Jackie Robinson Impact

Jackie Robinson was one of the most influential people during the civil rights movement. He was the very first African American professional baseball player. He played second base for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Not only did he play second base for them, but his batting average was 31.1 percent, which in the Major League is pretty darn good. He was lightning fast on the base paths with 197 stolen bases in a ten year span. Although it is pretty rare to have a player who is fast and has hitting power. Jackie Robinson had it all, adding 137 home runs to his outstanding statistics. One thing he didn’t have was much respect, at least respect that people would talk aloud about. Most people were afraid of what other racist people would say if they were

This wasn’t any different in Jackie Robinson’s case, where many people despised the fact that a black man was playing in a “white man’s league.” He was born on January 31st, 1919 in Cairo Georgia. Then he died on October 24th, 1972 (age 55). He played a bit of football in his time as well, when he left where he played just two days before the pearl harbor bombing. It almost seems like it was meant to be for him to have joined the Major League when he did. Jackie Robinson influenced our culture tremendously, and directly contributed to the civil rights movement by striving to be who he wanted to be. The owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers organization during Robinson’s time Branch Rickey said “A great ball player is a player who will take a chance”. That’s exactly what Jackie did, he took a chance that could have costed him his life, his reputation, or even a family member's life doing what he knew was the right thing to do. Even though Jackie had all of this adversity in his life, he also had some strong and loyal supporters in his wife and

From his influence in baseball and his team to his great impact on the civil rights movement he is a person that people try to mirror. "There's not an American in this country free until every one of us is free." This was Robinson’s goal. He assisted a huge step in civil rights and freedoms in the United States. For these reasons, there is no doubt that Jackie was one of the top influences in the civil rights