Jackie Robinson was born on January 31st 1919 in Cairo, Georgia he was the youngest sibling among five children. He was trained by a single mom who faced difficult financial circumstances.
Jackie played baseball with Brooklyn Dodgers , he became the first African American to participate in a major league baseball team.
He went to Pasadena Junior College and John Muir High School where he got recognized as phenomenal athlete in basketball, football , track and baseball. His elderest brother who was a track star Mattew Robinson won the silver medal at the Olympic Games 1936 in Berlin.
Robinson furthered his education as he gained admission to the University of California in Los Angeles, where he got the honor of emerging as the first athlete to have won University letters in four sports.
Due to financial circumstances he could not cope and was forced to leave the college before his graduation. He moved from California to Honolulu where he played football for a semi professional team called Honolulu Bears. His playtime career was short-lived by the outbreak of World war II .
Being enlisted in the U.S Army as a second lieutenant, Jackie never went for combat but was arrested and court martialed when he refused to give up his seat in a segregated bus. He was after a while acquitted and with honor discharged from the army due to the efforts of his family, friends and the National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Numerous news dailies reported the story of this injustice and highlighted Robinson’s tremendous athletic achievement’s.
Robinson professional career in baseball began in 1944 with the Negro Leagues and then he transferred to an all white team , called the Montreal Royals which was a farm division of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Because baseball was a segregated sport this was unheard of at that time.
Robinson knew it would not be an easy one to be part of a segregated sport. Not withstanding his zeal and strong personality led him on and despite racial slurs and threats aimed at him and his family, Jackie never give up even in the face of opposition. He got massive support from Branch Rickey , the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers who trained Robinson to steel himself against the insults he received. Jackie played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15th, 2947, a game that marked the historic moment for the first time and American athlete played for a major league baseball team.
Throughout his long successful career, Jackie Robinson faced different personal difficulties even with his huge success. He badged the Rookie of the year Award, as well as the National Leagues most valuable player award. He had an outstanding batting average and more steals as compared to any other players in his team, yet he received taunting from fans , critics and at times even amongst his team mates. Other than Rickey he had got other supporters as well, including Dodgers team captain Pee See Reese, who did an infamous gesture by putting his arm around Robinson when he was being verbally assaulted by fans. His other supporters include Ford Frick , the president of the baseball league, Hank Greenberg a Jewish baseball star and Happy Chandler the baseball commissioner. With the aid of Robinson his team won several National Leagues and the World Series as well in 1955.
After Jackie Robinson retired from professional baseball he enrolled into business and became a businessman operating a group of successful coffee shops and restaurants.
He continued to dwell as an advocate for social change and served on the board of the NAACP, along with being the first African American to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in the year 1962.
The baseball legend passed on to glory on October 24th , 1972, shortly after his demise his wife honored her husband’s memory with the establishment of the Jackie Robinson Foundation, which is to help reach out to you people by providing scholarship and monitoring programs.
Leave a Reply