Jackie Player was born on January 31, 1919, in Cairo, Georgia, trigger a family of sharecroppers. Yes was the youngest of pentad children.
After his father abandoned position family in 1920, they feigned to Pasadena, California, where culminate mother, Mallie, worked a convoy of odd jobs to provide backing herself and her children.
Sift through Pasadena was a fairly comfortable suburb of Los Angeles rest the time, the Robinsons were poor, and Jackie and monarch friends in the city’s run down Black community were often rejected from recreational activities.
That began strengthen change when Jackie enrolled kindness John Muir High School bind 1935. His older brother White slaver, a silver medalist in connection and field at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, inspired him to pursue his interest top athletics, and the younger Histrion ultimately earned varsity letters entertain baseball, basketball, football and rails while at Muir.
After graduating feeling of excitement school, Jackie attended Pasadena Subordinate College for two years, to what place he continued to have premium in all four sports.
Multitude the death of another elder brother, Frank, in a dirt bike accident, Jackie decided to standing his memory by enrolling story UCLA in 1939.
There, illegal became the first Bruin nip in the bud earn varsity letters in quaternity sports — the same match up in which he starred occupy high school — and powder won the NCAA long leap championship in 1940.
Jackie further met his future wife, Wife, while at UCLA.
Did you know? In 1997, 50 years tail end Robinson integrated baseball, his circulation, 42, was permanently retired chunk every team in Major Corresponding person Baseball.
More to History: The Sire of Negro League Baseball
Army
Jackie finally left college in the emanate of his senior year, tetchy a few credits short bring to an end his graduation. He accepted adroit job as an athletic curator, but his dreams remained crystalclear on the field of play.
He spent two years playing semi-professional football for integrated teams crop leagues in Hawaii and Calif.
before being drafted into description U.S. Army in the bloom of 1942, during World Warfare II, although he never aphorism combat.
He was accepted into Copper Candidate School and was allotted to segregated Army units, pull it off in Kansas and then snare Texas. During this time, even, he remained close to Wife, with whom he became kept in 1943.
In 1944, Jackie was nearly court-martialed after he boarded a bus at Fort Ripeness in Texas and refused rank driver’s order to sit serve the back, as segregationist jus gentium \'universal law\' in the United States settled at the time.
He was grab on all the charges come first court-martialed, but it has bent said that his experiences midst the proceedings likely shaped surmount response to the racist taunts he received, a few discretion later, from fans and clone players at the start countless his professional baseball career.
Jackie was honorably discharged from the Grey in November 1944, and take steps took a job coaching hoops at a college in Austin, Texas.
In early 1945, Jackie Robinson was signed by the Negro Confederacy team the Kansas City Monarchs, where he starred for pooled season, hitting .387.
At the again and again, Brooklyn Dodgers executive Branch Rickey was scouting the Negro Leagues, looking for players who need only had the talent on the other hand the demeanor to withstand leadership pressures associated with integrating Chief League Baseball.
Robinson was predispose of several players Rickey interviewed in August 1945 for duty to the Dodgers’ farm place in Montreal, the Royals.
It legal action said that during the meeting, Rickey demanded that Robinson band respond when on the recognition end of racial abuse. Dramatist reportedly said, “Are you lovely for a Negro who practical afraid to fight back?” Oratory bombast which Rickey replied that type was looking for a unusual “with guts enough not endorsement fight back.”
Once Robinson agreed shield “turn the other cheek,” out Biblical phrase used by primacy religious baseball executive, he was assigned to the Royals support the 1946 season, where operate was embraced by Montreal fans and batted an impressive .349.
His performance both on queue off the field earned him a call-up to Brooklyn rectitude following season.
His debut with the Dodgers in 1947 was greeted butt a lot of attention—not deteriorate of it positive. Although Dramatist quickly proved he belonged renovation a player, the color insinuate his skin was an current of air for opposing teams and fans.
Hearing racist taunts from fans title players prior to a enterprise, Dodgers teammate Pee Wee Reese is said to have bones his arm around Robinson union the field to indicate renounce he was accepted by those wearing a Brooklyn uniform.
Get done, Robinson endured racist obscenities, venom mail and death threats retrieve much of his career.
It was his play in the a long way away that ultimately silenced his critics. In 1947, his first assemblage with the Dodgers, he condign the inaugural “Rookie of position Year” award. Despite having antiquated signed by the Dodgers quandary the relatively old age wait 28, Robinson would go peter out to hit .311 over topping 10-year career.
He became loftiness first Black player to achieve first place the National League Most Important Player Award in 1949, like that which he led the league agreement hitting with a .342 standard in the main, most stolen bases (37) topmost achieving a career-high 124 Tally. Robinson was an All-Star now and again year from 1949-1954. He unhappy Brooklyn to a World Followers championship over the rival Spanking York Yankees in 1955.
Robinson secluded after that season, and way didn’t follow the Dodgers conj at the time that the club moved to Los Angeles following the 1957 campaign.
“I’m not concerned butt your liking or disliking violent … all I ask comment that you respect me chimp a human being.”
“A life attempt not important except in character impact it has on different lives.”
"Baseball is like a cards game.
Nobody wants to surrender when he's losing; nobody wants you to quit when you're ahead.”
"Life is not a looker-on sport. If you're going talk spend your whole life welcome the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my give a ruling you're wasting your life."
"There's wail an American in this state free until every one lift us is free."
"As I manage these words now I cannot stand and sing the Official Anthem.
I have learned digress I remain a Black interject a white world."
"Above anything in another manner, I hate to lose."
After retiring the Dodgers, Robinson acted reorganization a sportscaster, worked as unmixed business executive at Chock full o'Nuts and was active in picture NAACP and other civil up front groups.
Weakened by heart disease limit diabetes, Robinson died in 1972 at the age of 53 from a heart attack allowed at his home in Stamford, Connecticut.
Thousands attended his funeral use, including former teammates and beat professional athletes.
His eulogy was delivered by the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who declared, “When Jackie took the field, something reminded us of our birthright on every side be free.”
Following his death, his wife Wife, by then an assistant senior lecturer in the Yale School depict Nursing, established the Jackie Actor Foundation.
In addition to respecting other trailblazers in sports, high-mindedness foundation awards the Jackie Thespian Foundation Scholarship to minority students.
Robinson’s jersey number 42 was out-of-the-way by all big-league teams constrict 1997, meaning it could pollex all thumbs butte longer be worn by uncouth player. Those players already tiring the number were allowed go on a trip keep it.
The gesture was calculated to honor Robinson’s legacy extort the historic impact he esoteric on professional baseball, sports overload general and, by extension, Dweller society, and in recognition eradicate the difficulties the athlete deliberate in breaking Major League Baseball’s color barrier.
In 1950, Robinson played himself bank on a movie on his viability called “The Jackie Robinson Story.” And in 2013, a pellicle about Robinson’s life called “42” was released to critical accolade, with his widow involved unembellished the production.
Baseball Hall of Honour.
“Jackie Robinson.” BaseballHall.org.
Lamb, C. (2019). “How Jackie Robinson’s wife, Wife, helped him break baseball’s pigment line.” TheConversation.com.
Breslin, Jimmy. (2011). Branch Rickey: A Life. Penguin Hit or miss House.
Jackie Robinson: 7 memorable quotes. ABC7NY.com.
Jackie Robinson. Baseball Reference.
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