Jackie Robinson

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Jackie Robinson : biography

31 January 1919 – 24 October 1972

Assessing himself, Robinson said, "I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me … all I ask is that you respect me as a human being." Regarding Robinson’s qualities on the field, Leo Durocher said, "Ya want a guy that comes to play. This guy didn’t just come to play. He come to beat ya. He come to stuff the goddamn bat right up your ass.", quoting

Portrayals on stage, film and television

Robinson portrayed himself in the 1950 motion picture The Jackie Robinson Story. Other portrayals include:

  • John Lafayette, in the 1978 ABC television special "A Home Run for Love" (broadcast as an ABC Afterschool Special).
  • David Alan Grier, in the 1981 Broadway production of the musical The First.
  • Andre Braugher, in the 1990 TNT television movie The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson.
  • Blair Underwood, in the 1996 HBO television movie Soul of the Game.
  • Antonio Todd in the Cold Case episode "Colors" (2005). .
  • Chadwick Boseman, in the 2013 motion picture 42.Gregory, Sean (February 21, 2013). . Time.

Post-baseball life

Robinson retired from baseball on January 5, 1957. Later that year, after he complained of numerous physical ailments, his doctors diagnosed Robinson with diabetes, a disease that also afflicted his brothers.Rampersad, pp. 319–320. Although Robinson adopted an insulin injection regimen, the state of medicine at the time could not prevent continued deterioration of Robinson’s physical condition from the disease.Rampersad, p. 320.

In his first year of eligibility for the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962, Robinson encouraged voters to consider only his on-field qualifications, rather than his cultural impact on the game. He was elected on the first ballot, becoming the first black player inducted into the Cooperstown museum.

In 1965, Robinson served as an analyst for ABC’s Major League Baseball Game of the Week telecasts, the first black person to do so. In 1966, Robinson was hired as general manager for the short-lived Brooklyn Dodgers of the Continental Football League. In 1972, he served as a part-time commentator on Montreal Expos telecasts.

On June 4, 1972, the Dodgers retired his uniform number, 42, alongside those of Roy Campanella (39) and Sandy Koufax (32). From 1957 to 1964, Robinson was the vice president for personnel at Chock full o’Nuts; he was the first black person to serve as vice president of a major American corporation. Robinson always considered his business career as advancing the cause of black people in commerce and industry.Long, p. 174. Robinson also chaired the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) million-dollar Freedom Fund Drive in 1957, and served on the organization’s board until 1967. In 1964, he helped found, with Harlem businessman Dunbar McLaurin, Freedom National Bank—a black-owned and operated commercial bank based in Harlem. He also served as the bank’s first Chairman of the Board.Robinson, Rachel, p. 190. In 1970, Robinson established the Jackie Robinson Construction Company to build housing for low-income families.Falkner, p. 340.

Robinson was active in politics throughout his post-baseball life. He identified himself as a political independent,Robinson, p. 139.Long, p. 43. although he held conservative opinions on several issues, including the Vietnam War (he once wrote Martin Luther King, Jr. to defend the Johnson Administration’s military policy).Long, pp. 255–257. After supporting Richard Nixon in his 1960 presidential race against John F. Kennedy, Robinson later praised Kennedy effusively for his stance on civil rights.Long, pp. 171–172. Robinson was angered by conservative Republican opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He became one of six national directors for Nelson Rockefeller’s unsuccessful campaign to be nominated as the Republican candidate for the 1964 presidential election. After the party nominated Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona instead, Robinson left the party’s convention commenting that he now had "a better understanding of how it must have felt to be a Jew in Hitler’s Germany". He later became special assistant for community affairs when Rockefeller was re-elected governor of New York in 1966. Switching his allegiance to the Democrats, he subsequently supported Hubert Humphrey against Nixon in 1968.