Quote 1: "I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being."
Quote 2: "There's not an American in this country free until every one of us is free."
1.) the first baseball player to break Major League Baseball's color barrier that segregated the sport for more than 50 years.
2.) Jackie went to UCLA and became the first athlete to win varsity letters in four sports: baseball, basketball, football and track.
3.) Jackie left college to enroll into the army but he's army career was cut short when he was court-martialed in relation to his objections with incidents of racial discrimination.
4.) In 1945, Jackie played one season in the Negro Baseball League, traveling all over the Midwest with the Kansas City Monarchs
5.) In 1947, Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey approached Jackie about joining the Brooklyn Dodgers.
6.) Jackie "courageously challenged the deeply rooted" custom of racial segregation in both the North and the South.
7.) In 1997, the world celebrated the 50th Anniversary of Jackie's breaking Major League Baseball's color barrier. In doing so, we honored the man who stood defiantly against those who would work against racial equality and acknowledged the profound influence of one man's life on the American culture.