Jackie Robinson (Journey to Freedom)

This juvenile biography of Jackie Robinson, the man who broke the "color barrier" in baseball, is part of the excellent Journey to Freedom series produced by the African American Library. The story told by Tony De Marco begins with the story of Branch Rickey, who coached the 1904 Ohio Wesleyan University baseball team and watched the team's only black player face discrimination. Rickey vowed to fight racism, setting the stage for the singing of Robinson to a professional contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers half a century later. Students will find out about how, ironically, baseball was probably Robinson's worst sport. In high school and college he lettered in not only baseball but football, basketball and track as well. They will also learn of a famous episode when Robinson was in the army and was court-martialed for refusing to move to the back of a bus. But mostly they will learn about Robinson's distinguished baseball career and his involvement in the civil rights movement after his retirement. However, when students read more adult biographies of Robinson they will discover that this particular volume understates the overt racism that confronted Robinson. I hope that in reading this book, students get an idea of why Jackie Robinson was picked by Branch Rickey to be the first black player in the Major Leagues, because it was as much a question of character and temperament as it was ability on the diamond. For me the two most important sports figures of the 20th-century have always been Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson; everybody else is on a lower plateau than that pair of iconic figures.