Thanks Jackie!

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A decade before Rosa Parks and the Mont­gomery bus boy­cott, two decades before Dr. Mar­tin Luther King Jr. pro­claimed “I Have a Dream,” a sig­na­ture event in the strug­gle for racial equal­i­ty unfold­ed far from Dix­ie.

On the after­noon of April 15, 1947, Jack­ie Robin­son emerged as an inspir­ing fig­ure in the civ­il rights move­ment when he became the first black man to play major league base­ball in the 20th cen­tu­ry, mak­ing his debut with the Brook­lyn Dodgers against the Boston Braves at Ebbets Field.

Robin­son’s tri­umphs in the face of big­otry evoked a sense of pride among black peo­ple and forced the rest of Amer­i­ca to con­sid­er anew the doc­trine of white suprema­cy.

~Richard Gold­stein

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