Jackie Robinson biography

annie is proud to present this series focusing on the lives of exceptional individuals who helped shape the 20th century in this program the inspiring story of the man who broke the color barrier in professional sports Jackie Robinson i'm peter graves this is a biography jackie robinson was the son of a sharecropper the grandson of a slave and one heckuva baseball player but he was a ***'s blacks were called back in the nineteen forties and baseball was a white man's game but Jackie Robinson integrated baseball wanna the epic feats have individual courage of our time in this program will see the impact the jackie had on baseball on civil rights and on racial intolerance in this country and we'll get a better understanding the proud complex and idealistic man at the center of the legend of Jackie Robinson p way back and he became the house and you Thanksgiving the world gained this another not a gloomy shady Laura Brown and demands a lot of people who have now am he felt disappointed at times are frustrated so will hold unit gold fault he would pick yourself up with very resilient only very determined in a little stubborn about the ball was going to make it work union yeah page 300 now good nobody yeah brown headed home with the brown eyed handsome man won a game it was up now and many Jackie Robinson is a true American hero courage that it must have taken for him to go out at dodger fielder Ebbets Field afternoon after a afternoon and take the beating that he took from opposing players from racists in the stands and to come up with the performance that he came up with over and over and over again and then he translated that into things political things sociological if you will I have immense admiration for for Jackie Robinson jackie was born in Cairo Georgia on january thirty first nineteen 19 his family worked on a cotton plantation and conditions not much better than when blacks were slaves in the old self his father abandoned the family before jackie was two years old hopes of a better life jackie's mother packed up her five children moved to Pasadena Calif and a house and pepper Street in Hollywood version of jackie's early life Sandlot baseball offered boys white and black and equal chance to prove their worth the movie got at least one thing right jackie could play feel that we got there are big leaguer for what do you want from watch baseball remained a favorite activity with Jackie but as time passed the Robinsons had to struggle to survive for the paper route in other jobs Jackie helped his mother's supplement her earnings as a maid he was no angel you got into a share mister for the gang another poor kids his church minister inspired him to channel his energies into sports where he excelled but in the climate of his youth jackie robinson did not see sports as his ticket to getting his are subject to burn as chosen by our board have so much at a time when the black community expressed pride in that. superstars you love it most young Robinson hope for was a job helping youngsters or coaching are just today is not great figure in the world sports the only man to hold five world records and try good one-time just me or Justin what do you remember as greatest sports trial your career well mister brown and I think it came in 1936 when I won for best and Olympic Games in Berlin the games hosted by Hitler's Third Reich were supposed to showcase white supremacy Owens for gold medal shot holes in %uh theory less well-known was the achievement of Jackie Robinson's brother Max in winning a silver medal in the 200 meter dash jackie was proud of his brother but on max homecoming he found out success has its limits if he were black my brother ran second to Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympic Games but because Negroes were protesting against discrimination in Pasadena Calif back in 1936 his return to Pasadena he found that they had fired him because other Negroes were protesting so all these guys were saying we've got me through athletics is just not so you as an individual can make it but I think we've got a concern ourselves with the masses of the people not by what happened as an individual so I'm really tell these youngsters when I go out certainly I had opportunity they that they have an air but because I've had this opportunity that the mean life or gotten the Harlem Globetrotters were the most famous black professional team in sports in that era they were the NBA the only act in town if you were a talented black basketball player with the gift of showmanship in baseball the *** Leagues put thousands a black athletes in uniform in tens of thousands of fans in the stands in the nineteen thirties the *** Leagues actually were the largest black-owned business in america it was not baseball but football one jackie robinson the scholarship to UCLA and there he met the woman who became the most important person in his life we had to drive to UCLA nervous could afford to live on campus so we lived at home and drove every month every day and I we wait I see is car pulled into the parking lot my car said it would get pulled into the parking lot at the same time and we'd have these chance meetings and a it was that kind of thing that my way of conveying to him that I wasn't as interested in an athlete and obviously he was interested in me because he made these meetings more possible and began to asked me out on dates he kept talking about not being too involved until he got mad have I dove sports out if University and because he wanted to be loved for himself on jackie was UCLA's first four-letter man he played baseball and basketball ran and jumped in track and totally dominated on the football field he led the country in rushing in 1939 with a 12-yard average he ranked second in total offense in the pacific conference in nineteen forty showing the aggressive running style that would be his trademark on the baseball diamond jackie robinson was a hard man to stop in anyway Dec you went to Hawaii in 1941 to work in construction putting what he called his academic and athletic three more he was ownership returning home when news came the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the dream world he and the US had been living in was overdone I'm in the waiver patriotism that swept the nation recruiting sergeant suddenly had the easiest job in the army prominent athletes like joe dimaggio put away their bats and gloves for more demanding duties when the heavyweight champ unlisted we knew we had a fight on our hands Joe Louis his induction call attention to the fact that whites and blacks were assigned to separate units in the military the restrictions placed on black serviceman was something jackie robinson could not tolerate and won't even have to fend off a court-martial to prove his point Jack was main morale officer just because Jack made I'm a lot of fuss about everything things that he felt were in Justin and shouldn't be and so to keep him quiet I think the army made him a row officer and he had to represent the black soldiers and they started with the the canteen where they had a limited number of seats for blacks and they often had to stand and often had to wait while the receipts available in the white side and someone and a he and Joe Louis teamed up to deal with the army brass about this in Jack was he had never when he love Joe Louis in the earlier days it never occurred to him that the day would come when they'd be walking you know shoulder to shoulder in fighting this battle on on on the I me grounds together after the army Jackie signed up to play with the Kansas City Monarchs black baseball was unknown to most of white america but it had many loyal fans who admired its lively style of play and depth of town I had a cousin who was a he played in the *** Leagues is name was Bob Evans and he was a picture and he had 1i and I said I couldn't appreciate what that really meant for a fastball up with what I had to be health roping at somebody but he knew jackie robinson et New Satchel Paige in josh gibson a nice to you all are the story but he never spoke at smoke that much about Jackie Robinson jacket was an exxon ballplayer but when you compare them with people like Raymond and Regina and Josh Gibson and satchel paige up he he what he was in measuring sup *** leaguers like money urban Larry Doby came under consideration by some major league teams in the post-war years as did that ageless wonder the pitcher Satchel Paige robinson's talents on and off the field are wouldn't read the Brooklyn Dodgers even as they quietly scouted catcher Roy campanella and the powerful young pitcher dunno meanwhile the grueling *** league schedule was teaching Jackie all about life limitations if you happen to be a black man traveling in america going in luvmyboys through rules and regulations newborn always goes for I get that means you Jackie what will I have to do briefing see if we could you inside through see if we can wash up 3 if we get inside if they were picked up sandwiches Robinson was educated articulate highly moral a college all-American with an honorable discharge is an army officer all of these traits would make human ideal candidate to integrate Major League Baseball if he could keep his pride and his temper in check yeah what is it 16 I'll stop by in a bus outcasts getting something to eat well are more on african LP about now it is could we have now we just branch rickey here and the Brooklyn Dodgers like a benevolent team wires under his bro exterior he believed in equal treatment for blacks but he also knew they could help him win baseball games when he summoned Robinson to New York to join his top farm team and not some all-black team Ricky had a strategy for Jackie all worked up he was everything I had hoped we would be at that moment the if there is a surprise attack on occasion was was a Wes Robinson I couldn't convince him that I was giving him this interview and and considering him for a job on that on the ice cream the butter and doctors I have to give him an actual picture by voice Manchester but bad every means I had to have him realize what he was in private he was about to agree to he had done all that he would be called names and his mother would be attack and ancestry as I put it well a asking party would do actually it is a very resentment that I wanted and yet he had to realize that he must E be able to handle himself under those that can be can and there was finally an agreement that for three years he would undertake to turn the other cheek and we define what that meant an actual field play Jack called me to say that he wasn't being scouted for the brown bombers which was there with the story he was told when you brought to mister a key but actually he's being scouted for the major leagues what it meant to us at the time was he had a job it didn't use me it didn't mean that he had a mission and a it was a long time before we really could make that distinction and see how really big thing is this wise jackie's 1946 season with the Montreal Royals the International League was his dress rehearsal for the historic year to come Montreal was a cosmopolitan city accepting that his presence on the previously all-white squad but in jackie's own country there were many baseball parks where his presence would come as a shock still Robinson managed to lead the league in hitting and fielding and to lead the Royals to a championship the first aid to the Ricky Robinson plan is now complete you couldn't think of Jackie Robinson with our branch rickey because they understood that he was bi he was a pioneer are and an incredible amount of self-discipline I was involved I still get upset with these kids the showboat in the end zone I A or throwing temper tantrums on the tennis court our sport is a is a way to demonstrate a certain sense of fair play and gentlemanly this I you never glowed over your opponent after you beat him I N Jackie Robinson symbolized to me the the the gentleman athlete I love the man who a not only achieved in every way %uh but who exemplified in almost every aspect of his character in the spring of nineteen forty-seven baseball game to Brooklyn with more than the usual fanfare in anticipation on this historic opening day April 15th Dodgers were hosting the Boston Braves Jackie Robinson took the field and a black man finally gained his rightful place in America's most popular sport for Jackie it was a personal victory he would have to go out and really win day after day for the six months have a baseball season he had promised not to respond to racial slurs in soldier physical threats but to endure them in science rule some players even threatened to boycott games but there were others like teammate Pee Wee Reese who befriended Jackie the shortstop in the second baseman were a magnificent double-play combination on and off the field and I think was P recent who stripped well as you know I quite good Dixie wanna know how can you have something they're not participate and so-called breakup up but peewee from the outset fell that if I were the only white guy trying to break in their Black Lake I'd want somebody to be my friend and he says it Thank You robson as a barely any makeup at all I'm gonna ask we want to I'm to New York to see jacket play ever playing the same Louis Cardinals my favorite team and a I was just in kono not this terry moran stand New Zealand I think you're asking and yunus country slow I thought they were just great ballplayers the game that I happened to see was the game that jackie was playing first base and as slaughter land 0 or hit a ground rounded 0 and was thrown out he spiked Robinson across the back in his leg I up to that point I had been rooting for Saint Louis Brooklyn fans as you know they were playing at Ebbets Field on a time they were rabbit they for gave me because I was so young but my friends were saying you know these people are ready to throw your daddy rooting for say Lewis this is this is Dodgertown well when Robinson was spiked by slaughter and it was intentional all of the dodger players came rushing to robinson's a the Cardinal players defensively went to the batting wreck to draw bats that so confrontational it was peace was restored Robinson never saying a word I think that because baseball had been defined as the all-american sport which means it should mean it includes everything and everybody that jacks entry into the Baseball arena and the reactions to him I mean now fact that he evoked the kind have open blatant racist talk actions threats iron alerted America to the fact that discrimination had its was very pervasive it was not limited to a few big hits in the south it was in north and south it was an undercurrent and underpinning over society and that it was creating an atmosphere in which many people did not have opportunities for Brooklyn Dodger fans the next decade would be known as the Jackie Robinson years and they were glory years for the team as a 16 National League pennants and one World Series beyond baseball Robinson bold and dignified example was an inspiration to all blacks and an object lesson to skeptical whites he was named the nineteen forty seventh Rookie of the Year and his achievement impressed all Americans not just sports fans it only cost a nickel in that year to follow the Subway Series between the Dodgers in Brooklyn and the New York Yankees in the Bronx the Yankees will hold of brooklyn's famous bombs Russian win the series but this event had significance beyond scores and statistics it was our first World Series with the black player in it brotherhood prevailed in the locker room as it usually does after a winning season but when the only black player began receiving batting tips from teammates who once threatened to boycott im people new times were changing fans with series fever also knew by now that it was never a good idea to give Jackie Robinson a base on balls because once on first he'd be sure to steal second in have a member the story that people used to tell about Jackie Robinson about the lady who heard the the Brooklyn Dodgers were integrated and no took a box a chicken I out to the bleachers in Ebbets Field and the they jackie robinson was walked I and got on first base and the next thing you know he was still in second she got up and packed up a chicken and she said boom we just got here we then started stealing already you the Robinson family grew in more than one way in 1947 with the birth of a son Jackie junior was the first three children the young parents would have looking for a home for their family Jackie and Rachel were refused numerous properties in the greater New York area they finally were able to build their dream house in suburban connecticut the negative real estate experience only strengthened jackie's resolve and acceptance of his mission by now the Robinsons with the most publicized black couple in america and the times they felt the weight of the entire race on their shoulders but Jackie handle tough questions on any subject the way play baseball forcefully have been have to express my views on Paul Robeson Dayton impaired to the effect that american negroes would refuse to fight in any war against right here because we love Russia so much I have in any comment to make accept that any been to war with Russia big role and iPad and and married and deals in Sweden flout and other American when I get that all these groups did in the last four they do their best to keep their country out a war if unsuccessful that do their best to help their country won the war against right here or any other enemy that threatens to 1949 and branch rickey was so pleased with his noble experiment and integration the expanded building the Dodgers in 2010 the best teams in baseball he recruited and bank it to become the first black pitcher in the majors most important additions were done nukem roy campanella along with Robinson they became my heart and soul of the Purple Line rule the series this year brought Dodgers and Yankees together yet again New York teams dominated baseball in this period before the major leagues expanded west of the Mississippi and facing the yankee dynasty year after year Brooklyn fans learned what it was like to be always the bridesmaid Joe DiMaggio was the quintessential yankee from 1936 1951 when a pitcher like nukem a 27-game winner was on the mound it made for a classic do love strength against strength and as more and more Americans watch blacks compete on an equal footing with players like the yankee clipper old assumptions and practices were shaken in the offseason jackie went to Hollywood to star in a movie based on his own life with Ruby Dee playing the role of Rachel it was a low-budget production but for an amateur actor Jackie did a credible job the black cat episode in the movie personified the abuse Jackie put up with in breaking into the majors hey there big board what you'll do it on a white man's feel your way to get there are get out of there before you head rolled out I probably are attacking whether to take them along he want to give the baseball through I in the middle on all a racial insults and innuendoes portrayed in the movie were based on incidents that happen to Jackie Robinson handley ordeal was he in branch rickey plan by turning the other cheek been leading is bad do the talking still the experience revealed the ugly nature a bigger the tax on any minority the meantime car them or anyone you're here there growing way work d in could no one could understand robinson's ordeal during those first years for his triumph better than his fellow blacks we all want to be like him 2012 play second base we want to wear number 42 there were some guys I remember even the took to affecting his pigeon toed work yeah thank you it with make them faster or accelerate their baseball progress he was so good looking I and now is so yang and cam and available I and he with so brilliant as the Napoli 10 and when he spoke he wasn't percent shy about speaking it,' said made sense I was so proud of him and I'm like most said the black girls i'm new over our own little and you have an older women everybody has a little and nap attack happens prominent in juvenile outside a baseball jackie worked with foster better race relations optimistic the progress was being made you know I'm probably do my best for the Brotherhood movement and i'm glad that I can report from my own personal experiences on the baseball diamond at the feeling of intolerance laundry did a brotherhood movement is gaining ground every day it is strolling and surely be coming up back and not remaining jet very water O'Malley replace branch rickey in the Dodger organization in 1915 and Jackie lost a good friend in the front office on the field he was in the prime of his career 1952 World Series started suspiciously for the Dodgers is Jackie if one of his patented line drive home runs but that year's American League sensation was a 20-year-old Oklahoma will become the greatest switch hitter in baseball is mickey mantle that the last lap on Jack you played and as it turned out on the field as well became to our clubhouse and came around and shook hands with everybody and I thought that was really really something because it will really you had to put a gun to my head to make me go to to the visiting clubhouse to have the team that beat me and and shake hands with them in town and they did a good job he even he even said to maces son you're going to hell will offer some down there will forget it get hit a homerun good take an extra base out one of the biggest thrills I ran my life we had our way you know you always have a meeting before the World Series and in the meeting Casey Stengel says we you know what you do said Jackie Robinson when he hits a ball especially like to right field he'll come around first base so far which you think you can pick him off and when you throw the ball to first base who dis walks into second so we already know that right so man billy martin get together then I said if he hits a line drive to right-center I'm gonna forget the first go to you and sure enough Jackie come runnin around first base in Iraq like I was going to love first and Hugh he goes home the second one out i've i've feel good and I didn't have to throw a really great I'm only forty feet I guess from Billy I just talked to two billion course billy tagged him out and as well the biggest thrills ever had in my life jackie has been all for Ricky joining the Dodgers at age 28 time and stress were visibly on him as he prepared for the 1955 World Series you remain the team's spark plug giving 100 percent at the plate in the field and most memorably on the base paths this year it would pay off for the World Championship at last setting the stage in the opening game Jackie decided to steal home Monday keep it you're ready four this was especially a bra been since wanna baseball's most bearing plays and the night for catcher Yogi Bear the Dodgers and the and he's made it to the series again the following year but 1956 would be jackie's final season in baseball you could look back on a 10-year career sixes all-star and an impressive lifetime batting average at 3:11 in his playing days thirteen of the 16 major league teams at black players for their rosters and by nineteen fifty-nine the formal desegregation a major and minor league baseball was complete meanwhile other pro sports taking their cue from the historic changes jackie had initiated were opening their doors to Yankees won the last baseball game Jackie ever played but Robinson and America walked off the field that year a big win do coming up in just a couple hours or what the only thing I can say whether you like it or world champion I had a lot of black up made it through that their and you'll be here way I feel about it at a nap every and no probably would have been a long everybody turning was growing up well above everything girl and that guy here then hit the planet but here that everything in the game today a baseball that a commendable job but very accurate joking wild bird robot you know with the Brooklyn Dodgers that by run wasn't even say have a problem fine if they're all running the bases loaded the postseason trip to baseball crazy Japan the Dodgers in 1956 was all hurt and flowers and surface but tough business decisions were being made that would affect Jackie and relocate the team that had become a Brooklyn institution by the time the Dodgers moved to California was official Jackie decided to call it quits rejecting a plan to trade him to the ground well this is certainly a permit their decision I am NOT going to come back to baseball that much as I love the game in and what'd I appreciate what it had done for me but I think my future now then another feel what's the real reason you're giving a baseball now because I'm 38 my don't think that the my future is too bright in baseball I'll I think that I've just about a running obeyed the gamut arm obeyed barbaric and do it at this particular age and I'm not gonna stick around and the appellant that pic around pillar to post jackie left baseball is a game in Good with his head high and lotsa plans for the future he accepted the first up several executive jobs in the private sector as vice president at a restaurant chain for seven years he built national recognition for its brand of coffee he helped organize freedom national bank to foster economic self-sufficiency in black neighborhoods wrong to politics as a means for effecting social change Jackie decide the back richard nixon for president in nineteen sixty you later regretted that move citing nixon failure to support Martin Luther King but stubbornly stayed in his campaign to the end at the time he thought he had no real alternative president Kenny Kennedy a asked her to come have breakfast with him before he actually began to campaign a and Jack decided against campaigning for him because he said kennedy never looked him in the eye man's character always came first Robinson weather in baseball business or politics for his party only knew one way to speak black audiences especially responded to his honest with Jackie junior decide and fellow activists like harry belafonte Jackie lent his support to the civil rights movement he had pioneered he was still his own man but he recognized doctor king is this times spiritual leader Jackie traveled widely for all the causes he believed better job opportunities and better housing for the poor and to put what he felt was democracy secret weapon into the hands of more blacks the ballot we hope will get them are more people down they're both if not we think that mantra I don't care what be aware and the we get more and more people registered to vote I we can provide me the problem that would be dropped in the country this is Brotherhood week but making a time that will help every American to make every week Brotherhood week I learned about brotherhood playing football for UCLA and baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers at the great thing about athletic you learn to act democracy not just talk it it when a man can do that counts that is religion or as race are from what country is parents.com fair play this kind is wiping out but the communist right-thinking and saying about us us the shocking assassination of doctor martin luther king caused Robinson to become disillusioned with american society and who could blame any black who lost hope at that moment in our history for the Robinson family doctor king's death came at a time deep personal trauma we were willing to follow him anywhere anytime I and we did we did march with him and we did do raise money for his cause and that kinda thing he was assassinated and and buried the same year that my son was arrested so that the pain in our family and this is where the public can private side have a public person's life they collide I in our family was enormous both personally and then in a public sense because we lost Martin and we're losing Jackie at the same time Jackie and Rachel lost their oldest son first to drug addiction in vietnam and then after Jackie junior battled through rehabilitation good health and a productive life again he was killed in a car accident were the divided America so bitterly had heard people in many ways you the I will never disclose final morning what happened between Jackie can reach but I do remember with to saying to me if only we had named him check teaching and there are the memories for me always bridge over troubled waters the music that was played a check each unit has if you know and how Jackie junior who had beaten drugs he had become an addict in vietnam and jackie would say Howard he has to walk way they all do who've been p.m. close to the war there is protection for a veteran from vietnam jackie's faith and political answers revived when he went to work for new york governor Nelson be rockefeller all those years I was meeting everyone else on wayward i'd never an app to meet jackie robinson and then in California I was waiting at a studio to interview nelson rockefeller for a political campaign home and the secret service was on their hours are you relatively young reporter I was good I was the center all this attention the national press came and asked you not going to talk to your mom I said I was gonna be fairly tough on a couple these issues and so on so there's a certain anticipation about this interview I was going also market or and the doors open and Nelson Rockefeller came in the room a big smile on his face in his hand outstretched and behind him was his friend on this campaign Jackie Robinson who I was seeing in person for the first time in my life even though I've been Evans field was after you avoid I want right through three circuits super secret service agents past nelson rockefeller I was again ten years old in my life I did everything would get down on my knees I was pumping his hand so hard saying I waited all my life to meet you I know everything there is to know how much you for so many questions that I have for you I had transported myself it when other spacehab some kind it had nothing to do with the the reason that I was there he was plainly embarrassed and after about 30 seconds when my consciousness return I was embarrassed as well but I will be eternally grateful for the fact that I got to shake his hand at some Robinson served as special assistant to rockefeller until 1968 Republican convention their rocky in as a gender were shunted aside by the party's more conservative wing independent to the end Robinson switch to support from nixon to the democrats and after the election he did not mince words about his disappointment in the winter when he can't be all along with a planet be the president for 100 and other people night out on the president's approval here been the president for one hundred percent of the people maybe ninety percent perhaps even nineteen and one in percent every once in a while he at a party on and an invite be grown up to the party Robinson was only 53 when he died on October 24th 1972 he was not a *** he was a pioneer get a virulent disease I mean I really burial in to save now because we know that stress exacerbates diabetes and there's a possibility that it made it a a more destructive form of diabetes but I don't a either I don't choose to believe he was a martyr or that it shortened his life or I understand that they were balancing forces he was you see we he suffered a great deal nearly had it extraordinarily happy life I mean I really exciting like so there was a good deal balance in that in 1981 with an old guard your friend on hand jackie's college alma mater dedicated Stadium to the memory of the man who brought so much excitement and honor to the field in his own lifetime jackie's election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962 was the one ceremony of us he cherished his mother was there in Cooperstown to enjoy the day with him as always so was his beloved wife Rachel who had begun our own career as a psychiatric nurse and it was ok rusty old jet from Ohio who knew a lot about baseball in the old days and about people in the end Jackie sounded like an optimist about the future after all well as certain arbitrators a I'm thrilled happy about it happy because so many other people happy mystery the iPod him he was thrill my mother 30 and I've never in my wife or related and many telegram from a call we're up on my I am made up the wonderful what about the significance of being the first we grow up to be an all well I hope that this the serves a purpose because there are a number of %uh who I'll right back at our careers them we could become discouraged I think it may em far many of our people to recognize that Rolex for hard work well effort perhaps 80 can be reworked this is Jackie Robinson will accept for her late husband jackie was awarded the nation's highest civilian honor the Medal of Freedom in 1986 it summed up the remarkable achievement of his life as an individual have courage and conviction and as a skilled and dedicated athlete Jackie Robinson stood tall among his peers his courage open the door a professional sports to all Americans when in 1947 he became the first black baseball player in the major leagues he bravely demonstrated or that skill and sportsmanship not racer ethnic background are the qualities by which athletes should be judged in doing so he struck a mighty blow for a quality freedom and the American Way of life jackie robinson was a good citizen a great man and a true American champion I hope you had this look at the life and career Jackie Robinson he was a great baseball player on the left as a legacy much more enduring than statistics and championships through his courage and resolve Jackie Robinson help the nation tackle on the toughest issues at the 20th century civil rights and his contributions will be remembered for many years to come i'm peter graves until next time on biography