|
Jackie Robinson
| Biography |
Jackie Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia, on January 31, 1919. His parents were Jerry Robinson, a plantation farm worker, and Mallie, a domestic worker. There were five children in the Robinson family: Edgar, Frank, Mack, Willa Mae, and Jackie. Frankhis youngest brother's greatest fanand Edgar are no longer alive, but Mack and Willa Mae still live in Pasadena, California. Mack, Robinson's early role model, a worldclass sprinter, came in second to Jesse Owens in the 200yard dash in the 1936 Olympics. Jerry Robinson left his wife and children, never to return, when Jackie was six months old. When she was 30 and Jackie 13 months old, Mallie, a deeply religious woman who believed in the possibility of advancement for herself and her children, set out by railroad to start a new life in Pasadena. Mallie Robinson washed and ironed clothes for welltodo people and had to augment her meager earnings with welfare relief. Money was limited, but Jackie never felt deprived of her love and attention.
Despite the absence of some of the more arduous racial conditions of Georgia, Pasadena had similar restrictionsthe movies were segregated, African Americans could swim in the municipal pool and attend the YMCA only on designated days, and some eating places were closed to black people. From the teachings of his mother, however, Robinson learned important lessons of selfrespect and selfconfidence.
Carl Anderson, a neighborhood automobile mechanic, pointed Robinson in the right direction when the young boy engaged in petty misbehavior with his friends. Karl Downs, youthful minister of Robinson's Methodist church, paced the sidelines whenever his protégé was on the playing field and counseled him when his athletic, social, or academic life became burdensome. Encouraged by his mother and his mentors and by the exhilaration of successes in sports, Robinson turned more and more of his energies to the playing fields. |
|
|
|
|
