Jackson Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson was born in 1919, into a poor family of sharecroppers in segregated Georgia. His father abandoned the family a few months later. His mother took Jackie and his older brothers and sister to Pasadena, California, where he was raised outside of the Jim Crow environment of the South.
He was a star high school athlete, went to Pasadena City (Junior) College for two years, and then transferred to UCLA. He became the first four-sport varsity letterman there.
During World War II, he became one of the first African-Americans to go through the Officer Cadet School, in the still-segregated Army. All of these life experiences prepared him for his greatest challenger yet - breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball.
This film, "42" (Robinson's jersey number) is about Jackie's experiences in 1946 and 1947, when he was brought up from the AAA Montreal affiliate of the Brooklyn Dodgers, to become the first black man to play in the majors since the 1880s.
Today, we don't think twice about blacks in professional sports. That's because of Jackie Robinson. We don't see "White Only" or "Colored" signs over public bathrooms and drinking fountains anymore. That's because segregation began to crumble in 1947.
A key scene in the film occurs early on, when Branch Rickey, owner of the Dodgers franchise, ask Robinson if he is willing to take the level of abuse that will inevitably come from the public, opposing teams, and even players on his own team.
Jackie Robinson: You want a player who doesn't have the guts to fight back?
Branch Rickey: No. I want a player who's got the guts not to fight back.
Jackie Robinson: You give me a uniform, you give me a number on my back, I'll give you the guts.
That's the type of man Jackie Robinson was. And we are all the better for it.
The film stars Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson, and Nicole Beharie as his wife, Rachel. Harrison Ford plays Branch Rickey.
I am old enough to remember seeing "Colored" signs. I went to high school for two years in Texas, and it was the beginning of integration through busing. I had grown up in California, in a racially diverse community, and the shadows of Jim Crow in Texas still shocked me. But, since the 1970s, society has overcome much of the vile racism that then existed. In the same way, a more enlightened generation is going to grow up, and the barriers that face us are going to crumble. Sometimes it just takes a person of courage and determination to knock down the walls.
