Activism at Ohio Wesleyan University - Early 20th Century: The Effect of Wars and Politics

Early 20th Century: The Effect of Wars and Politics

Branch Rickey, a 1903 graduate of Ohio Wesleyan, is regarded as a significant figure in the history of professional baseball for breaking the sport's racial barrier. An racial incident early in Rickey's life when he was as a baseball coach for Ohio Wesleyan in 1910 would play an important role in his decision thirty years later. Rickey's team visited a hotel in South Bend, Indiana, where the hotel manager refused to provide a room for Rickey's black baseball player Charley Thomas. Rickey eventually convinced the manager to allow him to share his own room with Thomas. Rickey recalled Thomas rubbing at his hands, ashamed of the color of his skin and vowed, "Charley, the day will come when they won't have to be white." In 1943 Rickey became president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Beginning with the 1946 signing of African American player Jackie Robinson for the Dodgers, Rickey became renowned for his role in the racial integration of the game. Rickey's feelings on integration were a primary motivating factor in his decision.

It is not the honor that you take with you, but the heritage you leave behind.

—Branch Rickey, OWU class of 1904, former owner of the Brooklyn Dodger Baseball team known for breaking the racial barrier in the sport.

In the war years of 1917-1919, the break between the United States and Germany struck a military tone on campus. Individual students were volunteering in the Marines, in the Canadian Forces, and other forms of service. As America entered World War I the U.S. War Department inaugurated the Students' Army Training Corps, a program designed to use existing colleges and universities as training facilities for new military personnel. On the morning of October 1, 1918, about 150,000 college boys on US campuses transformed into student soldiers. This was the induction into the Students' Army Training Corps. In Delaware, on campus, approximately 400 students were given the oath of allegiance. The men received the regular army training and academic instruction prescribed by the Committee on Education and Special Training of the War Department. The mode of student activities changed: campus traditions were put aside, and athletic events were cancelled throughout the fall semester of 1918.