U.S. Honors Baseball Great Jackie Robinson

By David Pitts
USIA Staff Writer

Washington -- Few people can claim to have played a pivotal role in changing their country for the better. One American who earned that distinction during his rather brief lifetime was Jackie Robinson, the first black player to break the color barrier in U.S. major league baseball.

The National Museum of American History is commemorating the occasion -- the day Robinson joined the then Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947 -- with the opening of an exhibit entitled "Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Major League Baseball." The exhibit, dedicated to Robinson's fight for racial justice as a ballplayer and a man, will run indefinitely and is one of many tributes occurring around the country this week.

At a news conference April 14, Museum Director Spencer Crewe said: "Few stories are as inspiring as that of Jackie Robinson. His life is an illustration of one man's ability to generate great change."

Visitors will see Robinson's Brooklyn Dodgers uniform shirt, autographed baseballs, and photographs highlighting his career -- as well as descriptions of landmark events in his life.

It is impossible to overstate the significance of what happened when Robinson joined the Dodgers organization a half-century ago. In 1947, American society was still largely closed to blacks -- with de jure segregation entrenched in the former slave-owning states of the South and de facto discrimination rampant in the North.

Resistance to integrating baseball, "America's pastime," was strong, both within and outside the game. The story of how the racial barrier was broken centers on the lives of two men, one white and one black, who, for different reasons, were determined not only to change the situation, but to make the change stick.

Branch Rickey, president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who was white, believed passionately that integrating baseball was not only the right thing to do, but was in the long-term best interests of the game. He chose Robinson, an all-American football player at UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles), to break the racial barrier because Robinson was a superior athlete -- but primarily because he felt that Robinson had the mental toughness to withstand the inevitable racial slurs and jibes he would suffer without exploding into rage.

Robinson, for his part, was acutely conscious of the significance of being the first black major league baseball player this century and what it could mean for the wider struggle of African-Americans for racial equality across America.

One of the displays at the exhibit recalls the following exchange between Rickey and Robinson when they first met in 1945:

Robinson: "Mr. Rickey, are you looking for a Negro who is afraid to fight back?"

Rickey: "I'm looking for a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back."

Robinson: "I think I can play ball in Brooklyn. If you want to take this gamble, I promise you there will be no incidents."

Two years later, on opening day of the 1947 season, Robinson strode onto Brooklyn's Ebbets Field baseball diamond. That season, he led the Dodgers to the first of six pennants the team would win with Robinson playing second base for them. He was named National League Rookie of the Year.

In his autobiography, Robinson recalls that he was deeply hurt by the racial catcalls and poor treatment he received from some fans, fellow teammates, and opposing teams. One Dodger player who began a petition drive to drop Robinson was traded away by Rickey. But Robinson kept his promise and never responded to the harassment.

His dignity and bearing, as well as his performance on the field, earned him the respect of a majority of the fans as well as the public at large, and the Dodgers broke major league attendance records during his first season on the team. "I had started the season as a lonely man, often feeling like a black Don Quixote tilting at white windmills. I ended it feeling like a member of a solid team," he said.

Robinson's courage paid off. Because of his success, the Dodgers signed other black players, including catcher Roy Campanella and pitcher Don Newcombe. Other teams followed suit, but it was not until 1959, when the Boston Red Sox hired Elijah "Pumpsie" Green, that the game was completely integrated at the player level.

Ironically, the integration of major league baseball spelled disaster for the Negro Leagues, the all-black baseball teams that were founded because of segregation. The "majors" raided the black teams for such top talent as Satchel Paige, Willie Mays, Joe Black, and Monte Irvin. The Negro National League disbanded in 1948, the Negro American League in 1960.

Surviving players of the Negro Leagues were present at the news conference, paying tribute to Robinson's accomplishment and recalling their own experiences so long ago. One of them, Ernest Burke, who played for the Baltimore Elite Giants from 1946 until 1948, said, "Jackie is a legend to every black ball player and to every black man in America." He recalled Robinson saying, after his selection, "There is now no looking back; we're in, the door has been cracked."

Robinson retired from major league baseball in 1956, but he continued to be active in the then infant civil rights movement and was a strong supporter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who once said that his task was made easier because of what Jackie Robinson did.

Although change was slow in coming, the racial views of many white Americans began to shift markedly in the years after Robinson integrated baseball, as they slowly became more conscious of the incongruity between American democratic principles and their attitudes towards their fellow citizens of color.

With the growing change in racial beliefs, other areas of American life began to be desegregated as well. In 1948, just one year after the integration of major league baseball, President Truman ordered the desegregation of the U.S. armed forces. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled school segregation unconstitutional. In 1955, Rosa Parks' refusal to sit at the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, as required then by state law, sparked the modern civil rights movement, which ultimately led to the demise of segregation and to major civil rights and voting rights laws.

The physical toll on Robinson during his long struggle for racial equality was staggering. He developed diabetes and heart disease, which some biographers assert was worsened by years of stress as a result of dealing with racial issues.

Jackie Robinson succumbed to heart disease at the age of 53 in 1972, his hair having turned white some years before. He was buried in the New York borough of Brooklyn, where he first played for the Dodgers exactly a quarter-century before.