Strides Toward Equality in Major League Baseball

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Manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and vice president, Branch Rickey, had always been bothered by the unwritten and unspoken color line in major league baseball. In 1945, he took advantage of his power as manager and called for a meeting with Jackie Robinson from the Kansas City Monarchs, a Negro League team (“About Jackie Robinson”). He had always secretly scouted Negro League teams in hopes of finding the right candidate. One who had enough talent, but also had enough guts to not jeer back at the harsh remarks of racist fans, players, and even coaches (Rubinstein). Rickey was driven to partake in this great experiment because he was bothered by his experience while checking his team into a hotel one night as the varsity baseball coach for Ohio-Wesleyan University (Nicholson). The desk clerk told Rickey they had available rooms for everyone except for Charley Thomas, who was black. Rickey questioned their policy and requested that Thomas stay in his room with him. After long contemplations, the desk clerk gave in, but when Rickey got to his room Charley Thomas was sitting on the chair crying. “‘Charley was pulling frantically at his hands, pulling his hands. He looked at me and said ‘It’s my skin. If I could just tear it off, I’d be like everybody else. It’s my skin, it’s my skin, Mr. Rickey!’’” (Nicholson).
Rickey’s decision upon signing Jackie Robinson from the Kansas City Monarchs to the Montreal Royals, a farm team for the Brooklyn Dodgers, in 1946, and later bringing him up to the Brooklyn Dodgers, a Major league team, in April of 1947, impacted more lives than he ever would have imagined (“Robinson as a Dodger: 1947-1956”). Breaking the color line in professional sports contributed to the elimination of greater social issues...

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...with the 1955 World Series title over the New York Yankees” (“Remembering Jackie”).
Following the desegregation of major league baseball, in 1948, President Harry S. Truman officially desegregated the United States Military. In 1954, segregation was ruled unconstitutional by Brown v. Board of Education. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing discrimination in voting, employment, and the use of public activities (“Timeline of Desegregation and Civil Rights”). These important events may have occurred without the help of Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson, but breaking the color line in professional sports directly and indirectly made the United States a better nation. Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in 1947 created a domino effect and helped to diminish some of the greatest social issues throughout the United States.

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