At the 75th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the MLB color barrier, icons of the civil rights movement, music and sports recount Robinson's impact on their lives -- and our society.
"He helped us to ascend, from misery to hope, on the muscles of his arms and the meaning of his life."He steps gingerly and requires assistance.But as he copes with Parkinson's disease, he's eager and insightful, expansive and inspiring.
"He set the pace for the race and time immemorial," is how Jackson describes the impetus and impact of Robinson's courage and success."He made Blacks speaking out with authority more acceptable."Jackie Robinson, as I see it," says Ruby Bridges,"is the father pretty much of the civil rights movement."
"It didn't hit me until then. I realized then how historical and how much this meant to so many people. It was an amazing experience." "And the coach comes up and he just said, 'Hey, you can't stay here,'" says Robertson."I'm what, 17, 18 years old. I thought he meant the whole team couldn't stay there. So he said, 'No, no, they don't want you in this hotel.'
"I fought because I had to, not because I wanted to," adds the Fredericton, New Brunswick native."I never fought one time because of racial remarks or racial slurs. Aa a teenager, O'Ree thought his game might be baseball, and he and his youth team even got to meet Robinson on a trip to Brooklyn's Ebbets Field in 1949. Robinson seemed surprised, recalls O'Ree, to learn a Black kid was interested in hockey -- and he counseled O'Ree to"work hard and stay focused" at whatever sport he chose to play.
Then a 1997 ESPN"Outside the Lines" documentary,"Breaking the Line: Jackie Robinson's Legacy," revealed through interviews with 93 of Robinson's 107 living former National League opponents that players throughout the league were voting on whether to stage an opening day strike -- and that the clandestine plans for a walkout only unraveled at the last minute.
Robinson's son, David, says throughout the physical and psychological torment his father endured on and off the field, he drew strength from remembering his roots. Former Dodgers teammates of Robinson's, like Joe Black, Roy Campanella, Jim Gilliam and Don Newcombe, schooled Dusty Baker on what Robinson had to surmount, when Baker was an L.A. outfielder in the late 1970s. A few years earlier, Baker saw his Atlanta Braves teammate Hank Aaron go through unending hatred as he pursued and surpassed Babe Ruth's home run record.
Jazz performer, composer and teacher Bobby Bradford was also a military man and says Robinson is a hero to him for defeating hate and thriving under unimaginable pressure. A giant of a different musical genre, hip hop, credits Robinson's determination and defiance as providing the underpinning for some of his groundbreaking work.
A love of baseball and of Robinson comes to Chuck D, he says, from his father for whom the Dodgers and Robinson were number one, as they were for many Black families of the era. When Robinson died, Chuck D was 12, and he says his passing drew him still closer to the sport. "I said, 'Dad, I'm swamped. I can't get out.' But looking back on his death, three days later, I could feel that if I had gone that I would've heard some words of a father who knew that his health was not good, that he was soon to be passing and that he wanted to spend an afternoon with his son. So my words to all sons and daughters, grandkids included, 'spend time, learn from, be with your elders and look back on what their objectives were.
"Jackie Robinson inspired me as a child and as an adult to keep going and to keep fighting prejudice," says King. Rachel Robinson called Jesse Jackson early in the morning on Oct. 24, 1972, soon after her husband's passing at age 53. The Robinsons knew Jackson personally for nearly a decade and now she was asking him to fulfill her late husband's wish to have him preach at his funeral.
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