My Name is Jack Roosevelt Robinson

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.

Jackie Robinson was told to go out to talk to Branch Rickey, the manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, he was thinking about putting Jackie on the team but at that time Mr.Robinson didn’t know that. “The truth is you are not a candidate for the Brooklyn Brown Dodgers. I've

Jackie Robinson was an African-American who played for a “Negro League” for a team call the Kansas City Monarchs. Their team colors being white with thin red stripes going vertically down the uniform. But a manager from the MLB’s jaw dropped to the floor when he saw how great of a player Jackie was, and decided to do something that nobody ever thought would happen. “I had never seen a ball player,” stated the Dodgers manager. “quite like Jackie Robinson.” He drafted Jackie Robinson in to the MLB for a team called the Brooklyn Dodgers, but just because something good happens, doesn’t mean that there will a few obstacles along the way.

     "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.

As baseball grew, so did the African American ambitions to play against other white teams. Moses “Fleetwood” Walker,

The story of Jackie Robinson has become one of America's most iconic and inspiring stories. Since 1947, American history has portrayed Jackie Robinson as a hero, and he has been idolized as a role model to the African American baseball community. It is an unarguable fact that he was the first to tear down the color barriers within professional baseball. The topic of Robinson’s role in integration has long been a point of discussion amongst baseball historians. Researchers have accumulated thousands of accredited documents and interviews with friends and team mates such as short stop, Pee Wee Reese, and team owner, Branch Rickey. However, few journalists have asked why Robinson was selected and what was Branch

In Buck O’Neil’s book, I Was Right on Time, he mentions a phrase that was common for Negro League ball players to hear back in the day. O’Neil writes, “John McGraw said he’d give 50,000 dollars for Donaldson if he’d been white…we heard that a lot about a lot of players through the years” (O’Neil 78). But unfortunately for many of the ballplayers at that time, they weren’t white. And as a result of their skin color and the Jim Crow laws of the time, African American, including ballplayers like Buck O’Neil, had to endure troubling times and unjust hardships. On the surface, I Was Right on Time is a memoir, a story about O’Neil’s time spent navigating through black baseball and his stories of some of the greatest to play the game, but underneath the tales of a great American sport, is a great American travesty; a real look into the days of segregation and the harshness of racial problems in 20th century America.

Becoming the first African-American to break the racial barrier in a white supremacist sport like Major League Baseball during the 1940s when colored racism still occurred is an accomplishment like no other. Jackie Robinson faced numerous hardships and endured countless racial setbacks during his professional baseball career, but managed to set aside his frustrations and continue to emerge as a symbol of hope and unity for all. The makers of 42: The Jackie Robinson Story portray the story of his career as it demonstrates the struggle of race stereotyping during the 1940s and the interpersonal power struggles of being seen as an “equal”. “I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being” (Robinson) is a powerful message that I would like for you to keep in mind as you continue to read.

Larry Doby was the second African American player in the mlb and the first in the American League. Doby was signed, “with the Cleveland Indians in 1947” (Editors), the same year as Jackie Robinson. Like Robinson, “Doby was excluded from many segregated hotels and restaurants frequented by teammates, received numerous death threats” (Editors). Doby faced the same circumstances as Jackie Robinson, but Robinson already had so much publicity that Doby was mostly overlooked at the time.

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.

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.

My name is Jack Roosevelt Robinson. You may know me as Jackie Robinson. My passion is baseball. I played in the Negro Leagues for a little while. Not long after playing with the Negro Leagues I was chosen by Branch Rickey to help integrate major league baseball and to play for the Montreal Royals. This is the start of where history was made.

Jackie Roosevelt Robinson was born on January 31st 1919. In 1947, at the age of 28, Jackie became the first African American to break the “color line” of Major League Baseball when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers. During his tenure with the Dodgers, Jackie was not simply an average player. Among various other accolades, Mr. Robinson was a starter on six World Series teams as well as being named the National League Rookie of The Year in 1947. His advantageous career was then capped in 1962 when he was inducted in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame.1 Contrary to popular belief, Jackie's perseverance in implementing racial integration extended beyond his career in Major League Baseball. During the Sixties Jackie Robinson was a

During the mid-1950’s, Major League Baseball was in the midst of an influential movement. Jackie Robinson had broken baseball’s “color barrier” in 1947, which helped usher in the participation of other minorities, especially the Latinos. Just as the blacks were faced with adversity, the Latino players experienced the same. The teams integrated slowly and sportswriters often scorned the players having difficulty developing English as a second language (Regalado 678). Roberto Clemente joined this complicated era of baseball and his reputation was backed with a stellar baseball career, which set the foundation for the involvement of many other Latino players. With Clemente’s cultivated background, one can see how he became to be one of

Before, Jackie Robinson to join the Brooklyn Dodgers. The general manager Branch Rickey went to watch Robinson play. Rickey feared that Robinson wouldn’t be able to handle the racist comments made by spectators. When Rickey saw Robinson play, he would shout insults, racial slurs, and so on. He wanted to see if Robinson could take it and accept any type of taunts with any incidents. Jackie Robinson was able to endure it and got signed off to play with the Brooklyn Dodgers. However, everyone was so supportive of having an African-American playing in the field. Fans would throw trash and invectives at him when he played. Fans weren’t the only one against on having Robinson on the team. Some his team mates were openly protested about having