Ed Henry > Quotes

“Part of their close bond came from that longstanding commonality—the fact that Robinson also believed there were similarities between sports and religion. “My concept of religion is of people having faith in God, in themselves and in each other and putting that faith into action,” Robinson wrote in his unpublished manuscript. “If you can find a better example of those four things than a team of sportsmen working as a unit, I’d like to know what it is.”2”
― Ed Henry, 42 Faith: The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story

“I believe that racial extractions and color hues and forms of worship become secondary to what a man can do,” said Rickey. “The American public is not as concerned with a first baseman’s pigmentation as it is with the power of his swing, the dexterity of his slide, the gracefulness of his fielding or the speed of his legs.” Rickey was far from finished.”
― Ed Henry, 42 Faith: The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story

“Ladies and gentlemen, there are just too many people going around the world and about the country, in your town and in mine, in your church and in mine—too many people telling everyone who expresses an opinion, ‘You’re right,’” said Robinson. “I made up my mind a long time ago that I would rather be true to myself and to my beliefs and principles than to buy popularity at the cost of truth. When all is said and done, I’m the one who has to live with me.”
― Ed Henry, 42 Faith: The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story

“The final question: What more does the black man want?” Robinson asked from the pulpit. “The simple answer: Everything he should have to put him on a status of equal opportunity with his white brother. He should not seek more. He cannot settle for less.”13”
― Ed Henry, 42 Faith: The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story

“Luck is the residue of design.”
― Ed Henry, 42 Faith: The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story

“My own principal yardstick for men is this: Are they content to let themselves and their world rest on past advances—or do they use each new gain as a springboard toward the next one?” wrote Robinson.24”
― Ed Henry, 42 Faith: The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story

“Robinson was trying to impart what he had learned, which was that belief in God could help ease racial tensions. “If the church of the living God cannot save America in this hour of crisis,” he told the congregation, “what can save us?”
― Ed Henry, 42 Faith: The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story

“It is the ministers, the church people of America, who can, almost overnight, cure the ills of our system which make so many of us commit the sin of acknowledging the Fatherhood of God on Sunday and rejecting the brotherhood of man on Monday.”11”
― Ed Henry, 42 Faith: The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story

“As for the melting pot of races and ethnic groups in Brooklyn back in those days, Goren said there was a sense that nobody was better than anyone else.”
― Ed Henry, 42 Faith: The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story

“We must have a society of conscience, not consensus.”
― Ed Henry, 42 Faith: The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story

“At the beginning, in 1947, Rickey had warned him, “They may throw at you.” “It isn’t new to me,” replied Robinson. Yet here he was, near the end of his career, and pitchers were still throwing balls at him. He was hit sixty-six times over the course of his career.”
― Ed Henry, 42 Faith: The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story

“For the sticks and stones of physical combat are vicious, but the stones of white backlash, the stones of ‘hate the white man propaganda,’ are more deadly weapons than any others that exist,” Robinson added. “These are the weapons which can destroy our beloved country and bring death and destruction and slavery to all Americans. For it is as true as when Mr. Lincoln said it: ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ And America, slowly but with grim certainty, is becoming a divided nation.”
― Ed Henry, 42 Faith: The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story

“For when we, as Christians or heretics, fail to speak the truth, fail to live the truth—when we lie by the words we utter and deceive by the phrases we fail to speak—we pave the way for division and hatred and strife,” he said.”
― Ed Henry, 42 Faith: The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story