The clouds part and the sun shines down on to Jackie Robinson as he steps on the field for the first time. The grass folds under the footsteps of the champion. Fans stare anxiously as they watch Jackie step up to the mound. They anticipate the base-stealing adrenaline that they all know so well. The suspense builds in the stadium by every second. The pitcher throws, Jackie swings. Crack! From home runs to strikeouts, Jackie Robinson risked everything he knew and loved to become the first African-American Major League Baseball player. He faced many obstacles and barriers throughout his life and he strived to break through them.
Jack will easily go down in history as the one of the humblest, bravest, and most influential individuals of all time. Ever since Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born on January 31, 1919, he was an athlete. He was born in Cairo, Georgia and was one of five children, Edgar, Frank, Mack, and Willa Mae. His parents were Jerry and Mallie Robinson. Since the Robinsons struggled to make ends meet, they tried to sharecrop, work in the fields in exchange for a place to live, with the family, the Sassers, but after Jerry left the family when Jackie was only 6 months old, it was hard for Mallie to work for the kids.
Determined to give her children a good life, the family moved to Pasadena, California and bought a house on 121 Pepper Street, which was a white only neighborhood. Since his mother worked every day for long hours, Willa Mae brought Jack to her school. Jackie would play in the sandbox and wait for his sister while she patiently watched from inside the classroom. During recess, Jack was the most popular boy there. Kids would offer him food, dimes, even clothing to have him play on their team. He started school at Cleveland Elementary and excelled at every sport, marbles, soccer, handball, table tennis, dodgeball, you name it, he was good at it.
Academic studies were not his biggest focus in school. These traits followed him all the way up to Washington Junior High, high school and college. (Coombs 11-23) Even as a teenager, he wanted to support his family. He made money working several jobs, mowing lawns, starting a paper route, selling ice, and helping out in the student concessions at games. As he got older, he began to make more and more friends. He formed a group called the Pepper Street Gang. The ethnicity ran freely in this group. Its 16 members consisted of Asians, blacks, Hispanics, and whites.
They spent most of their time making trouble. They threw rocks or dirt at cars, stole food, smashed windows with bricks, and stole golf balls. Jack was usually the one who liked to stir up trouble. Once, he convinced his crew to swim in the drinking water reservoir. The police took all 16 boys to jail and crammed them into one cell. Since Jackie grew up without a father figure, the local mechanic, Carl Anderson, helped fill the position. The pastor of the family church, Karl Downs, also had a strong relationship with Jack and influenced him to help build a youth center and teach Sunday School.
When Jackie attended John Muir Technical High, he outshined in multiple sports. He lettered in basketball, track, baseball, and football. During one of his football games, Jack hurt his ankle badly. His trainer simply bandaged and wrapped it. A few days later, he visited the hospital to find that his ankle was broken and would bother him for the rest of his life. (Coombs 15-19) When Jackie first attended college, he went to Pasadena Junior College. He continued to dominate in sports. He was the leading scorer in basketball and the best player in the conference.
In a track meet, he jumped 26 feet and six-and-a-half inches, winning the event and break the record which was set by his brother Mack. In baseball, great hits and stolen bases help his team go to the league championship. He earned nicknames like “Dusky Flash,” “Midnight Express,” and “The Dark Demon. ” After graduating from Pasadena Junior College at 20 years old, he had dozens of scholarships lined up but no idea where to go. He found himself leaning toward UCLA when a disastrous family tragedy helped him decide. His brother, Frank, was killed in a motorcycle accident.
Going to the University of California in Los Angeles meant that he would be able to be near his mother and help Frank’s wife and two kids. While attending UCLA, Rachel Isum became an inspiration to Jackie. “She became the most important and helpful and encouraging person I ever met in my whole life. When I became bitter or discouraged, she was always there with the help I needed,” quoted Robinson. Jackie became UCLA’s very first four-letter athlete. However, even though he excelled in every sport he played in, money always seemed to be a problem.
He dropped out months before graduation in order to make money to help support his mother. (Coombs 22-25) After dropping out of UCLA, Jack moved to Hawaii and played semi-professional football and worked part-time construction. He still kept in touch with Rachel via letters. Jackie left Hawaii to go visit Rachel on December 5, 1941, two days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. He did not receive any and could not accept any due to being drafted into the army the day before knowing this. He did three months of basic training at Fort Riley, Kansas. When he applied for Officer Candidate School (OCS), his application was simply ignored.
Joe Louis, the heavyweight boxing champion, called Truman Gibson, special assistant to the secretary of war, complaining about his application being denied and soon after it was accepted. Jackie was commissioned as a second lieutenant and morale officer to a unit of African-American soldiers. When Jack tried out for the Fort Riley baseball team, the coach rejected him and told him he could not play on a white team. However, the Fort Riley football coach urged Jack to play on the football team but after he found out he could not play against any southern teams, he denied the offer.
Shortly after, he was transferred to an African-American tank battalion at Fort Hood, Texas. While there, an incident happened where Jackie had sat down in the middle of the bus and when the bus driver asked him to move, he refused. When the bus got to the station, Jack was arrested and charged for insubordination. He was court-martialed and honorably discharged with the military’s excuse of an old ankle injury. After his military career was over, he fixed his relationship with Rachel and proposed February 10, 1946, right before she left for nursing school in New York.
After Rachel left, he began to pursue the sport of baseball (Coombs 26-31) Jackie first played in the Negro League on the Kansas City Monarchs as shortstop. He was paid $100 every week, not including meals or baseball expenses (hotels, transportation, etc). He batted a . 387 for just that season, but there were the negatives too. Almost every time they went on the road for games, they had to sleep on the bus, their food was usually takeout and delivered at the back of the door, and at gas stations, African-Americans were strictly not allowed to use restrooms.
On one occasion, Jackie and the team stopped for gas and the team had to use the restroom. When the owner denied them the use of the bathrooms, they simply didn’t buy gas and were preparing to leave when the owner changed his mind. Realizing he didn’t want to play in such poor conditions, Jackie left the team at the end of the season. Then, he got a call. Branch Rickey, the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, called Jackie to schedule to join a team Branch was starting in the Negro Leagues called the Brown Brooklyn Dodgers. Jackie eagerly cooperated.
When Jackie arrived at Branch’s office, Branch sat him down and began to talk. It turns out Rickey made up the Brown Brooklyn Dodgers. Instead, Jack was invited to play on the Montreal Royals, the top minor league team and a whites only team. He was offered a bonus of $3,500 and $600 every month. He played his first professional baseball game against the Jersey City Giants on April 18, 1946. When he first walked onto the field, people booed, taunted, and called out names, but this didn’t stop him from playing his best. That game, he had 4 hits, one of which was a home run, scored 4 runs and ran in 3 more.
That’s when people realized Jack was the real deal. He led the International League in batting with a . 349, was second in stolen bases, tied in runs scored, was the best second basemen, and was voted Most Valuable Player in the whole league. Then, after the season was over, Jackie got the chance to play in the big leagues. (Coombs 31-52) Jack played his first game as a Brooklyn Dodger on April 15, 1947 against the Boston Braves. He didn’t play his best only scoring 1 run, but he still helped his team beat them three to five. Pee Wee Reese was the first Dodger to become friends with Jack.
Pee Wee didn’t seem to care about the taunts, gestures, and mocks he got. Jackie would go on to play a fantastic season and be awarded Rookie of the Year. After playing three great seasons as a Dodger, he finally was given the Most Valuable Player Award in 1949. Robinson was the National League Batting and Stolen Bases Champion with a batting average of . 342 and 37 stolen bases in 1949. While Jackie was with the Dodgers, they went to the World Series a total of six times and finally won their first one in 1955 against the New York Yankees in game seven. He was also a six-time All-Star in the years 1949-1954.
He received the Spingarn Medal from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) on December 8, 1956. As Jackie got older, he was starting to lose his spark. He began to get gray hairs and gained weight. His knees and shins ached from being cleated by numerous players for him being black. He was not in his prime anymore, but Jack signed a $50,000 contract with Look magazine stating that Look would announce his retirement whenever it happened. This meant Jackie couldn’t hold press conferences or even tell his general manager he was retiring until the magazine company printed the story first.
But before Jack could retire, Brooklyn traded him to the New York Giants for pitcher Dick Littlefield and $35,000. Jack was shocked. Everyone was shocked. Jackie Robinson, the first man to break the racial barrier in Major League Baseball, the man who brought all the excitement into playing the sport, the man who had such nimble feet and powerful strikes, was traded. After playing baseball for 10 years with the Dodgers and batting under . 300 for the first time since 1948, Robinson finally retired in 1957, only to be placed into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.
Now, it was time for Jackie to settle down and relax. (Coombs 60-94) Even after Jackie retired, there was still many things to occupy himself with. He received an offer from the owner of Chock Full O’Nuts, a white-owned fast-food restaurant chain with almost all black employees, to be vice president of the company. He was given an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Harvard University along with Martin Luther King Jr. Since Robinson was so liked, he would help presidents such as Richard Nixon and Nelson Rockefeller campaign. He would put in their vote for them and encourage other people to vote for them as well.
Even after he pushed aside all the racial discrimination he encountered, he still fought for equal rights. He visited Birmingham, Alabama, one of the most racially segregated cities in America, and helped support the fight for equal rights. He mostly did this, devoted his focus and thoughts to fight for civil rights, since he retired from baseball. He also became a spokesman for the NAACP in 1957 and spent the rest of that year giving speeches nationwide. With his help, the Freedom Fund Drive raised over $1 million, which was the first time in history. He did all he could to help give a voice for his race.
He had a weekly radio program and wrote a column for the New York Post. African-Americans began to protest with “sit-ins,” where they would sit in restaurants or hotels that refused to serve blacks and would not leave. One incident happened where four students were arrested and they directly asked the help of Jack. He made a fundraiser by holding a concert in his home, right there on his lawn. Duke Ellington, Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughn and more all played there and they raised over $20,000. This event became annual earning the name of the Afternoon of Jazz.
Then, Jack turned his focus over to politics. The 1960 election, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon ran against each other and Jack had to choose a side. After meeting both candidates, he choose Nixon. He later came to regret this when he did not help Martin Luther King Jr. when he was arrested for picketing a store. He began to lose interest in the NAACP and looked more into the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), who more leaned on nonviolent movements. This angered leaders of the NAACP. Jackie fought for equal rights alongside powerful people such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Roy Wilkins.
Jack later went on to open the Freedom National Bank in Harlem. After his son, Jackie Jr. , went to fight in the war in Vietnam, people started to turn against him. They called him an “Uncle Tom. ” Very few people listened in on his radio chats and read his newspaper column. When Jackie Jr. returned from war, he was addicted to drugs and committed many crimes and was arrested several times. Jack began to have heart attacks, a minor one in ‘62 and a major one in ‘65. He had diabetes and high blood pressure. He started to become blind due to bleeding in his eyes.
After Jackie Jr. became sober and got a steady job, he lost control of his car, crashed, and died instantly. In honor of his son and his tough situation with money, he started the Jackie Robinson Construction Corporation, which built low-cost homes. The Brooklyn Dodgers retired the number 42 throughout the whole MLB franchise. Jackie threw out the ceremonial ball at the second game of the World Series on Sunday, October 15, 1972. Sadly, nine days later, Jackie Robinson died in his home in Stamford, Connecticut due to a heart attack. He was only 53 years old. (Coombs 95-114)
