Bosco the Migh

demons:

Drafted into the US Army in 1942, Jackie Robinson was assigned to a segregated Army cavalry unit in Kansas. Having the qualifications, Robinson and several other black soldiers applied for Officer Candidate School (OCS) only to find their applications unexpected ‘delayed’ for several months. Although the Army’s July 1941 OCS guidelines had been written as ‘race-neutral’ few blacks were admitted until there was direct Army leadership intervention. By January 1943, Robinson was commissioned as a second lieutenant and reassigned to Fort Hood, Texas where he joined the 761st Tank Battalion.

However an event on 6 July 1944 stalled his military career. While leaving the hospital Robinson boarded an Army bus with a fellow officer’s wife; although the Army had unsegregated bus line, the driver ordered Robinson to move to the back of the bus. Robinson refused and the driver called the military police who took Robinson into custody. After a string of what Robinson later called “racist questioning,” the MP officer recommended a court-martial—something Robinson’s commanding officer refused to authorize. When that occurred, Robinson was transferred to the 758th Battalion—where the commander had no problem charging Robinson with multiple charges including (among other things) public drunkenness despite the fact that Robinson wasn’t a drinker.

By the time the court-martial rolled around in August 1944, the charges had been reduced to two counts of insubordination during questioning. Against all odds, Robinson was acquitted by his nine all-white officer panel. The court-martial proceedings had prohibited him from being deployed overseas—where his former unit, 761st Tank Battalion, became the first black unit to see combat—preventing Robinson from seeing combat.

After his acquittal Jackie Robinson was transferred to Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky, where he a met a man who persuaded Robinson to look into the minor league baseball. In November 1944 Robinson was honorably discharged from the US Army and the rest, as they say, is history.