Lester “Red” Rodney, 1911-2009

Dave Zirin pens an inspiring obituary of a sportswriter I had never heard of. Here Rodney recounts to Zirin a conversation with Brooklyn Dodgers catcher Roy Campanella:

“Roy Campanella once said to me something like, ‘Without the Brooklyn Dodgers you don't have Brown v. Board of Education.’ I laughed, I thought he was joking but he was stubborn. He said, ‘All I know is we were the first ones on the trains, we were the first ones down South not to go around the back of the restaurant, first ones in the hotels.’ He said, ‘We were like the teachers of the whole integration thing.’”