Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey

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As an African-American during the late 1800s to 1960, the Negro Leagues was the only chance at being a part of professional baseball until Branch Rickey, an owner of professional baseball teams, put his ‘great experiment’ into motion with the aid of Jackie Robinson who became the first African-American to break the color barrier in 1947. Some coaches, who wanted African-Americans on their teams in order to increase their chances of winning games, would take part in a process called barnstorming. Barnstorming is when a team would hire an African-American but label that player as either Hispanic or Native American in order for them to play because at the time, African-American were not allowed to play on professional white baseball teams (The Library of Congress). Two contrasting economic sides leading to the desegregation of baseball include at the time when team members knew that if baseball were to integrate, the Negro Leagues would disappear as they would lose their best players to major league teams, which was beneficial to the major league teams whereas the other side was that if black players were integrated into white professional teams, white fans would be more reluctant to watch games with black players participating (The Library of Congress). It wasn’t until after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier by putting on the official jersey of the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming an official member of an integrated professional baseball team, that the relevance of Negro Leagues began to decrease, until they disappeared in 1960 as more teams began to integrate as well.
During his time, Jackie Robinson played the role of an activist, having a role in the eventual desegregation of America. Jackie Robinson had participated in the Civil...

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...ica’s desegregation would have been prolonged.

Works Cited

Austin, John. "A Major Change-Integrating Baseball." HRMagazine 54.4 (2009): 40- 1. ProQuest. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.
"Breaking the Color Line: 1940 - 1946." - Baseball, the Color Line, and Jackie Robinson
(American Memory from the Library of Congress). The Library of Congress, n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.
Hylton, J. Gordon. American Civil Rights Laws and the Legacy of Jackie Robinson. N.p.: Marquette Sports Law Review, 1998. PDF.
"Remebering: Jackie Robinson." Essence 11 1996: 52. ProQuest. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.
Robinson, Jackie. "Letter from Jackie Robinson to President Eisenhower of May 13, 1958, 05/13/1958." Letter to President Eisenhower. 13 May 1958. MS. N.p.
Rubinstein, William D. "Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Major League Baseball." History Today 53.9 (2003): 20-5.ProQuest. Web. 10 Nov. 2013.

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