The life of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play Major League Baseball, gets a thorough examination in “Jackie Robinson,” a new Ken Burns documentary that airs on PBS next month. But if you want to know how the legendary athlete dealt with racism in Hawaii — where he played football, not baseball — you’ll need to attend a free sneak preview at Palama Settlement.
Robinson arrived in Honolulu on Sept. 17, 1941, to play football for the Honolulu Bears, a semiprofessional team in the Hawaii Senior Football League. Robinson’s contract for $100 a game also included a weekday construction job at Pearl Harbor.
But none of Waikiki’s hotels would rent him a room because of the color of his skin, said Paula Rath, a board member emeritus for the settlement, which was founded by her grandfather.
“Palama Settlement has always been welcoming to people of all colors, and he stayed there,” Rath said. “We don’t know how many days he was there. But he left a photo.”
The photo is of Robinson in a football uniform posing as if he was about to throw a pass. On the photo he wrote, “To our pals, best of luck, Jack Robinson.”
Robinson’s time at Palama Settlement had become a fond memory for some of the old-timers there, a point of pride, but the photo disappeared. In 2009 Rath’s late mother, Jacky Rath, a former Punahou librarian, found it.
“My mother spent 15 years working on the archives of Palama Settlement,” Rath said. “She went into one of the rooms at Palama Settlement one day and there were boxes from floor to ceiling, and they were just full of everything, from minutes of meetings to photos.”
As Rath’s mother organized what she found, she came across Robinson’s good-luck photo.
“She thought it might be Jackie Robinson, but it didn’t make sense to her because he was in a football uniform,” Rath said.
Robinson’s reputation as an amazing athlete preceded his Honolulu arrival on the Lurline. He lettered in four sports at UCLA: football, basketball, baseball and track and field. As a halfback and quarterback for the Honolulu Bears, he joined a squad of college all-stars — “star-studded super-doopers,” wrote a Honolulu Star-Bulletin journalist — that drew more than 20,000 people to Honolulu Stadium for the season opener.
The Bears won only two games that season, despite Robinson, who intercepted passes on defense and threw touchdowns on offense. (The team even lost to the University of Hawaii, 20-6.) An injured Robinson left Hawaii on Dec. 5, 1941, reportedly discouraged and homesick.
Robinson went on to change baseball in America, though, when he crossed the color line in April 1947 while playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers. His time in Hawaii faded to the background.
That’s why finding Robinson’s photo was an exciting moment, said Jan Harada, who was executive director of Palama Settlement at the time.
“It wasn’t nicely tucked away, in a packet that would protect it from deterioration,” she said. “It was sort of a find like you would find at a garage sale. That made it even more fun to discover.”
Robinson’s signed comments were in keeping with the memories Palama Settlement old-timers sometimes shared, Harada said.
“He was really down to earth, and he was really great with the kids,” she said. “He didn’t act as if he was above anybody.”
The two-night, four-hour Burns documentary doesn’t devote a lot of time to Robinson’s stay in Hawaii — maybe two minutes at most. So to fill in the gaps, Palama Settlement and PBS Hawaii will host a discussion and a 40-minute sneak preview of the documentary starting at 6 p.m. April 6 at the settlement.
Seating is limited. Free parking is available at Palama Settlement. For information, call 973-1383.
The documentary will air on PBS Hawaii from 9 to
11 p.m. April 11 and 12.
And that’s a wrap for Outtakes. After nearly six years I will be writing a very different column called “Cranky Dad” beginning April 4. Maybe I’ll see you there. Mahalo.
Mike Gordon is the Star-Advertiser’s film and television writer. Read his Outtakes Online blog at honolulupulse.com. Reach him at 529-4803 or email mgordon@staradvertiser.com.
