Eds: On Feb. 15, as part of its “Unpublished Black History” series, The New York Times published a photograph of Jackie Robinson speaking before a group of students at City College in February 1949. The Times asked readers who might have been present to help flesh out details of the visit.
So how did Jackie Robinson end up speaking at City College in 1949? Thanks to Werner Rothschild, a reader in Boynton Beach, Florida, we finally have the answer.
Rothschild, who was a junior that year, said he was trying to drum up attendance for the college’s sociology club. The professor who was in charge of the group had lamented the poor attendance at its weekly meetings. Every week, it was the same: Only six to eight students would show up.
So Rothschild came up with a plan. He had heard that Robinson was working with underprivileged children at the YMCA in Harlem. So he went to the YMCA one day to see if he could persuade Robinson to speak to the club.
“He was playing pool with Roy Campanella,” recalled Rothschild, now 88, who introduced himself and invited Robinson to City College. “He said, ‘I’d be delighted.’
“He was a real gentleman, just wonderful. He didn’t have to come up. He didn’t know me from Adam.”
Rothschild said he and his friends posted leaflets to spread the word. And when Robinson arrived, scores of students were waiting. The professor was thrilled.
“I got an A as a result,” Rothschild said, laughing.
In the photograph, Rothschild is the young man seated in the third row, second from the left, next to a student with his chin in his hand. He stumbled across the picture last week as he flipped through The New York Times, and the memories came pouring back.
“We’re talking about 67 years ago,” said Rothschild, who became a soccer coach at City College after he graduated in 1950 and spent his career working with college, high school and middle school soccer players. “I couldn’t believe my eyes.”
