Notes on Jackie Robinson

How do we define the personality of a hero? a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities (Hero) We also define a hero by the Heroes Journey Jackie Robinson was such a hero to me that I couldnt do anything but gawk at him (Aaron) With Jackie playing in the majors he helped out by giving white Americans black heroes with whom to identify (Sailer)

How do the setting, conflicts, and antagonists influence the development of literary heroes? He thrilled fans, shattered baseballs color barrier and changed the face of the nation (Aaron) Jackie Robinson broke organized baseball's color barrier with a characteristic bang (Sailer) Jackie playing in the Major Leagues is lumped together with the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education and the 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawing job discrimination. (Sailer) The integration of baseball preceded the civil rights by giving white Americans black heroes (Sailer) Government had nothing to do with this triumph in integrating organized baseball. (Sailer) In the liberal world-view, discrimination stems from prejudice of the actual talents of blacks. However the opposite was true, white major leaguers freely admitted that blacks could have taken white players jobs. (Sailer)

How does this hero help others? On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson became an inspiring figure in the civil rights movement when he became the first black man to play in major league baseball. (Goldstein) Robinsons triumphs evoked a sense of pride among black people and forced the rest of America to anew the doctrine of white supremacy. (Goldstein) The integration of baseball preceded the civil rights by giving white Americans black heroes (Sailer). Before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, African American kids weren't even allowed to think about being a professional baseball player. Hank Aaron once talked to his dad about playing professional baseball and his father said Aint no colored ballplayers. (Aaron) He took segregations threshold into a new land whose scenery made every black person stop and stare, they were all with Jackie. (Aaron) Black Preachers would call together congregations just to pray for Jackie (Aaron)

What obstacles does your hero face in his/her journey? In addition to racial tolerance, economic and other complex factors contributed to segregation in baseball. (Goldstein) A decade before Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott, two decades before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed I Have a Dream, a signature event in the struggle for racial equality, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in the MLB. (Goldstein) His own teammates got a petition to keep him off of the baseball team, the pitchers threw at him, the base runners who dug there spikes into his skin, bench jockeys who hollered for him to carry there things, and so-called fans who mocked him, and also people that wrote him death threats. (Aaron) As a lieutenant in the Army, he refused to sit in the back of a military bus when he was ordered to. (Aaron)

Later in his career he began the Great Experiment and other black players had joined him. He began striking and speaking back out. When Robinson spoke he made it clear that they weren't playing just for themselves or there team, but playing for their people. (Aaron) Even when he retired in 1956, Robinson still continued to clear the pathway that was far from being clear. Jackie campaigned for baseball to hire a Black third-base coach, then a black manager. Then in 1969 he refused an invitation to play in an old-timers game at Yankee Stadium as a protest of the lack of progress. (Aaron) Jackie instantly became the leagues biggest draw to all the games, with people coming to cheer and boo him. (Sailer) What did he do after or during his career to still be a hero?

Were any other races discriminated? Many other minority groups experienced the acceptance through Major League Baseball. Players of German descent, as well as French Canadians, Poles, Hungarians, Scandinavians and Indian descent were discriminated. (Rubinstein) Men of all ethnic backgrounds were welcomed into the Major League Baseball, with one exception, Black ball players werent accepted into the league until later (Rubinstein).

Why didnt blacks play in the MLB? Black Players played in the Minor Leagues until 1898, but by the end of the 19 th century, as racial segregation and the Jim Crow laws of the 1890s took hold (Rubinstein). There was no official rule for banning blacks from baseball, only an unwritten rule which no owner wanted to be first to break (Rubinstein). With the Jim Crow era down to the 1930s it would have been nearly impossible to have integrated, without violent backlash. (Rubinstein). Since blacks were banned from organized baseball they created there own leagues called the Negro National League (Robinson). Also white baseball players threatened strikes or violence against black rivals if integration happened, the most known person to have done this was Cap Anson. (Sailer) The banning of blacks came only once, in 1887 in the International League. The owners of the six all-white teams outvoted the owners of the four mixed teams and the blacks were driven out by gentlemens agreements (Sailer).