Welcome to PEOPLE IN AMERICA, a program in Special English on the Voice of
America. Today Shirley Griffith and Rich Kleinfeldt tell about a man who
changed professional baseball in the United States. Jackie Roosevelt Robinson
was the first black man to play in modern major league baseball.
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VOICE ONE:
After World War Two, many Americans still believed that people of different
races should not mix. In some parts of the country, blacks and whites lived
in separate areas and went to separate schools. Blacks who tried to change
the system risked being beaten or killed.
Blacks were not permitted to play on professional baseball teams or in any
other major league sport. No black man had played for a major league baseball
team since Eighteen-Eighty-Four. In that year, American baseball
organizations agreed to bar blacks. That began changing when Jackie Robinson
played his first game for New York's Brooklyn Dodgers on April Fifteenth,
Nineteen-Forty-Seven.
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VOICE TWO:
Jackie Robinson grew up in a family of five children in Pasadena, California,
near Los Angeles. His father had left. His mother did not earn much money, so
Jackie Robinson learned to make his own way in life. It was in California
that Jackie Robinson first learned the ugliness of racial hatred. White
families who did not want to live near them repeatedly tried to force them to
move away.
Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson established himself early as an athlete. He was a star player
while attending the University of California at Los Angeles.
Jackie won honors in baseball, basketball, football and track. He was named
to the All-American football team. He was considered the best athlete on
America's west coast.
Jackie Robinson left college early because of financial problems. He joined
the United States Army in Nineteen-Forty-One, during the second World War. He
became a lieutenant after boxing champion Joe Louis pushed for Robinson to be
trained as an officer. However, after three years, Robinson was dismissed
from the army because he objected to a racial order. He refused to move to
the back of a bus.
VOICE ONE:
In Nineteen-Forty-Five, there were not many jobs open to a black man, even
someone who had attended college. Robinson wanted to play professional
baseball. Blacks, however, were not permitted to play in the major leagues.
So, he decided to play with the Negro Baseball League. The Negro League teams
were started in the Nineteen-Twenties to give black people a place to play
baseball.
Many of the best baseball players in the United States played in the Negro
Leagues before white professional teams began accepting black players. The
skills and records of black ball players were as good as major league white
players. It was a hard life for Negro League players. They took long trips by
bus. They changed clothes in farmhouses and shared bath water with teammates.
Many eating places did not serve food to blacks. They had to eat outside or
on the road. And they were not permitted to sleep at hotels for whites. Many
players slept on the bus.
VOICE TWO:
Jackie Robinson played for the Kansas City Monarchs. It was one of the most
famous baseball teams in the Negro League. But, he was unhappy in the Negro
League because of the difficult life there. In a statement from the book
“The History of Baseball, Nineteen-Oh-Seven,” actor Ossie Davis expresses
hope for change in the sport.
OSSIE DAVIS: "Baseball should be taken seriously by the colored player -- and
in this effort of his great ability will open the avenue in the near future
wherein he may walk hand in hand with the opposite race in the greatest of
all American games -- baseball."
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VOICE ONE:
In Nineteen-Forty-Five, Jackie Robinson signed an agreement with Branch
Rickey to play for the Dodgers. Rickey was president of the team. He wanted
to find a black player who could deal with the insults and racial pressure he
would face in the league. He wanted a black player who would show restraint
at all times. Rickey thought Jackie Robinson was good enough as a player and
strong enough as a person to succeed. He made Robinson promise that he would
never show his anger on the baseball field. Jackie Robinson accepted that
condition. He said:
