Jackie Robinson Research Paper

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Pages: 4

On January 31, 1919, Jackie Robinson was born into a sharecropping family in Cairo, Georgia. He moved to Pasadena, California with his single mother in 1920 and that's when his life truly began. He attended John Muir High School and Pasadena Junior College. This is when sports came into his life, Jackie played four sports football, basketball, track and baseball. Robinson was the youngest child of five, his older brother inspired him the most when winning a silver medal in a 200-meter dash. Jackie continued his education at the University of California, Los Angeles where he became the first ever student to win varsity letters in four sports. Jackie Robinson was soon then forced to leave UCLA very close to graduating due to financial hardship. He then moved to Honolulu, Hawaii where he …show more content…
At the time the sport was segregated to where whites played in a league and African Americans played in their own league. Playing in the negro league Jackie was soon approached by a man named Branch Rickey, the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers to help integrate Major League Baseball. Jackie quickly hopped on the idea because he knew he wanted to play in the MLB. He joined an all-white team the Montreal Royals, this was a farm team for the Dodgers. Then in 1946, he moved to Florida to begin spring training with his new team. Ricky knew that it wasn't going to be easy for Jackie, there was going to be a lot of racism and hate. Jackie made a promise to Rickey, to not fight back when confronted with racism. If he fought back he would instantly get thrown out. A lot of Jackie's teammates didn't even want the African American on their team. People in the crowd were even mocking him, calling him mean names, making rude remarks and he and his family even received death threats. With Robinson's outstanding baseball performance for the year, it led him to get a promotion to join the actual Dodgers