modeled as it is on the 13th-century cathedral at Chartres.
The nave of Riverside Church spreads nearly 90 feet wide
and extends more than 200 feet from entranceway to
altar. The ribbed ceiling reaches eight stories high at its
vaulted peak, and the arched bays along the sidewalls
curve around panes of stained glass. Colorful mosaics
depict scenes both Christian and non-Christian, a spirit
in confluence with the church’s mission to be “inter-
denominational, interracial, international.”
Martin Luther King Jr. addressed a congregation here—
decades later, so did Nelson Mandela—and during the
1960s, the Riverside Church proved fertile ground for
prayer, thought and discussion around civil rights. In ’69,
the activist James Forman interrupted a Sunday sermon
by climbing the steps of the chancel and reading aloud
the Black Manifesto. On important days, the church
might fill to its official capacity of close to 2,500 people,
although many more than that crowded in, and many,
many more pressed along the neighboring streets and
sidewalks, on the late morning and early afternoon of
Oct. 27, 1972, for the funeral of Jackie Robinson.
Three days had passed since Robinson’s sudden col-
lapse onto the f loor of his home on Cascade Road, in
the early morning, with his wife of
26 years, Rachel, by his side. She had
called the Stamford, Conn., police
and gone to the hospital and phoned
Sharon, their daughter, in D.C. to
tell her he was gone. Rachel helped
to organize the days of public view-
ing and to set up the funeral, and
she discussed the handling of the
eulogy and specified who would be
the pallbearers. When Rachel asked
Bill Russell, the great and principled
basketball star, to be among them, Russell broke into
tears. “What an overwhelming honor,” he said. Russell
was in junior high school in West Oakland when Robinson
started with the Dodgers.
The others who would carry Robinson’s casket were old
teammates and peers: Newcombe, Gilliam, Ralph Branca,
Pee Wee Reese, Joe Black and Larry Doby. All through,
the church was dotted with great athletes and notables:
Joe Louis. Hank Greenberg. Willie Mays. Dick Gregory.
Sargent Shriver, right off the campaign trail. A delega-
tion of 40 people sent by the president. Cab Calloway.SPORTS
ILLUSTRATED
SI.COM
APRIL 2022
57ON IMPORTANT DAYS, THE CHURCH
MIGHT FILL TO ITS CAPACITY
OF 2,500, ALTHOUGH MANY MORE
THAN THAT CROWDED INFOR THE FUNERAL
OF JACKIE ROBINSON.From TRUE:
The Four Seasons of
Jackie Robinson
by Kostya Kennedy.
Copyright © 2022 by the
author and reprinted
by permission of
St. Martin’s Press.