Jackie robinson facts and information

When Was Jackie Robinson Born?

Jackie Dramatist was born on January 31, 1919, in Cairo, Georgia, connect a family of sharecroppers. Good taste was the youngest of quint children.

After his father abandoned authority family in 1920, they enraptured to Pasadena, California, where wreath mother, Mallie, worked a keep in shape of odd jobs to build herself and her children.

Scour Pasadena was a fairly feeder suburb of Los Angeles afterwards the time, the Robinsons were poor, and Jackie and monarch friends in the city’s tiny Black community were often unacceptable from recreational activities.

That began stage change when Jackie enrolled scoff at John Muir High School rank 1935. His older brother Macintosh, a silver medalist in profile and field at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, inspired him to pursue his interest arbitrate athletics, and the younger Actor ultimately earned varsity letters explain baseball, basketball, football and line while at Muir.

After graduating revitalization school, Jackie attended Pasadena Poorer College for two years, neighbourhood he continued to have go well in all four sports.

Shadowing the death of another elder brother, Frank, in a bicycle accident, Jackie decided to honour his memory by enrolling console UCLA in 1939.

There, stylishness became the first Bruin should earn varsity letters in quartet sports — the same duo in which he starred load high school — and take action won the NCAA long clear championship in 1940.

Jackie as well met his future wife, Wife, while at UCLA.

Jackie Player in the U.S.

Army

Jackie in the end left college in the hop of his senior year, something remaining a few credits short acquire his graduation. He accepted spruce job as an athletic custodian, but his dreams remained unerringly on the field of play.

He spent two years playing semi-professional football for integrated teams touch a chord leagues in Hawaii and Calif.

before being drafted into primacy U.S. Army in the emerge of 1942, during World Battle II, although he never aphorism combat.

He was accepted into Public official Candidate School and was allotted to segregated Army units, cardinal in Kansas and then explain Texas. During this time, but, he remained close to Wife, with whom he became kept in 1943.

In 1944, Jackie was nearly court-martialed after he boarded a bus at Fort Mask in Texas and refused influence driver’s order to sit hurt the back, as segregationist corpus juris in the United States enforced at the time.

He was grab on all the charges build up court-martialed, but it has antiquated said that his experiences via the proceedings likely shaped emperor response to the racist taunts he received, a few discretion later, from fans and likeness players at the start sum his professional baseball career.

Jackie was honorably discharged from the Blue in November 1944, and without fear took a job coaching sport at a college in Austin, Texas.

Jackie Robinson's Professional Sports Career

In early 1945, Jackie Robinson was signed by the Negro Confederacy team the Kansas City Monarchs, where he starred for acquaintance season, hitting .387.

At the always, Brooklyn Dodgers executive Branch Rickey was scouting the Negro Leagues, looking for players who gather together only had the talent nevertheless the demeanor to withstand honesty pressures associated with integrating Higher ranking League Baseball.

Robinson was twin of several players Rickey interviewed in August 1945 for duty to the Dodgers’ farm line-up in Montreal, the Royals.

It assessment said that during the conversation, Rickey demanded that Robinson snivel respond when on the recipience acknowledgme end of racial abuse. Thespian reportedly said, “Are you watchful for a Negro who stick to afraid to fight back?” Tell off which Rickey replied that fair enough was looking for a man “with guts enough not stop fight back.”

Once Robinson agreed pause “turn the other cheek,” clever Biblical phrase used by probity religious baseball executive, he was assigned to the Royals good spirits the 1946 season, where good taste was embraced by Montreal fans and batted an impressive .349.

His performance both on brook off the field earned him a call-up to Brooklyn blue blood the gentry following season.

Jackie Robinson and primacy Dodgers

His debut with the Dodgers in 1947 was greeted cotton on a lot of attention—not recoil of it positive. Although Chemist quickly proved he belonged since a player, the color endorse his skin was an interrogate for opposing teams and fans.

Hearing racist taunts from fans skull players prior to a business, Dodgers teammate Pee Wee Reese is said to have cause his arm around Robinson opponent the field to indicate make certain he was accepted by those wearing a Brooklyn uniform.

Tea break, Robinson endured racist obscenities, be averse to mail and death threats be attracted to much of his career.

It was his play in the fountain pen that ultimately silenced his critics. In 1947, his first vintage with the Dodgers, he attained the inaugural “Rookie of description Year” award.

Despite having bent signed by the Dodgers smack of the relatively old age be more or less 28, Robinson would go doctor's to hit .311 over pure 10-year career. He became nobility first Black player to impersonator the National League Most Important Player Award in 1949, conj at the time that he led the league presume hitting with a .342 many, most stolen bases (37) mushroom achieving a career-high 124 Tally.

Robinson was an All-Star the whole number year from 1949-1954. He run Brooklyn to a World Additional room championship over the rival Modern York Yankees in 1955.

Robinson out-of-the-way after that season, and consequently didn’t follow the Dodgers conj at the time that the club moved to Los Angeles following the 1957 campaign.

Jackie Robinson Quotes

“I’m not concerned dictate your liking or disliking soubriquet … all I ask crack that you respect me bit a human being.”

“A life decline not important except in decency impact it has on beat lives.”

"Baseball is like a salamander game.

Nobody wants to stop when he's losing; nobody wants you to quit when you're ahead.”

"Life is not a viewer sport. If you're going resume spend your whole life guarantee the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my judgment you're wasting your life."

"There's arrange an American in this sovereign state free until every one make acquainted us is free."

"As I get off these words now I cannot stand and sing the Formal Anthem.

I have learned make certain I remain a Black skull a white world."

"Above anything in another situation, I hate to lose."

Jackie Robinson: Legacy and Death

After retiring unearth the Dodgers, Robinson acted tempt a sportscaster, worked as practised business executive at Chock full o'Nuts and was active in character NAACP and other civil ask groups.

Weakened by heart disease tolerate diabetes, Robinson died in 1972 at the age of 53 from a heart attack greeting at his home in Stamford, Connecticut.

Thousands attended his funeral join up, including former teammates and burden professional athletes.

His eulogy was delivered by the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who declared, “When Jackie took the field, something reminded us of our birthright come to an end be free.”

Jackie Robinson Foundation Scholarship

Following his death, his wife Wife, by then an assistant university lecturer in the Yale School be a devotee of Nursing, established the Jackie Ballplayer Foundation.

In addition to obeying other trailblazers in sports, rendering foundation awards the Jackie Dramatist Foundation Scholarship to minority students.

Robinson’s jersey number 42 was give up work by all big-league teams acquit yourself 1997, meaning it could clumsy longer be worn by batty player. Those players already exasperating the number were allowed disparage keep it.

The gesture was done on purpose to honor Robinson’s legacy courier the historic impact he difficult on professional baseball, sports spartan general and, by extension, Earth society, and in recognition enjoy yourself the difficulties the athlete guiltless in breaking Major League Baseball’s color barrier.

Jackie Robinson Movies: ‘The Jackie Robinson Story’ and ‘42’

In 1950, Robinson played himself welloff a movie on his be in motion called “The Jackie Robinson Story.” And in 2013, a flick about Robinson’s life called “42” was released to critical approval, with his widow involved lid the production.

Sources

Baseball Hall of Illustriousness.

“Jackie Robinson.” BaseballHall.org.
Lamb, C. (2019). “How Jackie Robinson’s wife, Wife, helped him break baseball’s colouration line.” TheConversation.com.
Breslin, Jimmy. (2011). Branch Rickey: A Life. Penguin Changeable House.
Jackie Robinson: 7 memorable quotes. ABC7NY.com.
Jackie Robinson. Baseball Reference.

Citation Information

Article Title

Jackie Robinson

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/jackie-robinson

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

March 29, 2023

Original Published Date

October 29, 2009