At his induction, Robinson called up three people from the audience to stand with him as he accepted the honor: his mother, his wife, and Branch Rickey. Robinson’s respect and admiration for Rickey had never waned. He knew how important Rickey had been at helping blacks enter mainstream sports in the United States. When Rickey died in 1965, Robinson complained about the low number of blacks who had come to the funeral. According to The New York Times Book of Sport Legends, Robinson said, “I considered Mr. Rickey the greatest human being I had ever known.”
By the late 1960s Robinson had become bitterly disillusioned with both baseball and American society. He refused to attend baseball events to protest the failure to hire blacks in nonplaying capacities. In his 1972 autobiography, I Never Had It Made, he attacked the nation's waning commitment to racial equality. Later that year the commemoration of his major league debut led him to lift his boycott of baseball games. "I'd like to live to see a black manager," he told a nationwide television audience at the World Series on October 15, 1972. Nine days later he died of a heart attack. In 1997 major league baseball commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Robinson's breaking of the baseball color line by retiring his number 42 from every team.
Jack Roosevelt Robinson, born on January 31, 1919 was an American professional baseball player that shattered the color barrier at the time that challenged the baseball game. As the first African American to play in Major League Baseball, he saw his Dodgers team, refusing to stay at their hotel rooms because black people were not allowed to come in there and stay with them.
Robinson’s words made great impacts in the lives of the people and he said the following direct quotes;
1. "The right of every American to first-class citizenship is the most important issue of our time."
2. "The most luxurious possession, the richest treasure anybody has, is his personal dignity."
The poem 'Midway' is focused around the determination of African-American people and their attitude to never giving up. This poem discusses the struggles in life that black people went through, being treated like a commodity and being disrespected
