THE GREEN JACKET

Jack Nicklaus has several and so do Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods. Now Phil Mickelson has two. They were all lauded for their four day labor and the symbol known around the world that signifies the fulfillment of their labor is the Green Jacket. Every year in Augusta, Georgia since 1937 several hundred men have vied for the honor of being awarded the most famous Green Jacket in the world. For those so honored it sets them apart from their peers as august elite of an elite community.

However, there is another Green Jacket. It is not worn by the famous of the world nor is it coveted by those eligible to receive it and whose labor it symbolizes. Yet, this Green Jacket is the symbol of many more than four day’s labor by a couple of hundred men.

More than a symbol it represents the hopes, dreams, pain, disappointment, and at the time of its earning often the despair of untold thousands of women. Rather than celebrated in public on national television, these women labored hidden away – non persons – not lauded for their labor but in the shame and agony of those who to paraphrase the status of Lord Voldemot from the Harry Potter books were, “she who must not be named.”

What was her crime? What had she done to be so despised and made an outcast that even her name was anathema?  She had broken society’s most sacred mos. She had dared to engage in sexual intercourse, either willingly or by force, while unmarried and had the misfortune to become pregnant as a consequence.

While the men’s Green Jacket is a sprightly sixty-nine years old the women’s Green Jacket has not yet celebrated its first birthday. The former is revered as a stately Southern Gentleman born of the clean air and lush soil of Augusta. The latter is an unknown born of the industrial smoke laden air and overgrown weed strewn soil of the now demolished Booth Home for Unwed Mothers of Pittsburg.

How will this story of two Green Jackets end? The Green Jacket of Augusta will continue in its glory as a much coveted symbol reserved for an elite few within an elite community.

The Green Jacket of Pittsburgh’s story is still to unfold. It is a different kind of Green Jacket from that of Augusta and carries a different symbolism. The Green Jacket of Pittsburg identifies those who did not seek it as elite members within an elite community.  It is a jacket awarded more in default than as trophy.

Yet, in comparison the symbolism of the shimmering shamrock Green Jacket of Augusta pales when compared to the subdued silk Green Jacket of Pittsburg. While Augusta’s Green Jacket symbolizes skill at hitting a very small ball with a very large golf club, Pittsburgh’s Green Jacket symbolizes America’s inhumane treatment of its daughters and granddaughters. It symbolizes America’s alienation with itself. It symbolizes a very dark period of American history many wish to believe never happened.

However, the true symbolism of Pittsburgh’s Green Jacket is the strength, perseverance, and character of the women who labored to earn it. Unlike the privileged men who earn the Green Jacket of Augusta and are the master of the Master’s Golf Tournament, the women who earn the Green Jacket of Pittsburgh are women from every city and town, every highway and dusty byway of America who were ostracized, vilified, and whose very name and identity were stripped from them who have become the Masters of Life.

William Ernest Henley foresaw the symbolism of the Green Jacket of Pittsburgh and the women who earned it in his famous poem, Invictus:

Out of the night that covers me,    

Black as the Pit from pole to pole, 

I thank whatever gods may be    

For my unconquerable soul.    

In the fell clutch of circumstance         

I have not winced nor cried aloud. 

Under the bludgeonings of chance    

My head is bloody, but unbowed.    

Beyond this place of wrath and tears    

Looms but the Horror of the shade,  

And yet the menace of the years    

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.    

It matters not how strait the gate,    

How charged with punishments the scroll, 

I am the master of my fate:    

I am the captain of my soul.