English 1
Mr. Underhill
15 Dec. 2015
The Life and Times of Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson began his sports career in high school, playing sports like track, basketball and football (“The Life of Jackie Robinson”). Jackie suffered many injustices during his professional career, but kept playing anyways. After he retired, Jackie was involved in many civil rights movements. Jackie’s legacy will always be remembered and honored. Jackie Robinson was an outstanding baseball player, an amazing civil rights leader, and an American hero. Jackie Robinson’s love, bravery and determination changed baseball and all other sports forever by breaking the color barrier .
Jackie Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia, January 31, 1919, where …show more content…
He was drafted to play for a semi-professional football team, called the Honolulu Bears. Short into the season, Robinson had to leave his football team for military reasons, that he had to do (“Jackie Robinson Biography). Robinson was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942, which ended up being WWII (Obias). Robinson ended up serving as a second lieutenant, but never saw combat. During his training and bootcamp for the U.S. Army, Robinson was arrested after refusing to move his seat in a segregated bus. Fortunately after this happened, Jackie was honorable discharged from the Army. A little bit after returning home from the army, Jackie met his near future wife Rachel Islum. Soon after they met, in 1946 Jackie Robinson and Rachel Islum got married …show more content…
He was a major supporter of the National Conference of Christians and Jews and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Jackie was successful in many business ventures such as becoming the Vice President of Chock Full O’ Nuts, Co-founding Freedom National Bank and the Jackie Robinson construction company (Long). Around age 52 he started to lose feeling in his legs and developed heart problems both related to his diabetes. When Jackie was 53 he died of a heart attack on October 24, 1972. He was given the medal of freedom in 1984 and the congressional gold medal in 2005 (Obias). His number “42” was permanently retired from baseball in 1997