Jackie Robinson: The Man, The Player, The Folk Hero

Graduate

Jackie Robinson was born in Cairo Georgia, in January 1919 into a sharecropping family, and was quickly transported (age one,) with his 4 brothers and sisters, by his mother to Pasadena, California. There he was raised and went to high school and then UCLA. By the time he died early (of diabetes) at age 53 in October 1972 he had become one of the most famous and honored Americans. Posthumously he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. When Jackie was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, in 1962, the first Black man to be voted in, it was Martin Luther King who gave one of the celebratory speeches at the Waldorf Astoria, where he declared, "All of us Negroes, Jackie, stand on your shoulders." When President Dwight Eisenhauer was thrown a large party celebrating his Election victory, in the ballroom of the Waldorf, and he heard that Jackie Robinson was there, he wanted to meet him, and instead of one of his handlers bringing Jackie over to the President, normal protocol, Eisenhower said no, he'd walk over himself. He did, and, tapping Jackie on the shoulder, he said, "Hello Jackie, I am delighted to meet you in person." Such was the magnetic power and national importance of Jackie Robinson, who was already moving from baseball player to civil rights icon. Jackie was the first black man to break the all white barrier of the Major Leagues, in 1947. Immediately he excelled in the white Big Leagues, despite being subject to open racism and vile insults on and off the field, earning Rookie of the year Award. Thus began his amazing 10 year career with the Brooklyn Dodgers, culminating in Brooklyn winning the World Series for the first time in 1955, and earning the huge admiration of all of Brooklyn, and the nation as well. Now, who was this unusual man? How did his play on the field excel, and make him a unique sort of great player? How did he go from his success in football and basketball and long jump, his first three sports, to becoming one of the two greatest second basemen of all time? How was he able to produce the most exciting baseball of his era and beyond, on the field? How did he—and later Willie Mays—transform the dull routine game of baseball into a truly exciting sport? And how did he transform himself from a beloved baseball player into a true folk hero in Brooklyn culture, and beyond? All of this will be investigated in this course, using books, a few movies, You Tube sequences, the professor's own knowledge of the game, and his own personal viewings of his games in Ebbets Field in 1947 especially. (Plus his memorable meetings with Jackie when he was a boy.)