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- To start things off, Jackie Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia during the time of 1919 to a sharecropping family. He moved to Pasadena, California, with his mother Mallie in the time of 1920. He had excelled in five sports at Muir High School, and had played basketball, baseball, and football at UCLA. While he was at UCLA he had met a young girl named Rachel Islum, who had ended up to be his future wife. But, he had to leave college for financial reasons in 1941. He had joined the Army in 1942, which he had an altercation with authorites over discrimination and was honorabaly discharged in 1944.
Jackie was the youngest of five children after sibling Edgar, Frank, Matthew, and Willie Mae. His middle name was in honor of the former President Theodore Roosevely who died in 25 days after the birth of Robinson. Growing up in the relative poverty in an otherwise affluent community, Robinson and his "coloured" friends were excluded from many recreational activites. And to result to this unfair attitude, Robinson ended up joining a neighborhood gang, but his good friend Carl Anderson persuaded him to abandon it. In 1935, Robinsoin had graduated from Washington Junior High School and enrolled at John Muir High School. Recognizing his athletic talents, Robinson's older brothers Mack and Frank inspired Jackie to pursue his interest in sports. At Muir Tech, Robinson played several different sports and at the varsity level of the following, Football, Basketball, Track, and Baseball. 
The Army In 1942, Robinson was drafted and assigned to a segregated Army cavalry unit in For Riley, Kansas. Robinson and severaly other "coloured" soldiers applied for admission to an Officer Candidate School that was located at Fort Riley. Even though the Army policy had allowed "coloured" applicants to enter the (OCS) since July 1941, the applicants of Robinson and his colleagues were delayed for several months. After the protests of heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis the men were then accepted to the OCS. Shortly after the time when Robinson was commisioned as a second lieotenant in January 1943, he was engaged. After receiving his commission, Robinson was reassigned to Fort Hood, Texas, where he joined the 761st "Black Panthers" Tank Battalion. While at Fort Hood, Robinson often used his weekend leave to visit the Rev. Karl Downs, President of Sam Huston College (now Huston-Tillotson University) in nearby Austin, Texas; Downs had been Robinson's pastor at Scott United Methodist Church while Robinson attended PJC |
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