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• About Mr. Robinson
• Ms. Baeza's bio
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Sports as a tool for change (2:47).
 

Tavis: David Robinson is the son of baseball legend Jackie Roosevelt Robinson, who yesterday was here in L.A. taking part in a special ceremony at Dodger Stadium marking 60 years since his father became the first African American to play major league baseball. For much of his adult life, he's lived in Tanzania where he founded and still runs a remarkable coffee farming collective called Sweet Unity Farms.

He's joined tonight by Della Britton Baeza, president and CEO of the Jackie Robinson Foundation, founded by Rachel Robinson in 1973. The foundation has provided scholarship opportunities for hundreds of minority students, and in case you missed it on Sunday, here are some of the sights and sounds from Jackie Robinson Day at Dodger Stadium.

[Clip]

Tavis: David, first of all - your mother still looks amazing (laughs).

David Robinson: She's a beautiful woman.

Della Britton Baeza: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Robinson: Remarkable woman.

Tavis: Rachel Robinson is a remarkable woman, and still looks wonderful. Nice to have you on the program, Della.

Baeza: Thank you.

Tavis: Nice to have you here. David, let me start with you. Before I get to your father's story, first of all, congratulations to both of you on yesterday, and all the players ran 42 around the league, and just quite a day celebrating your father's life and legacy. I wanna come back to that in just a second. I told you when you walked out on the set I ran into Bob Costas not long ago, who I think is the absolute best at what he does.

And I said to Bob how much I appreciate the piece he did on you for his HBO show about your life and about your work. I learned so much about you watching Bob's piece, and it's fascinating when you talk about your father integrating baseball, because of the time in which you were born and the time in which you were raised, you had your own little integration story, in fact, of integrating the school in Connecticut where you went to school. Tell me about that.

Robinson: New Canaan Country School - yes, I was the first African American, and for nine years the only African American. It didn't necessarily teach me about myself as an African American, as a Black person. That was not part of the curriculum of history. But it did teach me about conflict, conflict resolution, and forming, ultimately, alliances in order to move forward across the board, both Black and White. So it was a good experience to have that happen at a very young age.

Tavis: How did your experience parallel your father's experience, and what did your father have to say to you, to share with you about what you encountered, what you were dealing with at school?

Robinson: Well, that you had to do what was in front of you, because there's always conflict when there's opportunity. When there's challenge, there's always something to be overcome. And so his advice was to take the good with the bad, and be assertive. But the home that he and my mother created without words was the greatest strength to a young Black man facing insult and criticism, because he could see the strength of his own family. And that was what was able to sustain me and keep my head up while insults were being thrown out.

Tavis: There's a picture they just put up on the screen a moment ago that I'm sure Jonathan will put back up here in just a second, but I believe it was a picture of your father taking you to the March on Washington.

Robinson: Yes.

Tavis: I'm so jealous of you that, well, one, your daddy's Jackie Robinson, which must be a pretty cool thing. But your father took you to the March on Washington. That, of course, now I think perhaps one of the greatest speeches Dr. King ever gave. What do you recall about that day, the day of being at the march and hanging out with your dad, of all people?

Robinson: It was an excellent era, because being Jackie Robinson's son, his focus was on breaking barriers, creating opportunity, representing human rights. To be there that day was Jackie Robinson plus the whole society. The African American community, plus the broader community. Um, and those were the issues that shaped our family home, that shaped the lives of many of that era.

And it gave us a sense of direction that young people today seem to be lacking, in terms of where next to take the struggle and exactly what is the struggle - how to define it, and how to succeed against the things that are blocking our development.

Tavis: What was the conversation like around the Robinson dinner table? And I ask that because again of the tumultuous times that you were living in, to your point now, about the social, economic, political, cultural agendas that were working their way, weaving their way through this American system. What were conversations like? Did you guys get into those issues, or did your dad, because of what he was dealing with, not want to discuss that at dinnertime? What was dinner conversation like?

Robinson: No, those issues flavored our dinner and our lives. It was the air that we breathed, and that was a great environment to grow up in because it really reflected essential issues, critical issues, and I think as a family, we were able to stay more focused on what was important. And again, that was the focus of my father's generation. They had clear obstacles of segregation and limited access. And so it shaped us very much as young people.

Tavis: Before I expand our conversation out here to the work that both of you are doing today, on the one hand, I can see clearly the benefit, the value, of being the son of Jackie Roosevelt Robinson. On the other hand, as you well know, that's often difficult terrain for individuals to navigate. That is to say, when your parent is an iconic figure like your father was, it's difficult to find yourself. Tell me about your own journey to finding yourself in the shadow of this American icon.

Robinson: Well, as I say, when I integrated first grade - the insults, the exclusion of the society that I was integrating - having a strong father and a father that was well respected in the total society was a tremendous support system for me. And one had to find - I had to find my own arena in which to become involved, and the issues in 1946 and that era were very domestic. My mother and my father were very much involved in my first trip to Africa when I was 15, giving me an international prospectus -

Tavis: You went where at 15, what country was it?

Robinson: I went to Ghana, Nigeria, Upper Volta, Tanzania, Kenya.

Tavis: What was the occasion of your going there at 15?

Robinson: It was just my parents' - primarily my mother's influence to say, "See the world, see the motherland, and know from whence you come," And that, at 19, when I was really seeking what I would do with my life, I naturally went back to my roots.

Tavis: I'll talk more about that in just a second. Della, congratulations again to you and the entire foundation for what was a monumental weekend. I assume that you all were pleased by the festivities over the weekend.

Baeza: Very much so. I was just going to say I could listen to him all day. He just - such rich stories. We were. Any time we can put Jackie's living legacy, which is the foundation, before the public in that way, coupled with him as such a great American hero, needless to say, Tavis, it helps our mission. It reminds people of what we're doing to perpetuate that legacy.

Tavis: You know what's amazing to me, I was trying to think of a parallel example, and I'm not sure I have one. I'm sure that somebody watching will send me an email and let me -

Baeza: (Laughs) Get a lot of those, huh?

Tavis: Yeah, I get a lot of - somebody will check me on this. But I was thinking, myself, of a parallel example of a sport where the number of African Americans has dwindled in the way that it has for Black folk in major league baseball, and yet you all have a unique ability to keep the story of Jackie Robinson alive. You see where I'm going with this?

Baeza: Yes, I do, I do.

Tavis: So the number of Black - there are some teams, they have, like, one or two African American ballplayers on the entire team. You're trying to juxtapose that with this guy, Jackie Robinson being the first brother to play 60 years ago, and yet, for whatever reason, major league baseball and the foundation have found a way to continue to tell this story in a compelling way. What's that about?

Baeza: Well, I'd start by giving a lot of credit to Rachel Robinson. This foundation was really a product of her vision, and part of that vision was that in order to achieve what I've started calling authentic inclusion, education is absolutely the key. We have to educate young people. But as you know, as a scholarship organization we feel very strongly that it's not enough to write a check.

What distinguishes our foundation from many others that do scholarship assistance for college students is that we have a comprehensive mentoring component, and that was Rachel's vision. She said, "We're not just gonna write a check, we're gonna get these kids through. We're gonna give them the kind of support system that they may not have in their homes, we're gonna give them strategies for success, and we're gonna make sure that they live up to their potential. They not only graduate, they not only succeed, but they excel."

And so, with that kind of mission and with Rachel saying - education is the key. I often get asked, Tavis, how many of our college students are scholar athletes. Very few. There's an obvious answer to that, of course, which is because many of the athletes have other scholarships that get them through school. But our mission is to find those students who perpetuate all that Jackie embodied, not necessarily the scholar athlete part.

And we do have some scholar athletes which are just great - just a great track to take. But that want to be leaders, that themselves are ambassadors, we call them, of Jackie Robinson. We try to instill in them - part of our mentoring program is instilling in them the same sense of values by which Jackie and Rachel and of course their family has lived by.

So that's what makes us such a powerful - gives our mission such a powerful and profound boost. We're doing more than just giving money. We're saying okay, you have a responsibility here. You stand on the shoulders of this incredible American hero. I rarely call him a Black hero; not that I don't think that's descriptive. But he is everybody's hero in this country.

What he did for our country, I think, is - we all, Black, White, green, purple, yellow - should be indebted to him for. So putting that legacy in front of our scholars and saying, "It's more than just getting into college; it's assuming the responsibility that Jackie would want you to assume." Which is that of leadership, that of, if you will, taking the high road.

Living by the principles that he himself lived by. So Rachel had it right when she started this foundation 35 years ago, and we've built on that principle. And while our mentoring is more complex and while what we do now in terms of support with the students grows by the year, we're on the same track she was when she established this foundation.

Tavis: What do you make of the notion, David - of the fact that sport can be such a powerful tool? Sports can be such a powerful tool, such a powerful example, of the way things ought to be done? You think about, again, your father, you think about the work now that comes out of the foundation because of his legacy. Talk to me about how powerful you think sports are as a metaphor, and as an example, quite frankly, of what can be done?

'Cause so many things are wrong about the world we live in today, but here's an example - of course, 60 years ago - of how sports showed the rest of us how to right wrongs.

Robinson: Yeah, well, sports was a vehicle that reflected a wrong in segregation and discrimination, and in reversing that, that's what gave sport its strength. If there hadn't been that wrong to be reversed, then sports would have been a national pastime and an enjoyable game, but not a social evolution tool. So it was the wrong that existed in society that was reflected in sports, and the correction of that wrong that really gave sports a platform beyond just a sport.

And I think my father's involvement - sports was, again, only a platform for civil and human rights and development, and that was his primary concern. If he had had an opportunity to make that impact on behalf of our race in another venue, he would have done it. But the wrong was highlighted in sports, and it was a beautiful, dramatic venue that all of America, as you say, Della, could visually see that we, as a society, were really cutting ourselves off at the knees in terms of not including great talent, skill, and that transcends to every other aspect of society.

Baeza: Sport, like music, has that undeniable quality of measurement. So then in a way, what I think sports has been such a great avenue for us to prove to the world that we belong at the table, because you can measure it. Did you hit the home run (laughs)? Did you hit the high C or did you not hit the high C? It sort of, like, doesn't really matter what color you are. And that's kind of that undeniable quality that you sort of can't - you can't look somebody in the eye and say, "You don't belong." I did it, I won the game.

Tavis: Baseball was - what your dad did was, David, a double-edged sword in some ways. And by that I mean - well, good and bad. The good was that he showed that people - to Della's point - could play the game, and that race was not a factor; should not have been an arbiter of who gets to play the game. That said, Dave Winfield, Hall of Famer, was just on this program a couple weeks ago and was talking about an idea he's come up with for how to honor and celebrate the Negro League players.

And I wonder whether or not your father ever had difficulty navigating the reality that while he did open up major league baseball for everybody else, at the same time, it -

Baeza: Good point, yeah.

Tavis: It had the impact of diminishing the Negro Leagues.

Robinson: You could say that about integration in total.

Tavis: Absolutely.

Robinson: We had a -

Baeza: The brain drain.

Robinson: - a more thriving Black economy prior to - well, issues have changed between 1947 and today, and the living legacy and the generation that have been beneficiaries of that, the young people who are skilled and educated today, they've got new challenges that we've got to navigate, because our diminished position in baseball I think just reflects also our diminished position in economic involvement in America today, as well.

And that's a challenge that we need to deal with, and as cars were once made in Detroit in 1947 and now they're made all over the world, I have - my parents have really given me a world vision, and we have gone to seek solutions on a global basis. And we're - by working with our resources in Africa, by working with a coffee commodity which is globally consumed, we're trying to rally our resources worldwide and create opportunity and inclusion for both ourselves as Africans and ourselves as African Americans.

It's tragic - coffee originates from Ethiopia. Gourmet coffee is grown in many African countries, and yet we're the only African American coffee company in America working from the farm to the cup. We have a finished coffee product. It's our resource, it's our economy, and it's something that we've got to seize on a global basis in order to deal with a diminished position domestically that all industry and all peoples are seeing.

Even immigrants in this country are benefited by having a global prospectus, because an immigrant can send back $100 to his or her native country, and that is a benefit of being in America. The African American is - when based here only is extremely limited. Industry hasn't been able to survive in immigrants, either.

Tavis: So tell me more, then about the product specifically, and about how the project is coming along.

Robinson: We're 400-plus small-scale farmers trying to be partners in the coffee business as opposed to being only the labor component. We've created a finished coffee product called Sweet Unity Farms. We are working with corporate America in terms of food service. We are looking for opportunities in supermarkets.

We're at the beginning of this process. We are seeking financing to enable ourselves to expand and really operate on this base. I've been 12 years with our cooperative; we have a great production base in Africa. Now we're trying to bring it to America. I think there's a readiness to receive a product which includes producers as partners in the global economy. So we're optimistic, but money and markets are things we're looking for.

Tavis: Let me close with this exit question for you, specifically, given that you are his son. What, for you, is the abiding legacy of your father?

Robinson: The quote is so great, about impact and meaning being people, not an individual life. The struggle was not waged for individuals to have cars or clothes or lifestyles of luxury. The struggle exists today, and we need our young people to see that their lives will not be merited, evaluated, by what car they drive or what jewelry they wear

And those who went before them did not struggle for that, and those that come after them will not benefit from that. So if they want meaning, if they wanna be part of the development of the human struggle and the racial struggle, then they've got to get real in terms of what meaning is, what priorities is, and what is valuable. And it's certainly the human contact and the human impact that's valuable, as opposed to lifestyle or contemporary comforts.

Tavis: As we say in the Black church, amen. David Robinson, an honor to have you on the program, nice to meet you. And Della Britton Baeza, nice to have you here, as well.

Baeza: Thank you.

Tavis: And all our best to the foundation.

Baeza: Thank you, Tavis.

Tavis: Glad to have you both here.