Jackie Robinson

1919–1972 · First Black player in modern Major League Baseball

Jack Roosevelt Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s colour line when he started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers on 15 April 1947, and went on to win the inaugural Rookie of the Year Award that season and the National League MVP in 1949. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962, his first year of eligibility. After baseball he was a businessman, newspaper columnist and outspoken civil rights advocate; he died of a heart attack on 24 October 1972, aged 53, in the same month his autobiography I Never Had It Made was published — Kirkus gives Putnam’s publication date as 25 October, the day after his death, and Newsday serialised the book that November.

Traced to source

3 quotes we’ve traced to Jackie Robinson

“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives”

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“I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag. I know that I am a black man in a white world”

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“I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me. All I ask is that you respect me as a human being”

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