Robinson, Jackie

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Robinson, Jackie

January 31, 1919
October 24, 1972

Baseball player, civil rights leader, and businessman Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson was born in Georgia, the youngest of five children of sharecropper farmers Jerry and Mallie Robinson. He was raised in Pasadena, California, where the Robinson family confronted the West Coast variety of American racism. White neighbors tried to drive the family out of their home; segregation reigned in public and private facilities. Robinson became an outstanding athlete at Pasadena Junior College before transferring to the University of California at Los Angeles in 1940, where he won renown as the "Jim Thorpe of his race," the nation's finest all-around athlete. Robinson was an All-American football player, leading scorer in basketball, and record-setting broad jumper, in addition to his baseball exploits.

Drafted into the army in the spring of 1942, Robinson embarked on a stormy military career. Denied access to Officer Candidate School, Robinson protested to heavyweight champion Joe Louis, who intervened with officials in Washington on Robinson's behalf. Once commissioned, Robinson fought for improved conditions for blacks at Camp Riley, Kansas, leading to his transfer to Fort Hood, Texas. At Fort Hood Robinson was courtmartialed and acquitted for refusing to move to the back of a bus. Robinson's army career demonstrated the proud, combative personality that would characterize his postwar life.

After his discharge from the army in 1944, Robinson signed to play with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League. After several months of discontent in the Jim Crow league, Robinson was approached by Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who offered him the opportunity to become the first black player in major league baseball since the 1890s. Robinson gladly accepted the opportunity and responsibility of this pioneering role in "baseball's great experiment."

In 1946 Robinson joined the Montreal Royals of the International League, the top farm club in the Dodger system. Following a spectacular debut in which he stroked

four hits, including a three-run home run, Robinson proceeded to lead the league with a .349 batting average. An immediate fan favorite, Robinson enabled the Royals to set new attendance records while winning the International League and Little World Series championships. Robinson's imminent promotion to the Dodgers in 1947 triggered an unsuccessful petition drive on the part of southern players to keep him off the team. In the early months of the season, beanballs, death threats, and rumors of a strike by opposing players swirled around Robinson. Through it all Robinson paraded his excellence. An electrifying fielder and base runner as well as an outstanding hitter, Robinson's assault on baseball's color line captured the imagination of both black and white Americans. He batted .297 and won the Rookie of the Year Award (since renamed the Jackie Robinson Award in his honor) en route to leading the Dodgers to the pennant.

Over the next decade Robinson emerged as one of the most dominant players and foremost gate attractions in the history of the major leagues. In 1949 he batted .342 and won the National League Most Valuable Player Award. During his ten years with the Dodgers the team won six pennants and one World Championship. By his retirement in 1956 Robinson had compiled a .311 lifetime batting average. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot in 1961.

But Robinson's significance transcended his achievements on the baseball diamond. He became a leading symbol and spokesperson for the postwar integration crusade, both within baseball and in broader society. During his early years in Montreal and Brooklyn, Robinson adhered to his promise to Branch Rickey to "turn the other cheek" and avoid controversies. After establishing himself in the major leagues, however, Robinson's more combative and outspoken personality reasserted itself. Robinson repeatedly pressed for baseball to desegregate more rapidly and to remove discriminatory barriers in Florida training camps and cities like St. Louis and Cincinnati. He also demanded opportunities for black players to become coaches, managers, and front-office personnel. Baseball officials and many sportswriters branded Robinson an ingrate as controversies marked his career.

Upon retirement Robinson remained in the public eye. He continued to voice his opinions as speaker, newspaper columnist, and fund-raiser for the NAACP. A believer in "black capitalism" through which blacks could become producers, manufacturers, developers and creators of businesses, providers of jobs, Robinson engaged in many successful business ventures in the black community. He became an executive in the Chock full o'Nuts restaurant chain and later helped develop Harlem's Freedom National Bank and the Jackie Robinson Construction Company. Robinson also became active in Republican Party politics, supporting Richard Nixon in 1960 and working closely with New York governor Nelson Rockefeller, who appointed him Special Assistant for Community Affairs in 1966. These activities brought criticism from young black militants in the late 1960s. Ironically, at this same time Robinson had also parted ways with the NAACP, criticizing its failure to include "younger, more progressive voices."

By the late 1960s Robinson had become bitterly disillusioned with both baseball and American society. He refused to attend baseball events to protest the failure to hire blacks in nonplaying capacities. In his 1972 autobiography, I Never Had It Made, he attacked the nation's waning commitment to racial equality. Later that year the commemoration of his major league debut led him to lift his boycott of baseball games. "I'd like to live to see a black manager," he told a nationwide television audience at the World Series on October 15, 1972. Nine days later he died of a heart attack. In 1997 major league baseball commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Robinson's breaking of the baseball color line by retiring his number 42 from every team.

See also Baseball; Civil Rights Movement, U.S.; Jim Crow