Jackie Robinson Research Paper

747 Words2 Pages

Jackie Robinson was a professional baseball player in the 1940’s. By playing baseball, he stood up against racial inequality in sports. He led African Americans closer to racial integration. Jack “Jackie” Roosevelt Robinson was born in Cairo Georgia, 1919. He went to John Jackie grew up with four siblings; Edgar, Frank, Matthew (Mack) and Willa Mae. Jackie was good at various sports, such as; football, tennis, track, and baseball. There was one point where he went to Honolulu and played for the Honolulu Bears football team. Jackie is most known for “breaking the color barrier.” The “barrier” represented decades of segregated baseball. Throughout his entire life, Jackie was a crucial part of the civil rights movement. He did this by playing …show more content…

There were all white baseball leagues and all black baseball leagues. The all black baseball leagues were the Negro Leagues. Jackie started out playing in the the Negro Leagues.

All that changed when Jackie met baseball manager Branch Rickey. Branch knew that he wanted to have an non-white player on his all-white baseball team before he met Jackie. Rickey also knew that no matter who the player was, as long as they weren’t white, they would face a lot of racial hate. He even consulted African-American leaders and sociologists before making this decision. Jackie and Branch Rickey met in New York, August 28, 1945. Branch Rickey knew about Jackie’s prior to meeting him. Branch knew that his plan would fail if Jackie couldn’t suppress his anger. Because of this, the meeting between Robinson and Rickey many hours. Branch Rickey spent this time interrogating and disrespecting Jackie by spewing racial insults at him. Branch’s justification for doing this was to see if Jackie would respond with anger and violence, or, turn the other cheek. At one point, Jackie said, ”Do you want a ballplayer who’s afraid to fight back?” (Sportsjrank.com, line 11). Branch responded with, ”I want a player who has the guts not to fight back”(Sportsjrank.com, line 13). What Branch Rickey meant by this is that he didn’t want a coward; he wanted someone durable

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