Jack Roosevelt Robinson: First African Americans To Play In Major League Baseball

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Jack Roosevelt Robinson once said, “I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me… All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.” He was the first African American to play in Major League Baseball. Back then, people were more racist than they are now. Segregation was a major problem. People didn’t like the idea of an African American playing with the white. In this quote, he is stating that he knows people didn’t like the fact that he was playing in the major leagues, he just wants to be respected as a person. Jackie Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia, on January 31, 1919 in to a sharecropping family. He moved to Pasadena, California, with his mother Mallie in 1920, excelled in five sports at Muir High School, and played baseball, basketball, and football at UCLA. While at …show more content…
Robinson joined the Army in 1942, had an altercation with authorities over discrimination, and was honorably discharged in 1944. In 1935, Robinson graduated from Washington Junior High School and enrolled at John Muir High School (Muir Tech). At Muir Tech, Robinson played several sports at the varsity level and lettered in four of them: football, basketball, track, and baseball. He played shortstop and catcher on the baseball team, quarterback on the football team, and guard on the basketball team. With the track and field squad, he won awards in the broad jump. He was also a member of the tennis team. In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier that not only changed baseball, but changed the culture and society of America itself. Jackie Robinson was not only a great baseball player, he was a great man who had enormous amounts of courage and