‘The N***er Can’t Stay Here!’ Reggie Jackson Gives Stunning Account Of Racism — With Surprising Twist

Baseball legend Reggie Jackson stunned his broadcast partners with a riveting account of racism — and an unexpected answer to a cliché about adversity.

Major League Baseball honored the late Willie Mays — who passed away at the age of 93 this week — at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama during a tribute to the Negro Leagues. Mays played at the field as a member of the Birmingham Black Barons before his debut for MLB.

Prior to the game, Alex Rodriguez asked Reggie — who played at Rickwood as a minor leaguer with the Birmingham A’s — about the emotions around returning there.

The Hall of Famer went into an intense monologue in which he dispelled the notion that there’s a character-strengthening upside to the racism he faced:

ALEX RODRIGUEZ: How emotional is it for you to come back to a place that you played with one of the greatest teams around?

REGGIE JACKSON: Alex. Alex, when people ask me a question like that, it’s like — coming back here is not easy. The racism that I played here, when I played here, the difficulty of going through different places where we traveled.

Fortunately, I had a manager and I had players on the team that helped me get through it, but I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.

People said to me today, I spoke, and they said, “You think you’re a better person? You think you — you won when you played here and conquered.”

I said, you know, I would never want to do it, want to do it again. I walked into restaurants and they would point at me and said, “The n***er can’t eat here.”

I would go to a hotel and they’d say, “The n***er can’t stay here!”

We went to Charlie Finley’s country club for a welcome home dinner, and they pointed me out with the N-word. “He can’t come in here!”

Finley marched the whole team out. Finally, they let me in there. He said “We’re going to go to the diner and eat hamburgers. We’re going where we’re wanted.”

Fortunately, I had a manager in Johnny McNamara that if I couldn’t eat, if I couldn’t, thank you, if I couldn’t eat in a place, nobody would eat. We’d get food to travel.

If I couldn’t stay in a hotel, they drive to the next hotel and find a place where I could stay.

Had it not been for Rollie Fingers, Johnny McNamara, Dave Duncan, Joe and Sharon Rudi, I slept on their couch 3 or 4 nights a week for about a month and a half.

Finally, they were threatened that they would burn our apartment complex down unless I got out.

I wouldn’t wish it on anyone! The year I came here. Bull Connor was the sheriff the year before, and they took minor league baseball out of here.

Because in 1963, the Klan murdered four black girls, children 11, 12, 14 years old at a church here and never got indicted. It was there from the Klan. Life magazine did a story on them like you were being honored!

It — I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. At the same time, had it not been for my White friends, had it not been for a White manager and Rudi, Fingers and Duncan and Lee Myers, I would have never made it.

I was too physically violent. I was ready to physically fight some — I’d a gotten killed here because I’d a beat someone’s ass, and they’d a hung — you’d have saw me in an oak tree somewhere.

KEVIN BURKHARDT: Reggie, I think — wow, I can’t even imagine. It’s awful you had to go through that, but you know it. Appreciate you sharing the rawness and the honesty of it with our audience. I mean, really, it’s —

ALEX RODRIGUEZ: We love you Reggie!

Watch above via WNYW.