Jackie Robinson

Baseball has always been America's national pastime. In the early and all the way into the mid 50's, baseball was America and America was baseball. The only thing lacking in the great game was the absence of African American players and the presence of an all white sport. America still wasn't friendly or accepted the African American race and many still held great prejudice towards them. All this would change when the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey decided he was going to sign a Negro player. Jackie Robinson was that player and Jackie Robinson changed the game, America, and history. By looking specifically at his childhood adversity, college life and the hardships he encountered by becoming the first black player in the game, it will be shown why Jackie Robinson is a great American story and hero.

Jackie Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia to a family of sharecroppers and then moved to Pasadena, California. His mother Millie raised Jackie and four others single-handedly in a neighborhood where they were the only blacks on the block (Duckett 19). In Pasadena is where Jackie would first realize his color would bring him much grief and heartache in the many coming years. Here, Jackie grew up poor, on a good day he would get two meals a day, but usually depended on the leftovers his mother could bring home from work. Many of the whites in the neighborhood and surrounding areas would try to buy them out, beg them to move, and threaten them if they didn't. The Robinson's stayed strong and never budged as they were determined to stay (Duckett 21).

Jackie would move on to bigger and better things as Jackie stared in high school athletics and moved onto college. Pasadena Junior College was Jackie's first stop as he enrolled into a very liberal school which did deal with blacks better than most. This was overshadowed by his brother being there and being known as the country's premier amateur sprinter (Daniels 68). Here Jackie quickly developed into