By Hasan Kwame Jeffries, The Ohio State University
Jackie Robinson was only 38 years old when he retired from baseball. A decade of big-league ball, the grind of the game, and the racism that he encountered had taken its toll on his body and spirit. Yet, not content to live in the shadow of his own stardom, he shifted his focus now on the impossible—securing freedom rights and racial justice for African Americans, especially economic opportunities and political participation.
Joe Louis
Robinson was inducted into the army four months after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He was sent to a cavalry unit at Fort Riley, Kansas. There, he met the Black boxer and American champion, Joe Louis, a sergeant who never saw combat. Instead, he fought hundreds of exhibitions in front of the troops, using his boxing skills and celebrity to boost morale. He was Captain America before there was a Captain America. But that didn’t mean he was blind to the injustices that African Americans faced.
“I hate Jim Crow. I hate disease. I hate the poll tax. I hate seeing people kept down because they are colored”, he said in a speech to the Southern Conference for Human Welfare in 1946. “I am not going to let this hate stay in my system, but I am going to help people fight Jim Crow and try to make this a better America. I am going to try to keep my punch in the ring as well as out of the ring.”
How Robinson Turned to Professional Sports
In1943, the army commissioned Robinson as a second lieutenant. Robinson believed deeply in military service, but he soured on the army after facing a bogus court-martial for drunken and disorderly conduct. Although Robinson was acquitted of the trumped-up charges, he wanted out of the military. In the fall of 1944, he received an honorable discharge.
In need of a job, Robinson turned to professional sports. Although he had not played organized baseball in five years, he tried out for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League. They signed him to a contract worth $400 a month.
The Negro Leagues were at their peak in the 1940s. The play was competitive and entertaining. As many as 3 million fans attended Negro League games in 1945, fully one-third the attendance of Major League baseball.
This article comes directly from content in the video series African American History: From Emancipation through Jim Crow. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
The Negro Leagues
Robinson played in 47 games for the Monarchs, batting 387. His stellar play earned him a spot on the Negro American League All-Stars, where he suited up alongside future Dodger teammate Roy Campanella in the 13th Annual East-West All-Star game, played before 33,000 fans at Comiskey Park in Chicago.
Robinson loved baseball, but life as a Negro Leaguer was hard. The pay was okay, but the travel—complicated by Jim Crow laws and customs—was arduous. So, when the Brooklyn Dodgers reached out after the 1945 season and offered him a minor league contract with their Montreal affiliate worth $600 a month, with a $3,500 signing bonus, he took the opportunity.
Facing Racist Treatment
Black sportswriters, like the Pittsburgh Courier’s intrepid Wendell Smith, had been clamoring for Major League baseball to desegregate for years. They piqued the interest of Dodgers general manager, Branch Rickey, a shrewd baseball mind who wasn’t going to let a 50-year-old gentleman’s agreement among white baseball owners to keep African Americans out of the game. In Robinson, he saw the right combination of athleticism, character, and mental toughness to make his scheme work.
And he was right. But it wasn’t easy. The racist taunts from white spectators, the opposition from white teammates, the spikes-high slides by opponents, the headhunting by pitchers, and the regular death threats began the moment Robinson arrived in Daytona Beach, Florida, for spring training in 1946. And the racist treatment continued through his first season in Brooklyn, which began when he ran onto the diamond at Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947.
“Plenty of times I wanted to haul off when somebody insulted me for the color of my skin, but I had to hold to myself,” Robinson said. “I knew I was kind of an experiment. The whole thing was bigger than me.”
Following His Passion
At the end of the 1956 season, the Dodgers announced that they were moving to Los Angeles, and Robinson announced that he was retiring from baseball.
When Robinson stepped away from the game, he too was an American icon, celebrated as the man who broke the color barrier in the game Americans loved the most. But Robinson was not content to live in the shadow of his own stardom. Baseball had been his profession, and he had excelled. But racial justice was his passion, and there was a tremendous amount of work that still needed to be done.
Robinson’s retirement signaled the beginning of an important new phase of his life, one that centered on securing freedom rights for African Americans, especially economic opportunities and political participation.
The Civil Rights Era
In this work, Robinson would not be alone. His retirement coincided with a surge in African American public protest in the Jim Crow South, a groundswell of grassroots activism that the nation could not ignore. The civil rights era had begun.
And the dramatic changes that this period was going to usher in would not going to be confined to the South or limited to the 1950s and 1960s. These changes would touch every corner of the country and extend into the present. They would transform Black life and make America a more just and equitable society.
Common Questions about Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson soured on the army after facing a bogus court-martial for drunken and disorderly conduct. Although Robinson was acquitted of the trumped-up charges, he wanted out of the military.
The racist taunts from white spectators, the opposition from white teammates, the spikes-high slides by opponents, the headhunting by pitchers, and the regular death threats began the moment Robinson arrived in Daytona Beach, Florida, for spring training in 1946. And the racist treatment continued through his first season in Brooklyn.
Jackie Robinson’s retirement signaled the beginning of an important new phase of his life, one that centered on securing freedom rights for African Americans, especially economic opportunities and political participation.
