- Born
- Died
- Birth nameJack Roosevelt Robinson
- Height5′ 11″ (1.80 m)
- Jackie Robinson is an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he started at first base for the The Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. When the Dodgers signed Robinson, they heralded the end of racial segregation in professional baseball that had relegated black players to the Negro leagues since the 1880s. Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.
- IMDb mini biography by: Tango Papa
- SpouseRachel Robinson(February 10, 1946 - October 24, 1972) (his death, 3 children)
- His number 42 jersey, which was retired by all major league teams in his honor
- Cool, confident personality
- Jackie's third child, David, lives in Africa where he operates a coffee farm with his wife and children.
- As a lieutenant in the US Army during World War II, Robinson faced a court-martial in 1944 for refusing to move to the rear of an army bus (he was cleared of all charges and received an honorable discharge).
- Was virtually blind and facing leg amputations at the time of his death as a result of complications from diabetes.
- Active Republican who was fiercely anti-Communist, but liberal on many other issues. He supported Nelson Rockefeller for president in 1964. He did support, however, Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey in 1968 over Richard Nixon.
- Starred in baseball, basketball, football and track at UCLA.
- Baseball was just a part of my life. Thank God that I didn't allow a sport or a business or any part of my life to dominate me completely. I felt that I had my time in athletics and that was it.
- Civil rights is not by any means the only issue that concerns me - nor, I think any other Negro. As Americans, we have as much at stake in this country as anyone else. But since effective participation in a democracy is based upon enjoyment of basic freedoms that everyone else takes for granted, we need make no apologies for being especially interested in catching up on civil rights.
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