La Vida Baseball ¡LIVE!: Jackie Robinson on MLK
On a very special episode of La Vida Baseball ¡LIVE!, Julie, Jennifer, and Ozzie Jr. discuss the relationship between the Jackie Robinson, the first MLB player to break the color barrier, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Both men were committed to the idea that peaceful, persistent protest could move mountains. Dr. King stood in awe of Robinson's bravery in the face of almost unrelenting animosity and physical violence from fans, opposing players, even from within his own clubhouse. And Robinson admired the thoughtful leadership Dr. King employed to rally people across the nation to the cause of equality and justice for all.
On the occasion of the Dr. King's assassination, Jackie Robinson wrote an elegiac op-ed for the New York Amsterdam News explaining just what he meant to a people hungry for fair treatment and what was lost on April, 4 1968 on a balcony in Memphis, TN.