Robinson said it in 1954 on a plane, to a baseball umpire who had known him since his 1946 minor-league season and who had just told him, “I liked you much better when you were less aggressive.” He printed the exchange himself in Baseball Has Done It (Lippincott, 1964) — the two famous sentences open a much longer answer that ends “I am not an Uncle Tom. I am in this fight to stay.”
“I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me. All I ask is that you respect me as a human being” Jackie Robinson, replying to an umpire in 1954, published in his book Baseball Has Done It (Lippincott, 1964). Verified at Quotle.info
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In context
Evoking the world of Jackie Robinson — Brooklyn Dodgers, 1947–1956 · Baseball Hall of Fame, 1962. Theme: "I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me. All I ask is that you respect me as a human being". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
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Provenance
Where it comes from
Work
Baseball Has Done It
Published
Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1964; edited by Charles Dexter; 216 pp.
Occasion
A 1954 plane conversation with an umpire who had known Robinson since 1946
Page
pp. 9–10, per Wikiquote’s citation
“What’s made you change your attitude, Jackie? I liked you much better when you were less aggressive.”
“I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me. All I ask is that you respect me as a human being. I am not ashamed of my dark skin. You and every other white American should understand that we believe our color is an asset. Your dislike of my aggressiveness has no effect on me. I’m after something much more important than your favor or disfavor. You should at least admit that you respect me as a man who stands up for what he believes in. I am not an Uncle Tom. I am in this fight to stay.”
English Wikiquote ↗ carries the full passage in its sourced Quotes section, with the note that Robinson was “Responding, circa 1954, to an umpire who had known him 8 years before… as quoted in Baseball Has Done It (1964) by Robinson, pp. 9–10.”
The Harvard Crimson’s 1972 tribute ↗ reproduces the exchange in full and supplies the setting: “Jackie Robinson boarded a plane with an umpire who had known him since 1946 when Robinson was a rookie in the International League.”
Open Library’s search-inside index ↗ returns the paragraph from inside two scanned copies of Baseball has done it by Jackie Robinson, confirming the book itself contains the wording rather than only later quote books.
The Open Library edition record ↗ gives the bibliographic detail: Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1964, 216 pages, “by Jackie Robinson; edited by Charles Dexter.”
Baseball Has Done It was first published by Lippincott in Philadelphia in 1964, so the text remains under United States copyright; it is not public domain. The book was reissued in 2005 by Ig Publishing, and it is that edition the Internet Archive lends ↗. The lines are quoted here for identification and comment.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
What usually goes wrong
The attribution is right — these are Robinson’s words. What travels badly is when and to whom he said them, and how much of the answer gets left out.
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Wrong year, wrong listener“Said to his Brooklyn Dodgers teammates in 1947” mis-dated
Simple English Wikiquote ↗ labels it “Statement to teammates on the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947,” citing The Impact and Legacy Years, 1941, 1947, 1968 (2000) by Fred Pulis, p. 100; Libquotes ↗ repeats the same framing but cites p. 20 of the same book. Robinson’s own account puts the words in 1954, addressed to an umpire — and in 1947 he was still keeping his promise to Branch Rickey not to answer back at all.
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No source at allQuote aggregators unsourced
Goodreads ↗ prints the two sentences with no source whatever, under its own notice that “Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads.” PassItOn ↗ credits only “Jackie Robinson, Major League Baseball player, civil rights activist.”
~
Wording driftThe dash-and-ellipsis version reworded
Reprints commonly punch the line up as “disliking me — all I ask…” (PassItOn ↗) or trail it off with an ellipsis, which is also how dozens of books indexed by Open Library ↗ carry it. In the source it is two flat declarative sentences, and it does not stop there.
✓Genuine Robinson, in his own book: a 1954 reply to an umpire, published in Baseball Has Done It (Lippincott, 1964) and cited to pp. 9–10 by Wikiquote ↗ — and the sentence everyone stops at is the first of eight.
Context
Why he was being asked at all
Robinson had spent his first three seasons keeping a bargain. Before signing him, Branch Rickey had acted out the abuse to come and asked whether he could take it without fighting back. “I didn’t think I could,” Robinson remembered. “I didn’t see why I should.” He did it anyway — and then Rickey released him from it: “You’ve earned the right to be yourself, Jackie.”
What followed was a louder, sharper Robinson, and not everyone welcomed it. On a plane in 1954 an umpire who had known him since his 1946 season in the International League asked what had changed. The answer was not a plea to be liked. It was a refusal of the whole premise — and it ends, past the part that fits on a poster, with “I am not an Uncle Tom. I am in this fight to stay.”
I’m after something much more important than your favor or disfavor.
How the line reached print
Robinson published the exchange himself, ten years after it happened, in Baseball Has Done It — a book built mostly from his interviews with Black and Afro-Latino players about integration. The retort sits in the opening pages as a framing incident, not as an aphorism.
Because the record is Robinson’s own recollection rather than a contemporaneous transcript, the umpire is never named and the date is given only as 1954. That is as precise as the evidence goes; anything more specific circulating online is invention.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1919–1972 · Brooklyn Dodgers, 1947–1956 · Baseball Hall of Fame, 1962
Jack Roosevelt Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s color line with the Brooklyn Dodgers, played his whole big-league career in Brooklyn from 1947 to 1956, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1962. For his first three seasons he kept a promise to Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey not to fight back; once Rickey told him — in the Crimson’s account — “You’ve earned the right to be yourself, Jackie,” he became one of the most outspoken Black public figures in America. That change is exactly what the umpire on the 1954 flight was complaining about, and exactly what Robinson refused to apologise for.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Primary source
Jackie Robinson, Baseball Has Done It, ed. Charles Dexter (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1964), 9–10 (page numbers per Wikiquote's citation); the exchange is also reproduced in "Jackie Robinson," The Harvard Crimson, 31 October 1972.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me. All I ask is that you respect me as a human being’?” Last verified 25 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/im-not-concerned-with-your-liking-or-disliking-me-all-i-ask/