Jackie Robinson - The Back Story

In 1939, Jackie transferred to the University of California at Los Angeles. While at UCLA, he became the first person to letter in four sports (baseball, football , basketball, and track and field). Although very close to earning his degree, and having earned many athletic accolades, he dropped out, in 1941.

After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, on December 7th, 1941, Robinson enlisted in Army, and spent several years training to be an officer, eventually rising to the rank of second lieutenant. In 1944, he boarded a bus, at Fort Hood, Texas, and was ordered to sit at the back. Since the officer corps had been desegregated by that time, he felt that the bus driver was acting out of line, and refused to move to the back. When he refused, he was arrested and court-martialed. He was acquitted, and released from the military and was honorably discharged. He never saw active duty. He was Rosa Parks, 11 years before Rosa Parks gained notoriety for the same feat. After the ordeal, Robinson wrote in his autobiography, “It was a small victory, for I had learned that I was in two wars, one against the foreign enemy, the other against prejudice at home.”

After his discharge, he decided to play baseball, and joined the Negro League’s Kansas City Monarchs, as professional baseball’s Major Leagues (the American League and National League) had their doors closed to black men. The Monarchs were arguably one of the greatest franchises in the history of the Negro Leagues, and in 1945, the roster included pitching phenom, Satchel Page. After batting .387, Robinson was signed by Branch Rickey, who was the manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, to a contract to play in the minor leagues.
In 1946, he played for the Montreal Royals, which was the Dodgers’ Triple-A affiliate club, playing in the International League. Both the Montreal Royals and the Brooklyn Dodgers, before 1946, were all-white teams. So, when he joined the team on opening day of the 1946 season, he was making history, as he was the first player to break the minor league “color line”. He went on to lead the International League with a .349 batting average, and lead the Royals to their second Governor’s Cup in club history, with a defeat of the Syracuse Chiefs.
Because of his strong play in Montreal, Branch Rickey decided that it was time to move Jackie up to the Brooklyn Dodgers. On April 15th, 1947, after a year and a half of working his way through the Brooklyn Dodgers’ farm system, and after over six decades of a color barrier in Major League Baseball, Jackie Robinson played in his first game, against the Boston Braves. This moment in baseball, as well as American history, is groundbreaking. It is a moment that can be looked at as one of the first moments of the Civil Rights Movement. On a less dramatic scale, opening the professional baseball’s doors to black players changed the dynamic of the game. At the time, the game was about home runs and doubles, and power hitting. The Negro League style of baseball, that Jackie was bringing with him focused more on getting on base, stealing a base, bunting men into scoring position, and speed–what modern day managers call “small-ball”.

Although he went 0-3 in his first game, he went on to win the Major League Rookie of the Year award. Winning that award was stunning. Not even a year earlier, many detractors believed that he was not even good enough to play in the Majors, but now he was the best first-year player! He was the first African-American to win the award, as he was the first American or person to win the award, as that was the first year they awarded it. It was an award that had his name written all over it, especially retroactively, because it has become know as the Jackie Robinson Award, since 1987. Later that year, the Dodgers went to the World Series and lost to the New York Yankees, four games to three. And, two years later, Robinson would win the National League Most Valuable Player award.

In 1955, the Dodgers won the World Series (Robinson’s only World Series) in seven games, over the team that beat them, in 1947, the New York Yankees. He retired from baseball on January 5, 1957, after a 1956 postseason trade to the Dodgers’ crosstown rival, the New York Baseball Giants. The retirement was not due to the trade, and refusal to play for the rival team, but was due to an employment offer from the restaurant chain, Chock Full O’ Nuts. By 1956, he knew his baseball career would soon be coming to an end, and he looked for a way to bring in an income, after he retired. He was offered the position of executive vice-president at the Choc-Full O’ Nuts fast food restaurant chain. So, it would have been to his financial, and not to mention physical, detriment to continue playing professional baseball.

Throughout the late ’50s and ‘60s, he held many titles, including serving on the board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He supported many political candidates. In 1962, he was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, in Cooperstown, New York, making him the first African-American to receive the honor. Jackie married Rachel Isum, in 1947, and they had three children. Later in his life, he contracted diabetes and on October 24, 1972, he died of a combination of complications of diabetes and heart problems. In his wake, he left behind him his legacy of breaking the “color barrier”, his Civil Rights actions, and his imprint on American history.

Jackie Robinson: Civil Rights Leader - Index

• Jackie Robinson: Civil Rights Leader
• Jackie Robinson - Historiography
• Jackie Robinson - The Back Story
• Jackie Robinson - Black Ballplayers and Branch Rickey
• Jackie Robinson - Becoming Political
• Jackie Robinson - Post-retirement
• Jackie Robinson - Support of and Backlash Against the Movement
• Jackie Robinson - Conclusion