America 's Favorite Pastime And Jackie Robinson Essay

The Negro Leagues were one of the most important and influential movements to happen in baseball history. Without these ‘Invisible Men’, who knows where baseball’s racial standpoint with not only African American’s, but others such as Cuban, Dominican, and South American players, would be in the Major Leagues. Throughout the book, one pressing theme stays from beginning to end: Segregation.

Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born January 31, 1919. He was born in Cairo, Georgia and was the youngest of five children. He had a grandfather that was a slave, Jackie’s dad was a sharecropper and Mallie, Jackie’s mother, was a maid. His dad ran away from the family when Jackie was only an infant.

Jackie Robinson was born in Cairo. The year Jackie was born was 1919 to a family of farmers. His Mother name is Mallie Robinson. She raised Jackie and four other of her children. They were the only black family around and people gave them a hard time about living around them since they were the only black family on the block. Jackie was the very first black baseball player ever to join the white man’s league.

In this essay we will take a look at the unique history of the Negro Baseball Leagues. We will discuss how they were an integral part of the African American culture and what they meant to their communities. We will also discuss some of the more famous players of the Negro Leagues as well as take a look at what the impact of Jackie Robinson being the first African American to be signed to a professional Major League team was and how it affected the future of baseball.

     "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.

“Jackie Robinson was born on the thirty first day of January in 1919”. (biography.com) He was born to a family of sharecroppers in the town of Cairo Georgia, but Jackie grew up in Pasadena California. (Jackie Robinson official website) Jackie grew up being raised by only his mother and his older siblings helped out as well. He had four siblings, three older brothers and one sister. (Britannica encyclopedia) Jackie was the youngest of five kids and they all helped out each other in school, sports, and chores. The Robinson family was the only African American family on their block, but the bias acts of the white people surrounding them didn’t hurt them, but prepared them for their future. (Jackie Robinson official website) Jackie’s older brother Matthew gave him his inspiration to take on sports just as he did. He has always had a huge love for sports in his childhood years. (Jackie Robinson book pg: 4)

Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby were very determined to stick with the game they loved and to make a change. Thanks to their performance both on and off the ball field, “other owners began to seek talented black players, and by 1952, there were 150 black players in organized baseball” (Branch). Their “actions had repercussions far beyond the sports world” (Jim). The integration of baseball was an enormous smack in the face to all of segregation. Many racial barriers quickly tumbled down with the integration of baseball; restaurants, hotels, and stores removed their “white only” signs bringing blacks and whites together. Robinson and Doby could not have won the battle against segregation on their own, the press helped to make their struggle to be known throughout the country.

In the biography Jackie Robinson and the American Dilemma by John R. M. Wilson, it tells the story of racial injustice done after world war II and explains how Jackie Robinson was pioneer of better race relations in the United States. The obstacles Jackie Robinson overcame were amazing, he had the responsibility to convert the institutions, customs, and attitudes that had defined race relations in the United States. Seldom has history ever placed so much of a strain on one person. I am addressing the importance of Jackie Robinson’s trials and triumphs to American racial dynamics in the post war period to show how Robinson was a prominent figure in the civil rights movement and brought baseball fans together regardless of race.

In 1919 Jackie Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia. He was a black nice man and his neighborhood treated him bad and then he finally got over with it and started playing baseball. 20 years later he was grown up and got a call from a white guy. Branch Rickey was a white guy and owned the Dodgers and wanted Jackie to come play so that other black people can play in this league. They wanted a strong man who can take this stuff.

Since the abolition of slavery in the USA in 1883 and through the first half of the 20th Century, African Americans had been in a constant struggle to try and gain an equal footing in society. Like many aspects of American life, black sportsmen were segregated, and no African American had played professional baseball since 1884. For this reason, the integration of Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers as the first African American to play Major League baseball in the modern era had a grand impact on the entire country. From the moment that Dodgers owner, Branch Rickey decided that Robinson would break the colour lone, the history of sport and the history of African Americans would not be the same again. The importance of his integration and the effect it had on civil rights can be looked at in many different ways. It had great effect on the African American community, instilling pride and belief once again in the American Dream for many who had once thought it impossible. It also had significant importance for civil rights groups, and brought about a figure who would fight his peoples quest for equal rights until the day he died. It was a significant risk taken by both Rickey and Robinson, professionally and personally. But it was a risk that both in the short term for African American sport, and in the long run for African American civil rights, was ultimately well worth taking.

On January 31st 1919, the legend Jackie Robinson was born in Cairo Georgia. Jackie was the 5th and the last child in his family. Jackie had three older brothers and one sister (Biography.com). Jackie was an incredible athlete in four sports. When he attended UCLA, he was the first athlete to receive four letters. He lettered in football, basketball, track, and baseball. Track was a sport that his brother, Mack, introduced to him at a young age. Mack won an Olympic silver medal behind the legendary track star Jessie Owens in the Olympics in Berlin. Jackie set many records when he was in school and his most recognized was his broad jump (losangles.dodgers.com). When Jackie could no longer afford UCLA

The 1950’s was an era of jazz music, the Korean War just around the corner, and the greatest invention ever; bubble wrap. If one were to look into America from the outside during this time, the U.S. would seem like an utopia, but when you dig deeper, a bigger issue comes to life. African Americans had been fighting against racial discrimination for centuries; during the 1950s, however, the struggle against racism and segregation entered the mainstream of American life. In the midst of all the struggle, one man made his mark on history, on the biggest stage possible; Major League Baseball. His name? Jackie Robinson. Despite being an astound baseball player, Robinson influenced more than just the game of baseball, he was also strong advocate of the Civil Rights Movement.

When asked who broke the “color line” in baseball, most people would think of Jackie Robinson. An advocate for civil rights as well as an outstanding baseball player, he became a significant figure in American history, and is widely recognized as the first black baseball player in the Major Leagues. However, a lesser known player named Moses Fleetwood Walker was a player in the Major Leagues six decades before Robinson. Although faced with similar trials in each of their integration into the white-dominated sport, their attitudes were far from similar. Walker wasn’t quite as likable as Robinson and was not as exceptional in his playing. Walker’s actions after baseball, including the murder of a man and his support of the “Back to Africa” movement,

Unfortunately, United States history has an inhumane past with regards to African Americans. African Americans have been subject to segregation, prejudice, discrimination, and other unfair practices imposed up until the latter half of the nineteenth century. These same factors even permeate into American baseball where African American baseball players were segregated and treated unfairly despite many of them being more talented than their white counterparts. However, despite decades of injustice toward African American baseball players, the integration of black players into the Major Leagues eventually occurred. By analyzing the effects of World War II for African American baseball players, Branch Rickey’s motives and signing of Jackie

According to Barry Denenberg, author of Stealing Home: The Story of Jackie Robinson; Jackie Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia on January 31, 1919. His dad left them soon after Jackie was born. To pay bills and taxes his mom worked multiple jobs for money, his family was poor because his mom was the only one working a lot and the jobs didn’t pay well. When his mom did have enough money his family moved to a white neighborhood where the neighbors would complain about petty things, for example, Jackie’s roller skates are too loud. Since his mom worked, Jackie had to go to school with his sister so he could be supervised. She didn’t have to do much since it doesn’t take much to entertain a little kid, what he did mostly all day was play in the school sandbox (Denenberg