Jackie Robinsn: A man who Changed America Essay -- essays research pap

Jackie Robinson made one of the most daring moves by playing Major League baseball. The amount of pain and suffering this man went through was so harsh that I don't know how he was able to play. Carl Erskine said,"Maybe I see Jackie differently. You say he broke the color line. But I say he didn't break anything. Jackie was a healer. He came to rectify a wrong, to heal a sore in America"(Dorinson back cover). Jackie was born January thirty-first 1919. Shortly after he was born, his father deserted his family. Almost a year after that, Jackie's uncle came to visit and convinced his family to move to California with him. The whole family moved out there with his uncle. They moved to Pasadena,California. The neighborhood they moved into was mostly a white neighborhood. The white people did not want them in the neighborhood. They would criticize Jackie and his family. When he was about eight years old, he had learned to stand up for himself and answer back when the occasion demanded. Jackie went to Muir Tech. High School. At high school is where he began to get interested in sports. He competed in football, baseball, basketball, and track. He was a good player in every sport. During high school, college recruiters failed to pay attention to him. He didn't receive any scholorship, so he decided to go to Pasadena Junior College. Pasadena Junior College is where Jackie began to get noticed for his athletic abilities. He set many records in track, baseball, and football. Babe Horrel wanted to recruit Jackie from Pasadena Junior College. One of the best athletes on the West Coast(Tygiel 27) After two years at Pasadena Junior College, he transfered to UCLA. Jackie went here so his brother, Frank would be able to attend most of the games. His brother never did get to see a game because he died in a motocycle accident. At UCLA, Jackie lettered in four sports in one year. He was the first player to do that. He played track, baseball, basketball, and football. ... ...id become friends with him. It was his teammate Peewee Reese. Reese was a white man that played shortstop for the Dodgers. During one game, Jackie mad a diving catch to win the game for the Dodgers. Jackie got hurt on the play. Reese goes over to second base to make sure Jackie was alright. No one else came over to see if he was alright. It showed a lot of courage for Reese to do that. Reese took a lot of crap for doing it but he didn't care. Thus in eight years America's most prominent national sport moved from a tradition of seventy years discrimination to almost complere intergration(Tygiel 156). The big step of Jackie joining major league baseball changed everything in sports and life. He was a civil rights leader just like Martin Luther King Jr. He made the big step to show that it's not impossible to get things to be equal.We should all be very thankful for what Jackie Robinson has done. He didn't give into fear and run away from the challenge of breaking the color barrier. He took the challenge and conquered it. He changed the history of baseball and the rest of life. He helped the blacks become equal to the white race.