JACKIE ROBINSON & BRANCH RICKEY

January 31, 1919 - October 24, 1972 (Robinson)
December 20, 1881 - December 9, 1965 (Rickey)

Name an all-white major league baseball team. Can't do it, can you? But If we had asked you that same question in 1946 - not that long ago - the answer would have been very simple. You could have chosen any one of the 16 major league teams that played in the 1940's. They all were "for whites only."

Have you ever been to a professional football game? Basketball? Baseball? Ever watch pro sports on TV? White people and people of color play on the same teams, right? Sure they do. That's the way it is; that's the way it's supposed to be. Seems so simple, but our country had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the world of equality on the playing field. And two guys who loved baseball helped drag us there.

Go back to 1947. Baseball was THE national pastime. Nearly everyone had a favorite team, and the whole country got wrapped up in the World Series. At the time, there were two different baseball leagues. No, not the National League and American League. We're talking about the Major Leagues and the Negro Leagues. Only white ballplayers could play in the majors, and dream of making it to the World Series. Black players, no matter how good they were, played in their own league and were "kept in their place" as second-class athletes.

Then Branch Rickey came along. He was the president and general manager of the Brooklyn (now the Los Angeles) Dodgers, and he thought things had to be changed. He knew there were black men who played ball as well as white men, and he knew they should be playing in the big leagues. But he also knew that segregation was a part of baseball and a part of America. To integrate the game would not be easy.

Rickey determined that Jackie Roosevelt Robinson was the man that could survive the ordeal that integrating baseball would be. In late August 1945, shortly after the end of World War II, Rickey met with Robinson. Robinson thought he had been asked to the meeting because Rickey was planning to start a new Negro team. Instead, Rickey asked him to join the Dodgers' farm team (the Montreal Royals) to prepare for the major leagues. Robinson was going to make history. This extraordinary meeting was one of the most dramatic episodes in sports. Many people believed in segregation and hated black Americans. Rickey warned Robinson that if he decided to go through with this, he would be deliberately attacked. If he lost control, the people who opposed integration would pounce on his display of anger, no matter how justified, and push the whole effort back to square one. At one point during their meeting, Robinson could no longer contain himself. He said, "Mr. Rickey, are you looking for a Negro who's afraid to fight back?" With passion in his voice, Rickey replied, "I'm looking for a ballplayer, Jackie, with guts enough not to fight back. Robinson joined the Royals, then the Dodgers, and Rickey was right. Fans, players, coaches, even some of hisown teammates reacted with hate. But Robinson held on and played the game -- the baseball game. And he played it very, very well.

The integration of our national pastime was a major step toward the integration of our society. It marked the beginning of the end of the terrible "Jim Crow" laws and practices in our nation. We were taking steps toward fulfilling the promise found in our Declaration of Independence - that all Americans are created equal and have the "unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Both Robinson and Rickey went on to earn places in the Baseball Hall of Fame. And places in history as well.

POWER WORDS!

"A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."
- Jackie Robinson

"I couldn't face God much longer knowing that his black creatures are held separate from his white creatures in the game that has given me all I own."
- Branch Rickey (speaking to his grandson)

Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey integrated baseball, but how about other sports? Did white and black people always play on the same football and basketball teams? How about sports like swimming, tennis and ice skating? Pick a sport (or several) and do a little research. You might be surprised at how recently discrimination existed in some professional sports. For example, in 1997, Tiger Woods won the Masters Tournament, one of the biggest prizes in men's professional golf. Yet, as late as 1974, no African-Americans had played in that major golf event. In fact, the "whites only" clause in the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) was not erased until 1961.

Each time a color barrier falls, we witness a sign of progress toward achieving greater equality and mutual acceptance in this country. So, check out some online sports encyclopedias and see if you can identify heroic athletes of color who were the first to integrate your favorite sports. Let us in on their stories of courage and determination. Who knows -- maybe you'll uncover a hero for our next list of 50!

Check out The Jackie Robinson Foundation – www.jackierobinson.org. It was described in The New York Times in 2008 as what "might be the best educational effort in the country." The Jackie Robinson Foundation (JRF) is a national, not–for–profit, organization founded in 1973 to perpetuate the memory of Jackie Robinson through advancing higher education goals among underserved populations.

DIVE IN!

Promises to Keep: How Jackie Robinson Changed America by Sharon Robinson (Scholastic, 2004), 64 pages.

Jackie Robinson: Champion for Equality by Michael Teitelbaum (Sterling, 2010), 124 pages.
Sterling Biographies