private citizens have a right to discriminate in social clubs, private establishments, or personal relations? Discussion was heated, lively, and possibly enlightening. Into the wee hours of the morning, small pockets of students could be found on both campuses grappling with the many questions surrounding "Bates Must Play." [17]

Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor effectively squelched the budding civil rights movement that had been granted a new vitality over Bates. Yet, by the end of the 1940s, the color line had been dissolved in the professional leagues of all three major American sports, baseball, football, and basketball, and the military had been integrated by President Truman, - all undoubtedly due in part to the efforts of the “Bates Must Play” movement. [18]

However, in 1960 Westchester County, where certain enclaves were still a bastion of racial and religious segregation enforced by variations of the Gentlemen’s Agreement, [19] the race for Westchester County District Attorney pitted Ardsley resident and Democratic candidate William J. Keating against Republican Robert Trainor. Keating, who also ran on the liberal line had in 1958 unsuccessfully sought a seat on the Greenburgh Town Board where he was joined on the ticket by Ardsley Mayor Louis Zito who ran as a Democrat for the position of Greenburgh Town Supervisor. [20]

Keating was the type of politician one rarely sees in present-day Westchester. Born in coal mining country in Pennsylvania where his family was active in the coal miner’s union, he attended Hofstra College (now University) where he worked his way through college at two hospitals (and helped form a hospital union), played football, and was news editor for the college paper. After graduating from NYU Law School in 1942 (during the time he attended the “Bates Must Play” saga took place), he joined the District Attorney’s office in Manhattan where he specialized in waterfront racketeering. Based on his prosecutorial experience he co-wrote a book entitled “The Man Who Rocked the Boat,” which in 1957 was made into a feature film: “Slaughter on 10th Avenue.” [21] He also served in the military during World War 2 and, while stationed in the Philippines, helped rebuild Manilla’s Detective Bureau.. Most significantly, in 1955, he was imprisoned for refusing to divulge certain sources in a wiretap scandal to a Grand Jury empaneled by Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan when Keating was a member of the private New York City Anti-Crime Committee. [22]

As reported in the October 7, 1960, Herald Statesman under the headline “W.J. Keating Names Negro As Counsel,” the following appeared:

Although Keating lost, Milton Hoffman, considered the dean of Westchester journalism for his half-century career as a reporter, editor, and columnist, [23] in a 1980 column  on the eve of his 30th election day as a reporter in Westchester, Hoffman wrote:

🏆 🏆 🏆 🏆 🏆 🏆

In 1947, the film “Gentlemen’s Agreement,” won the Academy Award for the best motion picture. Starring Gregory Peck as a journalist who goes undercover to expose anti-semitism, it co-starred actor John Garfield portraying David Goldman, in a supporting role as a childhood friend of Peck’s character  (in the film known as Philip Schuyler Green) Goldman, who, after serving in World War 2, comes to New York to find a place to live but experiences religious prejudice wherever he applies to find a home.  Garfield, whose real name was Jacob Julius Garfinkle, died early at age 39 (attributed in part due to hounding by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee and the Hollywood blacklist) and is buried in Westchester Hills Cemetery, just south of Ardsley on Saw Mill River Road. [24]

Postscript

In 2001, sixty years after the Bates Seven were suspended, NYU made amends at a celebratory dinner. [25] One of the students was Evelyn Maisel (later Witkin) who died last year at 102. 

According to her obituary (“Evelyn M.Witkin, Who Discovered How DNA Repairs Itself”) 

She had been planning to continue into graduate work at N.Y.U., but now, having also lost a graduate assistantship as punishment, she set her sights on Columbia. She graduated from N.Y.U. in the fall of 1941 and immediately went uptown to begin her doctorate.

“My having gone to Columbia was the greatest blessing that ever happened to me professionally,” she told the National Science and Technology Medals Foundation in 2016. She wasn’t sure she’d have been a National Medal of Science laureate, she said, “if New York University hadn’t decided that I was a bad girl in 1941.”

Witkin later won the prestigious Lasker Prize, considered only second to the Nobel Prize. 

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Coda

When touring America, the Beatles refused to play before a segregated audience, as was common in the South where the  music industry’s “Gentlemen’s Agreement” was enforced by promoters and government officials. . “We never play to segregated audiences and we are not going to start now,” said John Lennon.”I’d sooner lose our appearance money.” [26]

Endnotes:

[1] NYU fielded a football team beginning in 1873 until 1952. NYU used several locations for home games over their team's history, Berkeley Oval, The Bronx: 1899–1901. Ohio Field, University Heights, The Bronx: 1890s–1966, Yankee Stadium, The Bronx: 1926–1948, Polo Grounds, Upper Manhattan: 1929–1931, 1936–1936, 1941, 1946, and  Triborough Stadium, Randalls Island: 1951–1952 The team embarked from University Heights, a Putnam Division station on The  New York Central Railroad Line that served Ardsley commuters until 1958.Old Put | Last Train From Sedgwick — Ardsley Historical Society  Notably, at the time of the Bates crisis, NYU had two campuses and arguably two different student bodies - the original Washington Square site which opened in 1832 in Greenwich Village which at the time before New York City’s consolidation was at the center of New York and its University Heights campus, established in 1894, located in the Bronx, which was planned to mimic nearby Columbia and Fordham Universities, where its football team practiced and played at Ohio Field. Ohio Field still exists at the successor campus of Bronx Community College and is used for the school’s baseball and soccer teams. The NYU-Missouri game was held on November 2, 1940. Missouri was admitted as a slave state under the “Missouri Compromise '' in 1820 (which allowed Maine to join the United States as a free state to maintain the balance of slave and free states. Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous “House Divided” speech on the evening of June 16, 1858 at the Illinois Republican State Convention in Springfield, Illinois presciently observing: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.  I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.”

[2] Tackling Jim Crow: Segregation on the College Gridiron Between 1936-1941

[3] Ibid.

[4] Known as “Mr. Mount Vernon,” the elementary school in Mount Vernon  where he was a principal was named for him in 1992. Mount Vernon Renames Two Schools - The New York Times (“Mr. Williams recalls that when he was on the New York University football team, the University of North Carolina team came north to play for three years in a row because the Southern team could not invite a team with a black player to its field”). Another possible influence on the cracking of the Jim Crow edifice in college football was  the stunning success of African American track and field athlete Jesse Owens at the 1936 summer Olympics in Berlin (known as the “Nazi Olympics”), where the accomplishments of Owens and other Black athletes punctured the “myths of Aryan supremacy.”The Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936 | African American Athletes Not surprisingly, once Hitler assumed power in 1933, “the Nazis began to exclude Jews from German sport and recreational facilities.” The Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936 | Exclusion of Jews. Ironically, at the 1936 Olympics, two American Jewish runners, Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller, who for two weeks had trained for the 4x100-meter relay, on the day before the race, were replaced by Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe, who had finished first and second in the 100 meter dash.. The decision to replace Glickman and Stoller remains exceedingly controversial and the reason behind the last minute switch remains unexplained and range from the alleged fear (later found false) that the Germans were hiding superfast runners (Marty Glickman - 1936 Berlin Olympics and Jesse Owens,college favoritism (the other two relayers (Draper and Wyckoff) had been students under assistant U.S.track coach Dean Cromwell who may have wanted them to run with Owens and Metcalfe) or that Owens and Metcalfe were substituted by the desire of Cromwell and other American Olympic officials including Avery Brundage (who later joined the isolationist “America First Committee and had earlier opposed the effort to boycott the 1936 Olympics) to avoid embarrassing the Fuhrer from seeing two Jewish athletes on the winner’s podium. Shame of the Games - Los Angeles Times Appeals by Owens to let Glickman run were rebuffed: (“Rising to support his teammates, Owens told the coaches, “Let Marty and Sam run, they deserve it. I’ve already won three gold medals. I’m tired. They haven’t had the chance to run. Let them run.” Cromwell shut down Owens’ position immediately and curtly. Pointing a finger at Owens, he declared, “You will do as you are told.” Owens would say no more, nor would his fellow teammates, Black or white, step up to support the Jewish runners”)  Glickman later become a renowned sports broadcaster known as the voice of the New York Knicks (basketball) and the Giants (football), and is the subject of a 2023 biography Marty Glickman: The Life of an American Jewish Sports Legend; Marty Glickman - Tablet Magazine  Despite the dubious substitution at the 1936 Olympics,  Glickman and Owens remained lifelong friends and Glickman was the only white athlete from the1936 Olympic team to attend his funeral at Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago in 1980. Marty Glickman - 1936 Berlin Olympics and Jesse Owens  Brundage made the equally controversial decision in 1972 to continue with the Olympic games in Munich, Germany after 11 Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists. 

[5] Ohio Field (built  in 1891) was so named as it was constructed with funds contributed by NYU alumni from Ohio at the urging of Ohio native and college executive Hugh MacCracken. MacCracken was instrumental in creating a precursor organization to the NCAA to “press for changes in college football rules after a wave of violence and deaths racked the sport and threatened its extinction.” College executive Archives | New-York Historical Society's Bill Shannon Dictionary of New York Sports 

[6] Scholars have also observed that assured by the “sanctity” of the Gentlemen’s Agreement of racial segregation, Southern schools could eagerly move into the ranks of big time sports under the guise of economic reconciliation between the North and the South 

[7] A decade earlier in October 1929, there were efforts to condemn this form of racial segregation by the New York press including sportswriter Ed Sullivan, a gifted athlete at Port Chester High School (who, 60 years ago on February 9, 1964, brought The Beatles to his live Sunday night television variety show), who in his newspaper column implored NYU to not allow the Mason-Dixon line to be erected through the middle of Yankee Stadium where the Violets played and Congressman Emmanuel Cellar when the visiting Georgia Tech team were spared from competing against an NYU team that had two black players on its roster, The Georgia Bulldogs were able to uphold the Gentlemen’s Agreement when NYU’s star quarterback, David Myers, developed an injury that prevented him from playing despite not being named on the injury list earlier in the week. Martin, Charles H. “Racial Change and ‘Big-Time’ College Football in Georgia: The Age of Segregation, 1892-1957.” The Georgia Historical Quarterly 80, no. 3 (1996): 532–62. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40583490. (“Such a remarkable turn of events prompted the Atlanta Constitution to comment, ‘Fate came to the rescue of a delicate situation”’). MEEHAN WILL NOT USE MYERS AGAINST GEORGIA; N.Y.U. Coach Will Assign Another Quarterback in GameWith Southerners Nov. 9. (New York Times, October 24, 1929).  Although little remembered today, Jewish Congressman Cellar is responsible for some of the most significant legislation of the 20th century as  the principal author of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965. He also spearheaded the 23rd, 24th and 25th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.” The most important Congressman you probably never heard of.  Ed Sullivan is interred in a crypt at Ferncliff Cemetery, just north of the Village of  Ardsley but within the boundaries of its school district. 

[8] Spivey, Donald. “‘End Jim Crow in Sports’: The Protest at New York University, 1940-1941.” Journal of Sport History 15, no. 3 (1988): 282–303. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43609226. Spivey later turned his article into a book Racism, Activism, and Integrity in College Football: The Bates Must Play Movement: 9781531021740: Spivey, Donald: Books 

[9] Brooklyn College, Student Handbills | { dev.dcmny.org }

[10] Archivist Angle: The “Bates Seven” Stood Against Racial Discrimination in College Athletics  (“The “Bates Seven” underwent a controversial set of disciplinary hearings and were ultimately suspended for circulating a petition without proper permission from the university.”) Articles and other accounts of the Bates Seven can be accessed here: http://naomirothschild.com/activism/bates/index.html  The Bates Seven continued their protest movement into 1941 when they discovered NYU was following the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” for Black players on NYU’s basketball and track teams. Apropos of the era, five of the seven Bates Seven members were Jewish. Thirty years later, four Ardsley High School students would be threatened with suspension for circulating a one page flier seeking funds for the legal defense of the Chicago 7 by asking their fellow students to buy a button saying “Stop the Trial.” The Beacon, Page10, The First Amendment at the Ardsley Schoolhouse Gate, Part IV 

[11] Norwood, Stephen H. Review of Racism, Activism, and Integrity in College Football: The Bates Must Play Movement, by Donald Spivey. Journal of Sport History 49, no. 1 (2022): 98-99. muse.jhu.edu/article/867355.

[12] Casey at the Bat - Wikipedia When signing on to play for NYU, Bates was made aware of the Gentlemen’s Agreement. Whether under pressure from the athletic department or freely given, Bates authored a letter expressing his unwillingness to play and that his education was paramount, not football. Later accounts indicate Bates wanted to play. 

[13] Gerstner lettered in baseball as a freshman. "N.Y.U. Awards Monograms to 147 in Sports: Major Letters Go to 64 and Minor to 37; Cheer Leaders on Violet List." New York Herald Tribune (1926-1962), Jun 19 1935, p. 1. At age 26, on May 29, 1945, First Lieutenant Gerstner was shot down aboard B-29-70-BW Superfortress #44-69970, nicknamed "Nip Finale" while on mission to Yokohama, and crashed at Yaehara Chiba, Japan. Ironically, he is buried in Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in Missouri. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/45275672/bernard-e-gerstner  On the same page where Gerstner’s letter to the Times appears, a similar letter penned by Sidney Herman, Secretary-Treasurer of the City College Varsity Club, reported that at a club meeting held on the evening of October 25, the following resolution was passed: “The City College Varsity Club condemns all forms of racial discrimination, and therefore looks with disfavor upon schools that practice Jim-Crowism in the conduct of their athletic programs.” University of California Chancellor Clark Kerr (who later was President of UC Berkeley in 1964 when the Free Speech movement erupted on the campus over efforts to stop political fundraising on campus in support of the Civil Rights movement)  ruefully observed in a 1957 speech: “I find the three major administrative problems on a campus are sex for the students, athletics for the alumni, and parking for the faculty.” https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/08/01/parking/ 

[14] The origin of the term “Gentlemen’s Agreement” refers to “An informal agreement (1907-1908) between Japan and the United States that restricted the inflow of Japanese immigrants in exchange for desegregating San Francisco's public schools'' after the San Francisco Board of Education attempted to force  93 Japanese students who were attending public school in San Francisco to attend the segregated Chinese school. “The school board was responding to pressure from the Asiatic Exclusion League in California that had the ultimate goal of ending Japanese immigration to California.” It reflected President Theodore Roosevelt's diplomatic efforts to address California's growing anti-Japanese sentiment and to appease a proud Japanese government.”

[15] While it can not be said with certainty, there was growing certainty that America’s isolation was ending as war in Europe edged closer to America’s shores. (the war in Europe had actually begun on September 1, 1939 when Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic and the Soviet Union jointly invaded the Republic of Poland). First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt may have been telegraphing this is a time for those on the left to rethink their positions. Isolationist thinking ended on the left and the right with the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Even the Daily Worker, the voice of the Communist Party in the United States (and a fervent supporter of the “Bates Must Play” movement), agreed to tone down its criticisms of American foreign policy particularly after the revelation of  the Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact (actually the “Molotov-Ribbentrop pact arrangement which carved up spheres of influence in Eastern Europe) which was signed one week before the invasion of Poland. German-Soviet Pact | Holocaust Encyclopedia

[16] The Identity Trap by Yascha Mounk:  (2023) PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books 

[17] Spivey, Donald. “‘End Jim Crow in Sports’: The Protest at New York University, 1940-1941.” Journal of Sport History 15, no. 3 (1988): 282–303. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43609226. Other hesitations about the “Bates Must Play “ campaign were raised: “The Washington Square Bulletin, the official student newspaper of the Washington Square campus, seconded the opinion of the {Education]} Sun (another campus publication) in insisting that "all relations with Missouri and other Jim Crow schools be broken. No football team is worth the sacrifice of the ideals of liberty and freedom. The game should be canceled." The Bulletin, in arriving at the conclusion that the game with Missouri should be scratched, considered a factor that had been overlooked in much of the debate and activism: What about the safety of Len Bates if the game is held and he is allowed to play in it? Jim Herbert, a Black and former world-class NYU track athlete, agreed with the paper's position. He refused to sign the petition of the All-University Committee on Bates Must Play. In his opinion, Bates stood an excellent chance of being critically injured if he competed against a racially hostile team such as Missouri. "If he plays it will be the first instance of legalized lynching," the Bulletin argued. "For this reason we disagree with the petition circulated by the All-University Committee on Bates must Play. The Committee is acting with a purely idealistic viewpoint."

[18] College students would energize the civil rights movement in the age of television at a Woolworth counter in Greensboro, North Carolina in early 1960: The Greensboro Four A recent article in the White Plains Examiner written by John Vorperian, a senior associate with the Jackie Robinson Project at Tampa Bay International School in Clearwater Fla. and longtime host of the cable television program “Beyond the Game” on White Plains Community Media made clear the extreme nature of racial animus experienced by Black players like Larry Doby who faced the color line in baseball: “On July 5, 1947, Doby made his major league debut for the Cleveland Indians as a pinch hitter against the Chicago White Sox at Comiskey Park in Chicago. In April 1947, Robinson broke baseball’s color line playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Upon entering the visitors’ clubhouse, Doby’s teammates averted their eyes and did not speak to him. The World War II Navy veteran had to go to the Chicago clubhouse to get a first baseman’s glove since none of his Cleveland teammates offered him one. As for this icy reception, Cleveland manager Lou Boudreau told him “Shrug it off.” In a 2002 interview, Doby said “I knew it was segregated times, but I have never seen anything like that in athletics. I was embarrassed. It was tough.” Jackie Robinson Wasn’t the Only American Baseball Hero in 1947 | The Examiner News, February 6, 2024. In May 2023, Vorperian presented a program about the history-making partnership of Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey in Ardsley which was sponsored by the Ardsley Historical Society (AHS) which may be seen on the AHS YouTube site linked here:  Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson  

[19] Gentlemen's Agreement in Bronxville:The “Holy Square Mile” - Harry Gersh, Commentary Magazine. Today’s Bronxville has arguably changed. Until recently it had a Chabad center in the middle of the village (opened in 2011) which recently closed due to a flood but has relocated to Eastchester. Chabad of Bronxville, Eastchester and Tuckahoe See also, Costly Grace  detailing the bigotry at the Scarsdale Golf Club (located in Hartsdale) six decades ago and The Cockburn Legacy and Northern Jim Crow which concerns the enforcement of racial covenants in real estate deeds in what is now the Edgemont section of Greenburgh before they were outlawed by the Supreme Court in 1948. Shelley v. Kraemer :: 334 U.S. 1 (1948) 

[20] At this time for the most part, Greenburgh Town Government (and its villages) was a one party state of Republicans who had controlled Town government for the past half century. Currently all positions on both the Greenburgh Town Board and the Ardsley Village Board are held by Democrats (there is reportedly a  “Gentlemen’s Agreement” that the Westchester Republican Party will not run candidates in Greenburgh. 

[21] The book jacket contained the following: The Story of a Troublesome Lawyer who Learned Almost Too Much About Life, Crime and Politics.

[22] Say Keating Won't Talk, Prefers Jail Known nationally as Mr. District Attorney, Hogan served as Manhattan District Attorney for 32 years where his office was viewed as a national model for prosecutors and Hogan himself was viewed as a thorough professional of non-partisan integrity, untouched by scandal.  But toward the end of his tenure, as Mr. Hogan prosecuted a series of controversial cases involving students, militants and minorities (as well as comedian Lenny Bruce), a growing chorus of critics said the cases showed he had become vindictive. Echoing the hostility by NYU officials three decades earlier against the Bates Seven, Hogan defended his prosecutions of Columbia students where he was a Trustee: “To some he seemed driven as much by anger at anyone who would hurt Columbia as by traditional prosecutorial zeal. He rejected this, saying, “we would have been derelict in our duty if we had failed to prosecute.” Hogan, District Attorney 32 Years, Dies - The New York Times 

[23] Milt Hoffman, retired Journal News editor, dies at 86 (“In recognition of his expertise, the press area of the County Board of Legislators chambers is named after Hoffman.”) Keating tragically died in a fire at his 36 Revere Road home in 1963. He was survived by his wife Dee and two daughters, Gail and Wenona, both graduates of Ardsley High School. Pulley, a 1953 Yale Law School graduate, was active in the litigation to desegregate the New Rochelle schools, the first court-ordered school desegregation case in "the North'' when the United States Supreme Court decided in 1962 that its Lincoln School boundaries had been intentionally drawn to create segregated elementary school districts, and the namesake of Yale University's Arthur L. Pulley and Bernice Cosey Pulley Research Prize for the Advancement of Peace and Social Justice in the Americas and Africa.He died in 2016 at age 99. 

[24] Looking Back at a Half-Forgotten Pioneer of Method Acting | The New Yorker

[25] COLLEGE FOOTBALL; N.Y.U. Honors Protesters It Punished in '41 - The New York Times 

[26] Remembering how an act of defiance by The Beatles helped fight racism in 1964