Effect on America's people
Opportunities for African-Americans in Baseball
The first and most obvious way Jackie changed America was that he opened up opportunities for black people in Major League Baseball. Before Jackie, baseball was "lily-white". Both Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson did not like the fact that America had promised equality for all people yet no one treated African-Americans as equals. Mr. Rickey once said, "I cannot face my God much longer knowing that His black creatures are held separate and distinct from His white creatures in the game that has given me all that I can call my own." He was determined to integrate baseball, and he felt Jackie would be the right man to start it.
Because of what Jackie started, more black players joined, like Jim Gilliam, Roy Campanella, Satchel Paige, Larry Doby, Willard Brown and Henry Thompson. Today, many black players are on major league baseball teams, and also other sports, because of Jackie Robinson.
Opportunities for African-Americans in Baseball
The first and most obvious way Jackie changed America was that he opened up opportunities for black people in Major League Baseball. Before Jackie, baseball was "lily-white". Both Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson did not like the fact that America had promised equality for all people yet no one treated African-Americans as equals. Mr. Rickey once said, "I cannot face my God much longer knowing that His black creatures are held separate and distinct from His white creatures in the game that has given me all that I can call my own." He was determined to integrate baseball, and he felt Jackie would be the right man to start it.
Because of what Jackie started, more black players joined, like Jim Gilliam, Roy Campanella, Satchel Paige, Larry Doby, Willard Brown and Henry Thompson. Today, many black players are on major league baseball teams, and also other sports, because of Jackie Robinson.
Views of African-Americans
When Mr. Rickey first proposed bringing a black man into baseball, many people did not like the idea. Most people who had been raised in the south had been taught to treat black people as inferior. For example, there was Rickey's announcer, Red Barber, who, at first, considered quitting his job when he learned he would have to work with a black player. Carl Erskine, a fellow player of Jackie's, said, "Some Dodgers personnel had issues with Jackie at first. They finally realized they were wrong in every respect. But it wasn't a personal problem. Rather, it was a cultural issue with them. Until they shook the childhood ideologies that had been ingrained in them, they were in a sense culturally and socially paralyzed. A case in point was the Dodgers’ announcer Red Barber, who was a sweet, nice, man, but who had grown up in the South among folks who had different views on how society ought to be laid out. Once anyone, friend or foe, met Jackie Robinson, they liked him instantly and became a supporter. But it was the societal barriers of the times, and the crazy philosophies in people's own heads, that prevented men such as Red Barber from seeing things clearly at first." |
Jackie with his teammates. Despite their prejudice against blacks at first, they eventually saw past the skin color and became great friends.
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Jackie Robinson was a man very proud of his race. When he went into baseball, which was very popular at the time, his attitude influenced many black people. So Jackie did not only change white people thoughts about blacks, but what
blacks thought about themselves. Roger Wilkins, a civil rights leader, once said,
"Consider what Jack Robinson achieved: Day after day his dignified carriage and his brilliant play bored into the souls of virtually every American male and millions of white minds about who blacks were and what we might be able to accomplish.
And he made almost every black person in America better and bigger. He began ―in a massive and nationwide way ―to put pride inside our souls where shame had been. And he began to give millions of us a sense that things no longer needed to be as they had always been.
We do not know how many formerly fearful people came forward to join the NAACP because of their pride in Jack Roosevelt Robinson. We do not know how many people were emboldened to sign up for the lawsuits that finally found their way to the Supreme Court as Brown v. Board of Education seven years after he began to play. And we do not know how many more people were given the courage to demonstrate in Montgomery and Oklahoma City and in Greensboro later on because of what he did. But we do know how much shame and hurt we blacks would have felt if he had gone out and gotten drunk, participated in bar fights, and instigated on-field brawls in that fateful year of 1947. We've seen plenty of black and white athletes behave that way as the years have gone by. And we surely know the contempt so many whites would have felt for him and, by implication, the rest of us had he failed in any of those ways.
‘Not ready for American life’ would have been the general verdict rendered on us and, ‘Not ready for American life,’ many of us would have answered silently, deep in our souls, as we anguished in our public humiliation. All progress would not have stopped, obviously, had Jack let us down. It would simply have slowed significantly. But he did not let us down. He lifted us up. He carried the nation on his broad black shoulders. He marched through both the muck of white racism and the pain of culturally shriveled black spirits. When he got through, he had left all of us with far more room to grow than we had ever had before he began.
Only Rachel and her children can ever guess what this great human being’s enormous of our debt of gratitude to all of them. We are a better people and a better nation for what he did and for the ways in which they helped him. It is a debt that can be paid only remembering, understanding, and loving.”
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blacks thought about themselves. Roger Wilkins, a civil rights leader, once said,
"Consider what Jack Robinson achieved: Day after day his dignified carriage and his brilliant play bored into the souls of virtually every American male and millions of white minds about who blacks were and what we might be able to accomplish.
And he made almost every black person in America better and bigger. He began ―in a massive and nationwide way ―to put pride inside our souls where shame had been. And he began to give millions of us a sense that things no longer needed to be as they had always been.
We do not know how many formerly fearful people came forward to join the NAACP because of their pride in Jack Roosevelt Robinson. We do not know how many people were emboldened to sign up for the lawsuits that finally found their way to the Supreme Court as Brown v. Board of Education seven years after he began to play. And we do not know how many more people were given the courage to demonstrate in Montgomery and Oklahoma City and in Greensboro later on because of what he did. But we do know how much shame and hurt we blacks would have felt if he had gone out and gotten drunk, participated in bar fights, and instigated on-field brawls in that fateful year of 1947. We've seen plenty of black and white athletes behave that way as the years have gone by. And we surely know the contempt so many whites would have felt for him and, by implication, the rest of us had he failed in any of those ways.
‘Not ready for American life’ would have been the general verdict rendered on us and, ‘Not ready for American life,’ many of us would have answered silently, deep in our souls, as we anguished in our public humiliation. All progress would not have stopped, obviously, had Jack let us down. It would simply have slowed significantly. But he did not let us down. He lifted us up. He carried the nation on his broad black shoulders. He marched through both the muck of white racism and the pain of culturally shriveled black spirits. When he got through, he had left all of us with far more room to grow than we had ever had before he began.
Only Rachel and her children can ever guess what this great human being’s enormous of our debt of gratitude to all of them. We are a better people and a better nation for what he did and for the ways in which they helped him. It is a debt that can be paid only remembering, understanding, and loving.”
Click here to move to "The Sport"