Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born the youngest of five children near Cairo, Georgia on January 31, 1919.  Soon afterwards, his sharecropper father left the family.  His mother, Mallie McGriff Robinson, then moved the family to Pasadena, California to find work as a domestic.  Jackie Robinson excelled in four sports at Pasadena's John Muir Technical High: football, basketball, baseball and track. He went on to

Pasadena Junior College, where he set a National Junior College record in the long jump of 25' 6 1/2" before accepting an athletic scholarship to UCLA.  There, he became the first Bruin athlete to earn varsity letters in four sports.

Robinson left UCLA in the spring of 1941 hoping to work to support his mother. Several months later, Pearl Harbor was bombed, and Robinson enlisted in the U.S. Army.  He completed Officer Candidate School and received a commission as a Second Lieutenant. Robinson faced a court-martial in 1944 for refusing to move to the rear of an army bus.  He was cleared of all charges and shortly afterwards received an honorable discharge from the army.

Jackie Robinson joined professional baseball in the spring of 1945 with  the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League.  He spent his rookie season touring the country with the Monarchs for $400 a month. In August he met with Branch Rickey, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who had been scouring the country to find a black ball player he felt could best withstand the pressure of being the first black man in the major leagues.  Jackie Robinson crossed the threshold into white professional baseball at that meeting signing a minor league contract with the Dodgers' farm club, the Montreal Royals.

The following season Jackie Robinson was promoted to the Brooklyn Dodgers.  He entered the history books on April 15 as the Dodgers opened the 1947 season against the Boston Braves at Ebbets Field.  In his first season he hit for a .296 average and was selected Rookie of the Year. Robinson won the batting title in 1949 with an outstanding .346 batting average.  He was voted the League's Most Valuable Player and led the Dodgers to the World Series.

Jackie Robinson, over a 10-year major league career, had a lifetime batting average of .311.  He appeared in six All-Star Games and six World Series with the Dodgers.  He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.

Jackie Robinson died in 1972 at the young age of 53. His legacy is the inspiration he gives to athletes and people of all colors.  His pathbreaking entry into the major leagues, seven years before the US Supreme Court's ruling on Brown vs. Board of Education, stands as a brilliant symbol of America's struggle with racism and the hope of racial harmony.

"I know that I am a black man in a white world. . . I know that I never had it made."  -  Jackie Robinson

"Although he did not get a hit in three official times at bat, Jackie Robinson, first Negro to play in modern big-league ball, signalized his official debut as a Dodger by sprinting home with the deciding run ..." - Los Angeles Times, April 16, 1947

"It was just another ball game and that's the way they're all going to be.  If I make good- well that will be perfectly wonderful."  -  Jackie Robinson, quoted in the Sporting News, April 23, 1947.