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Jackie Robinson's influence on civil rights
Jackie Robinson's influence on civil rights
How did jackie robinson face racial discrimination
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In 1896, in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court ruled that separate but equal accommodations for blacks and whites were constitutional. Seven years before the doctrine was overturned, in 1954, Jackie Robinson signed a contract with the major leagues; he defined his experience as being “a black man in a white world” (279). With the separate but equal doctrine still in place, how was Jackie Robinson able to land a contract with the major leagues, and what role did he play in the Civil Rights Movement?
Ever since he was a little boy, Jackie Robinson endured excessive racial discrimination. He said, “I must have been about 8 years old the first time I ran into racial trouble,” describing an encounter with his neighbor (5). He was outside his home in Pasadena minding his own business when a girl across the street started bawling racial remarks at him. When he answered with retaliation, the girl’s father stepped outside onto the lawn. Eventually, the dispute escalated into “a good stone-throwing match” (6). The fight lingered until the little girl’s mother marched onto the front porch ...
In “Jackie’s Debut: A Unique Day,” is written by Mike Royko, and appeared in the Chicago Daily News on Wednesday, October 15, 1972, the day after Jackie passed away. This article is about one of the most famous and cultural African Americans to ever play the game of baseball. In the beginning of the story, there were wise men sitting in the tavern that had something to say about Jackie. They weren’t the kindest words and said that he would ruin the game of baseball. Jackie was going to be at Wrigley Field and the kid had to see him perform. Him and his friend always walked to the baseball games to avoid streetcar fare. On that day, Wrigley Field was packed. He had never seen anything like it, there were about 47,000 people there and at the
Jackie knew that if he fought back, the whites would complain about how they should have never let an angry black man onto the field. He couldn’t let them have that sort of power over
Malcome X once said “Clay is the finest Negro athlete I have ever know, the man who will mean more to his people than any athlete before him. He is more than Jackie Robinson was, because Robinson is the white man’s hero.” While Jackie Robinson and Cassius Clay were seen as two different, opposing sides of the Civil Rights Movement, they each used their spotlight and fame as athletes in the public eye to make their political stance during this time. Malcolm X makes a bold statement with his ideas, but Jackie Robinson made just as much if not more of a political statement that impacted America during this time even more than Muhammad Ali. Branch Rickey’s great experiment, Jackie Robinson
“In 1946, there were sixteen Major League Baseball teams, with a total of 400 players on their rosters, every one of the players was white. But when opening day came in 1947, that number dropped to 399, and one man stood apart. (42 2:30)” Jack Roosevelt “Jackie” Robinson made his Major League Baseball debut on April 15, 1947, as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Making Jackie Robinson the first African-American to play Major League Baseball (MLB). Jackie’s transition from the Negro Leagues to MLB was not an easy one. As a player, he transitioned very well, but it was Robinson’s teammates, Dodgers fans, the opposing teams and their fans that tested Jackie every chance they got, some hotels even prohibited the Dodgers to stay in their establishments
E. D. Hirsch and Lisa Delpit are both theorist on teaching diverse students. Both of these theorist believe that when teaching diverse students, teachers need to see their students for who they are. Seeing your students for who they are, means you look past the color of your students’ skin and recognize their culture. According to Stubbs, when teachers look at their students equally, no matter the color of their skin, then the teacher is considered colorblind (2002). Being colorblind is not a great thing because we should not treat all of our students the same, since each student is different. It is important to see our students for who they are because our classes are unique. Instead, our classes represent a rainbow underclass. According to Li, the rainbow underclass is the representation of families who are culturally diverse and economically disadvantaged (2008). In order to meet these student’s needs, teachers need to think about the struggles that each student face.
People might say that Racism is a part of life in history and you have to deal with it, but it fails the support because back in the day, there was a thing called the middle passage and was very harmful. The middle passage was where people chained slaves to the bottom of a ship and barely fed them and they also went to the bathroom on themselves. The theme is racism is not acceptable and can cause a lot of issues between human beings. Jackie Robinson was a person who was humble and treated all humankind equally.
For a long time, it was assumed that blacks were not allowed to play in the Major Leagues simply because they had not for so long. When Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the commissioner of baseball at the time, declared that there was no rule preventing integration of the Major Leagues, the idea of an African-American joining the league was realized for the first time by a lot of people. In 1943, Branch Rickey, general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers at the time, had an idea though to be outrageous by many during that period. He considered signing some black players to make up for the wartime shortage of talent. He narrowed down the list of prospects, searching for the best player to integrate baseball. The likely choices for talent would have been Satchel Paige or Josh Gibson. Rickey, however, wanted not only a star but a person who could deal with the harassment from the public, some teammates, and the overall opposition. Knowing of Jackie's talent and his hate for segregation, Rickey set up an interview hoping he could convince Robinson to sign a contract. When Rickey told Robinson why he had been brought to see him, Jackie's reaction was a combination of several emotions. "I was thrilled, scared, and excited.
To the average person, in the average American community, Jackie Robinson was just what the sports pages said he was, no more, no less. He was the first Negro to play baseball in the major leagues. Everybody knew that, but to see the real Jackie Robinson, you must de-emphasize him as a ball player and emphasize him as a civil rights leader. That part drops out, that which people forget. From his early army days, until well after his baseball days, Robinson had fought to achieve equality among whites and blacks. "Jackie acted out the philosophy of nonviolence of Martin Luther King Jr., before the future civil rights leader had thought of applying it to the problem of segregation in America"(Weidhorn 93). Robinson was an avid member of the NAACP and helped recruit members because of his fame from baseball. Jackie had leadership qualities and the courage to fight for his beliefs. Unwilling to accept the racism he had run into all his life, he had a strong need to be accepted at his true worth as a first-class citizen. Robinson was someone who would work for a cause - that of blacks and of America - as well as for himself and his team.
For much of the 20th century, African-American citizens had been disenfranchised throughout the South and the entire United States, they were regarded as inferior second-class citizens. Despite efforts to integrate society, the political and economic systems were meant to continue the cycle of oppression against African-Americans, throughout the south and indirectly yet ever present in the north. These laws of segregation, otherwise known as Jim Crow laws, applied to almost every aspect of southern American society, including sports. During this time period, African-American athletes had to resort to second class organizational leagues to play in, this included the famous baseball player Jackie Robinson. Much of this institutionalized racism is described in John R. M. Wilson’s Jackie Robinson and the American Dilemma.
"Over the decades, African American teams played 445-recorded games against white teams, winning sixty-one percent of them." (Conrads, pg.8) The Negro Leagues were an alternative baseball group for African American baseball player that were denied the right to play with the white baseball payers in the Major League Baseball Association. In 1920, the first African American League was formed, and that paved the way for numerous African American innovation and movements. Fences, and Jackie Robinson: The Biography, raises consciousness about the baseball players that have been overlooked, and the struggle they had to endure simply because of their color.
The 1960’s were a decade of upheaval. Outcry spilled out into the streets as angry demonstrators protested against the Vietnam War; Civil Rights marches occupied a segregated South; and the Black Power movement swept through the Negro community with persuasive authority. In the midst of all of this social change stood one man, St. Louis Cardinal’s centerfielder Curt Flood. Fueled by the turmoil of his times, Flood started his own social movement, a one-man struggle for freedom on the baseball diamond. Flood an accomplished baseball player had endured twelve years in the Major Leagues, a victim of unwarranted discrimination in a still racist nation. In 1969, Flood became a pioneer, making an historic decision that ended his baseball career at the age of 31. Against the advice of the Major League Baseball’s Players Union, Flood refused to accept his trade to the Philadelphia Phillies after the end of the 1969 season. When Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn refused to let him out of baseball’s reserve clause, which allowed for a player to be traded without his consent and made it impossible for a player to choose to play for another team, Flood took his case all the way to the Supreme Court (Ashe 61). When the case finally made its way through the courts system, Flood’s playing career was lost but a whole new era of baseball had begun. Flood stands as the pivotal figure that changed the balance of power in the game.
One of the major stands that were made during a black athlete’s tenure during his or her sport were their statements on racism. Racism in America was an ongoing situation in the 1900’s that seemed to have no resolve before black athletes took a stand. One prime example can be Jackie Robinson who became the first African-American athlete to play baseball in the modern era. Jackie grew up in one of the most racist towns in Pasadena, California and came from a poor family as his parents were sharecroppers and...
Can you imagine being discriminated because of your color? Jackie Robinson was an African American who was born on January 31, 1919 in Cairo, Georgia. He is the youngest of five children and was raised in relative poverty by a single mother. Jackie and his family moved to California in 1920. They tried buying a house in California but they couldn’t because of their color. With help of a niece, Jackie's mother bought a house in a white neighborhood. (Robinson) (13) When Jackie was eight he got into a fight with a white little girl. When the girls father came out and saw Jackie he threw rocks and stones at him because he was black. (Robinson) (13) Throughout Jackie’s life he had to go through many obstacles, mainly segregation, and he set the example that it doesn’t matter what color
Just as most sports before World War II, baseball was racially segregated. Some African Americans participated in dominantly white leagues but for the most part baseball remained segregated especially between 1900 and 1947. The desegregation of baseball was very important to American culture. The Major Leagues was desegregated before America's public education system. The success of players in the Negro Leagues and the circumstances of World War II helped lead the way towards the signing of Jackie Robinson. However, economic opportunities were the core reasons for Robinson's signing. The desegregation of American baseball was slow, but it still preceded the Civil Rights revolution.
Dorinson, Joseph, and Joram Warmund. 1998. Jackie Robinson :Race, Sports, and The American Dream. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe.