Childs Play !

It took a childs game to do what a world war couldn't to open
the door of opportunity for blacks. Jack Johnson, Jesse
Owens and Joe Louis had already showed the world that the
black man was by far a superior athlete in sports. So how could
baseball then the dominant entertainment game at the time
continue to deny itself the chance of showcasing the great athletic
talent that was reduced to second class venues? It took a great
visionary and person of courage like Branch Rickey to create and
forever change history and the course of African-Americans. So
always keep in mind that it was indeed a childs game that forever
opened up new opportunities for people of color.


Sixty years ago, Jackie Robinson played his first game in the Major Leagues, forever changing not just baseball but American society. When Robinson took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947, he didn't just challenge segregation in baseball, he challenged segregation in American society. When he crossed the white foul line at Ebbets Field to take his position, he carried the hopes and dreams of millions of black Americans.

The integration of baseball represents a critical juncture for the national pastime and an American society on the threshold of the civil rights movement. Robinson didn't just make it possible for blacks to seek racial equality in baseball. His influence transcended baseball to all fields. He also captured the imagination of white Americans who previously had given little thought to racial discrimination.

"More even than Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, or Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement," the influential black historian Cornel West wrote, "Jackie Robinson graphically symbolized and personified the challenge to the vicious legacy and ideology of white supremacy." Most Americans see Robinson strictly as a baseball figure. But if we restrict Robinson's influence to baseball, we do a disservice to both Robinson and the civil rights movement. Robinson deserves to be studied not apart from but with Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Brown v. Board of Education.

Robinson isn't just America's most important athlete, he is arguably its greatest athlete. He lettered in four sports at UCLA, winning conference honors in basketball and national recognition in football and track. Robinson is also the most heroic figure in American sports. According to Joseph Campbell, the great chronicler of myth, a hero must meet certain conditions: He must leave on a journey where he faces a series of tests and confrontations, learns through his suffering, and is ultimately redeemed.

This, in turn, leads to fulfillment. He becomes a hero by sacrificing himself for something bigger.
Robinson transformed American society. He sacrificed himself for something greater than himself. Nobody in sports ever had more at stake and no one ever suffered more. Robinson proved his mettle over and over, against beanings from opposing pitchers, savage spikings from opposing base runners, and death threats and the worst racist taunts imaginable from spectators. And yet he endured





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