JJ: The Masters golf tourny named after slave owners?

[Pashnish_Ewing]

This week’s Sports Illustrated implies that Jessie Jackson claims to have documented proof that The Masters (the golf tournament) was named after the white slave owners of the South.

This is the issue with Kirby Puckett on the cover. I don’t have it with me, but I believe it was in the Scorecard section under the “This weeks sign the apocalypse is upon us” heading. I’ve searched (SDMB, Snopes, the SI.com site) and I’ve googled, but I can’t find anything about this. I would think this would have made some waves.

Maybe I misread it. I hope someone with a copy of the magazine give the exact quote. The whole thing sounds very UL-ish to me.

So:
Did SI actually report this?
Did Jackson actually say it?
Is there any truth to it?

Thanks,
Pash

[BobT]

I don’t recall reading it in SI. However, the present issue’s fulltext isn’t online yet in my database, so I can’t verify it.

Jesse Jackson is the subject of a lot of e-mail ULs. If he had made such an assertion, it would have likely shown up.

And if the story were true, it would be interesting to see such “proof”. There are many other tournaments called “The BLANK Masters”.

[zigaretten]

Did SI actually report this?..Yes

Did Jackson actually say it?..Yes

Is there any truth to it?..No (see above)

[zigaretten]

Did SI actually report this?..Yes

Just to clarify, it’s on page 29; just a blurb in the “Sports Beat” column which is a sort of “What funny and bizarre things happened this week” sort of column.

[Pashnish_Ewing]

The Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, which is planning to protest the golf club’s all-male membership, claimed on national television last week he had evidence the Masters is named for “white male slave masters” who were given exclusive use of the course in its early days

This (from SI Golf Online) doesn’t really quote Jackson. It says the Coalition claimed that Jackson had evidence.

This smells a lot like the Rev. Jerry Fallwell/Tinky Winky situation, where the founder gets “credit” for a quote that was from a lower level member of the organization.

Does anyone know what the “national television” program was?

Pash

[David_Simmons]

Oh, please. This is another reason why Jesse is in the top 3 or 4 of the “Most Ignored in the USA.”

I think the word “masters” in this case refers to the players who are, except for the past champions from long ago, all highly skilled at what they do. In other words “masters” of their craft.

[zigaretten]

Actually, I’m starting to smell a rat too. Every site I find on this seems to refer back to the same story I linked to before. I can’t even find any discussion on it in the usenet groups, and that seems odd.

[samclem]

In the article in SI, the “historian” for the club says

The tournament wasn’t called the Masters until 1939, when it was named for the masters of golf who participated, Montgomery said.

Just a nitpick here. If you read MASTERS , there is a 1934 article from the Augusta Chronicle which specifically calls the tournement the Masters. And it’s so named in each succesive year’s article. Maybe the club didn’t officially call it the Masters, but the world knew it by that name from the getgo.

Again, this in no way has anything to do with Jesse and the foolishness.

[Nametag]

OK, the original story was in the Augusta Chronicle

ON A NATIONALLY televised political talk show, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, claimed to have evidence that the Masters Tournament is named for “white male slavemasters” who were given exclusive use of the course in its early days.

“That is its original meaning. It was,” the Rev. Jackson said, according to a transcript from CNN’s Feb. 28 episode of Crossfire.

[Nametag]

OK, the transcript is here

Reverend Jackson joins us from Chicago.

CARLSON: Mr. Jackson, thanks for joining us. I want to read you a quote of yours. This is something you said yesterday on an Atlanta radio station AM 680 about the Masters Tournament. “The name does not really come from being the master of golf,” you said. “You know it really comes from slave masters.”

Now that’s untrue. Why did you say that?

REV. JESSE JACKSON, RAINBOW/PUSH COALITION: Well, that is its original meaning. It was. It’s on a plantation. It was about only the masters could play, the while male masters.

It was slave masters. And for a long time, they held on to that policy. The secret society of only white men and finally blacks. But today we protested because we think that…

[Dinsdale]

Brings to mind this Chicagoan’s favorite line from The Barbershop, uttered by Cedric the Entertainer …

[rjciii]

Jessie Jackson also continually referred to Augusta National as “The Augusta Country Club” during the Atlanta 680 interview. They are two separate organizations in town, that are not affiliated in any way. I wouldn’t believe a thing this guy ever said about The Masters or Augusta National, as he has obviously done zero homework.

The golf course & organization didn’t come about until about 60 after the Emancipation Proclamaition.