The Fight Before the Fight

The Three Protagonists

Episode Structure

Episode 2 follows the Save the Cat beat structure with Jackie Robinson's court-martial providing the dramatic courtroom tension, Doby's quieter narrative offering emotional counterweight, and Greenberg's story connecting Black and Jewish discrimination before delivering the Forbes Field payoff.

February 7, 1942. The front page of the Pittsburgh Courier—the most widely circulated Black newspaper in America—displays a symbol that will define a generation: Two interlocking V's.

James G. Thompson was a 26-year-old cafeteria worker at the Cessna Aircraft Company in Wichita, Kansas. He was denied factory floor positions because of his race but was expected to support the war effort. His letter put into words what fifteen million Black Americans were thinking.

The Campaign's Impact

• 88% of Courier readers supported the Double V Campaign
• Black soldiers carved the Double V on their chests
• Double V pins sold for 5 cents at barbershops and churches across America
• The symbol appeared on buttons, posters, hairstyles, and carved insignia

Primary Source

Service Timeline

Joe Louis: The Intervention

The heavyweight champion of the world was also stationed at Fort Riley. His fists had knocked out Max Schmeling—Hitler's symbol of Aryan supremacy—in 124 seconds at Yankee Stadium in 1938. When Louis spoke, the War Department listened.

Louis applied pressure through his connections, and phone calls were made. Robinson's OCS application was finally approved, making him part of the first integrated class in Fort Riley's history.

Morale Officer Confrontations

As morale officer for Black troops, Robinson immediately clashed with the chain of command over segregated seating at the post exchange:

There were no seats for Negroes. I called Major Hafner and asked why. He said, 'Lieutenant, let me put it to you this way. Would you like it if your wife had to sit next to a n-----?' I said, 'I don't have a wife, but I wouldn't mind. I'm colored, Major.' He hung up.

— Jackie Robinson, documented exchange at Fort Riley

The Army's response: a colonel called Robinson and threatened to "put the n----- in the stockade." Robinson reported the incident through proper channels. Both the major and the colonel were reprimanded.

The pattern was established: Jackie Robinson doesn't accept what he's given. He fights back—through proper channels, within the system—but he fights.

The Night of July 6, 1944

10:00 PM. Second Lieutenant Jack Roosevelt Robinson boards a shuttle bus at Stop No. 23 on Camp Hood. He sits in the middle section—next to Virginia Jones, the light-skinned wife of a fellow Black officer from the 761st. The bus is nearly empty.

Five stops later, at Stop No. 18, the driver—civilian Milton Renegar—looks in his rearview mirror. He sees Robinson. He sees the woman beside him.

Hey, you, sittin' beside that woman. Get to the back of the bus.

— Milton Renegar, bus driver

Robinson refuses. He knows the Army has issued orders that there is to be no more segregation on any Army post. When the bus reaches the last stop, Robinson is met by military police.

The Charges

Robinson was charged with two articles under the 64th Article of War:

• Behaving with disrespect toward Captain Gerald M. Bear, CMP
• Willful disobedience of a lawful command of a superior officer

If convicted, Robinson faced dishonorable discharge—which would have ended any chance of a baseball career and the integration of America's pastime.

Robinson's Defense

At trial, Robinson testified for hours. His words from the transcript:

I do not consider myself a n----- at all. I am a Negro, but not a n-----.

— Jackie Robinson, court-martial testimony, August 2, 1944

The Verdict

After 4 hours and 15 minutes of deliberation, the nine-officer panel returned their verdict:

Robinson's reflection on the outcome:

It was a small victory, for I had learned that I was in two wars, one against the foreign enemy, the other against prejudice at home.

— Jackie Robinson, I Never Had It Made (1972)

Primary Source Documentation

Camp Robert Smalls

Late 1943. Larry Doby—19 years old, multi-sport star at Virginia Union University—arrives at Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois. But he doesn't train with the general population.

He's sent to Camp Robert Smalls—a base-within-a-base. Named for the enslaved man who commandeered a Confederate ship during the Civil War, the camp was where the Navy kept its Black recruits separate from white sailors.

The irony is crushing. A facility named for a Black hero of freedom—used to enforce segregation.

This was the first time that segregation really stung me. I wasn't expecting it in the military. I had no idea. It hurt a lot.

— Larry Doby

The Difference: Silence vs. Confrontation

Where Robinson fought back—through proper channels, through confrontation, through the courts—Doby endured in silence. It wasn't weakness. It was a different strategy for surviving the same system.

Nobody tried to teach me anything. Nobody offered to room with me. Nobody came by just to talk. That's loneliness.

— Larry Doby, on his early days in professional baseball

Pacific Theater: Ulithi Atoll

1945. Doby serves in the Pacific, stationed at Ulithi Atoll—a massive naval staging area in the Caroline Islands. Thousands of men on ships and shore installations, waiting for the invasion of Japan that never comes.

One day, Armed Forces Radio brings news that changes his life:

Branch Rickey has signed Jackie Robinson to a minor league contract with the Montreal Royals.

— Armed Forces Radio, October 1945

In that moment, on a Pacific atoll, Larry Doby sees his future.

Integration: 11 Weeks Later

July 5, 1947. Bill Veeck brings Doby to Cleveland. When Doby walks into the clubhouse, only four teammates shake his hand. The rest turn away.

I put on my uniform, and I went out on the field to warm up, but nobody wanted to warm up with me. I had never been so alone in my life. I stood there alone in front of the dugout for five minutes.

— Larry Doby

Robinson had Pee Wee Reese put an arm around him. Doby had no one—until Joe Gordon, the white second baseman, played catch with him.

The First to Go

May 7, 1941—seven months before Pearl Harbor. Hank Greenberg becomes the first Major League Baseball star to be drafted. He's 30 years old, at the peak of his career, and Jewish.

After just 19 games, Greenberg trades his Tigers uniform for Army khaki. He doesn't complain. When asked about leaving baseball, he says simply: "There's a war on."

Fighting Two Fronts

Hitler's ideology was burning across Europe. While Greenberg served in the Army Air Forces, six million Jews were being murdered in the Holocaust. The weight of that reality shaped his service.

There was added pressure being Jewish. How the hell could you get up to home plate every day and have some son of a bitch call you a Jew bastard and a kike and a sheenie and get on your ass without feeling the pressure?

— Hank Greenberg, Hank Greenberg: The Story of My Life (1989)

China-Burma-India Theater

Greenberg served as a Special Services officer with the 20th Bomber Command, 58th Bombardment Wing—the B-29 Superfortress units operating in the China-Burma-India theater.

June 14, 1944. The day before the first B-29 mission against Japan:

Father Stack, our padre, and myself raced over to the burning plane to see if we could help rescue anyone. As we were running, there was a blast when the gas tanks blew and we were only about 30 yards away when a bomb went off. It knocked us right into a drainage ditch alongside the rice paddies while pieces of metal floated down out of the air.

— Hank Greenberg

The Numbers

Branch Rickey's Challenge

August 28, 1945. 215 Montague Street, Brooklyn. Branch Rickey's office.

Robinson sits across from the Dodgers' general manager. For three hours, Rickey role-plays every form of abuse Robinson will face: racist fans, beanballs at his head, spikes aimed at his legs, hotels that won't accept him, restaurants that won't serve him.

Finally, Robinson asks:

Mr. Rickey, do you want a ballplayer who's afraid to fight back?

— Jackie Robinson

Rickey's response defined the experiment:

The Integration Timeline

11 weeks. That's the gap between Robinson and Doby. Robinson is remembered as "first." Doby is largely forgotten as "second." But they both fought the same fight, carried the same burden, opened the same door.

May 15, 1947. Forbes Field, Pittsburgh. Jackie Robinson's first visit to the Pirates' ballpark.

Robinson bunts and runs hard to first base. He collides with the first baseman—Hank Greenberg, now in his final season with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The next inning, Greenberg walks. He reaches first base. Turns to Robinson.

Did I hurt you?

— Hank Greenberg

No, I'm fine.

— Jackie Robinson

Then Greenberg said words Robinson never forgot:

Robinson's response to reporters after the game:

Class tells. It sticks out all over Mr. Greenberg.

— Jackie Robinson, to Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, May 17, 1947

In his autobiography, Robinson remembered the moment with even more meaning:

He suddenly turned to me and said, 'A lot of people are pulling for you to make good. Don't ever forget it.' I never have.

— Jackie Robinson, I Never Had It Made (1972)

Why This Moment Matters

Greenberg understood. He had faced the same epithets, the same bean balls, the same hatred—different targets, same poison. Two men, two forms of bigotry, one moment of human connection.

This is the episode's emotional climax. Three men who fought the fight before the fight, finally standing on the same field.

Source Documentation

Key Visual Assets

• Double V imagery: Pins, posters, newspaper front pages (Smithsonian)
• Camp Robert Smalls: Segregated training facility photographs (Great Lakes)
• Fort Hood/Camp Hood: 1944 period photographs, courtroom (Fort Hood Archives)
• Forbes Field: Robinson's Pittsburgh debut, May 1947 (Getty, AP)
• Gromek-Doby embrace: October 1948 World Series (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
• Congressional Gold Medal ceremony: December 13, 2023 (C-SPAN)

Double V Campaign

• "Should I Sacrifice to Live 'Half-American'... Would it be demanding too much to demand full citizenship rights in exchange for the sacrificing of my life?" — James G. Thompson Verified

Jackie Robinson

• "It was a small victory, for I had learned that I was in two wars, one against the foreign enemy, the other against prejudice at home." — I Never Had It Made (1972) Verified
• "I do not consider myself a n----- at all. I am a Negro, but not a n-----." — Court-martial testimony Verified
• "Class tells. It sticks out all over Mr. Greenberg." — To reporters, May 1947 Verified

Larry Doby

• "That was a feeling from within, the human side of two people, one Black and one White. That made up for everything I went through." — On Gromek embrace, Hall of Fame speech 1998 Verified
• "I put on my uniform, and I went out on the field to warm up, but nobody wanted to warm up with me. I had never been so alone in my life." — Multiple sources Verified

Hank Greenberg

• "I know it's plenty tough. You're a good ballplayer, and you'll do all right." — To Robinson, Forbes Field Verified
• "There was added pressure being Jewish. How the hell could you get up to home plate every day and have some son of a bitch call you a Jew bastard..." — Autobiography (1989) Partial

Branch Rickey

• "I want a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back." — To Robinson, August 1945 Verified

General George S. Patton

• "Men, you're the first Negro tankers to ever fight in the American Army. I would never have asked for you if you weren't good." — To 761st Tank Battalion Verified

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