Jackie Robinson Biography Essay

763 Words4 Pages

Before Jackie Robinson made a difference, he went through many of rough times. He was forced to leave college due to his financial problems. This is when Jackie Robinson made a decision to enlist in the United States Army. After being in the army for 2 years, they discharged him due to racial incidents that kept occurring. Robinson and his family received many of death threats. African Americans and whites were separated into different leagues in baseball. Robinson played on the Negro League. Branch Rickey, who was the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, chose Robinson to play for their team because they wanted to put an end to segregation. Many of team players for the Dodgers signed a petition hoping it would be accepted and Robinson would …show more content…

He was the youngest of the five children. Jackie Robinson was not raised in a wealthy family. He was raised by his mother who had very little money. Robinson attended John Muir High School and then transferred to Junior College. Throughout Robinson's high school years he played many of sports. Baseball, basketball, track and played the sport he loves the most, baseball. Robinson was very good in baseball and was given the title "Most Valuable Player" in 1938. Robinson was very independent growing up and learned not to rely on others. He always looked up to his older brother Matthew who inspired him. Matthew won a silver medal in the Olympic Games located in Berlin in the 200- meter dash. In 1926 Robinson married Rachel Isum, he met her at UCL. He then had three children Jackie Jr., Sharon, and David. Rachel supported him throughout his baseball career. On October 24, 1972, Robinson died from a heart attack in North Stamford, Connecticut at the age of …show more content…

He had to have these qualities in order to achieve his goal of stopping racism. His whole career started when he was founded by the manager of the New York Brooklyn Dodgers’, Branch Rickey. Robinson had been playing shortstop on the Negro League’s Kansas City Monarch, and this is how Ricky found him. Branch Rickey was only looking for a black player because he secretly wanted to combine races to play on the major leagues together. Rickey couldn’t just let Robinson on the team just like that though; he wanted to see how good he was. Jackie played for Montreal now. Robinson ended up being the best on the team with his batting and running skills and because of him, they won the pennant in 1946. This showed how excellent of a player he was and after this, Jackie was invited to play in the major leagues for the Brooklyn Dodgers. The first step in order to prove to everyone that he was capable of staying on the Brooklyn Dodgers; he had to face the racism, which was very hard for him to do because Jackie is one to stand up for himself. Rickey tried to talk to Robinson and motivate him about trying to get through this tough time. This was the only way their plan would work. (New Georgia Encyclopedia) Jackie faced people screaming hateful comments at him while he would be on the field, and fans would also throw things. As hard as it was for him, he had to ignore it and not fight back. By doing this, Jackie showed