Buck O’Neil, 1911 - 2006
Buck O’Neil. Honorary Irishman of the Year for the 2006 KC St Patrick’s Day Parade. O’Neil. An Irish name. From an Irish slave-owner.
At this year’s St Patrick’s Day events Buck said the O’Neil that owned his family kept them together. It doesn’t exactly eradicate the embarassment of slave owners in your heritage.
Irish history tends to labour the role of victim including that of being slaves ourselves, more than acknowledge its role on the other side of slavery.
Perhaps Enslaved by the Irish could be a theme for a St Patrick’s Day Parade some year. After all St Patrick himself was a Briton captured by the Irish and taken to Ireland as a slave.
In the terrific interview by Ken Burns available on PBS, O’Neil didn’t court sympathy despite the tremendous prejudice suffered in his life:
Why would you feel sorry for me? I think we are the cause of the changes. Some of the changes that’ve been made were because of us. We did our duty. We did the groundwork for the Jackie Robinsons, the Willie Mayses, and the guys that are playing now. So why feel sorry for me? We did our part in our generation, and we turned it over to another generation and it’s still changing — which is the way it should be.
John Jordan “Buck” O’Neil Jr, 1911 - 2006
The current edition of the Irish Echo has an article of the history of the Irish and the African-American populations of America.
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
