Major League Baseball, Jackie Robinson Center Celebrate 104th Birthday of Jackie Robinson

Major League Baseball and cities across the country have started the celebration of the man who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. 

Tuesday, Jan. 31 marks the 104th anniversary of the birth of Jackie Robinson, who grew up in Pasadena.

Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia, in 1919.

His family moved to Pasadena in 1920 where they lived on Pepper Street. 

Robinson attended Pasadena City College and John Muir Technical High School.

Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers starting at first base on April 15, 1947. Branch Rickey’s decision to sign Robinson ended racial segregation in professional baseball that had forced Black players to play in the Negro Leagues since the 1880s.

Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962 and MLB later retired his number “42.”

Pasadena’s Jackie Robinson Center, near Pepper Street where Robinson lived, will celebrate Robinson’s birthday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday with Robinson memorabilia. 

The Jackie Robinson Museum screened the film ‘42’ this past weekend. The museum is located in New York City and is run by the Jackie Robinson Foundation.

The Boston Red Sox will also pay tribute to Robinson on Tuesday. Members of the team will visit students at the John D. O’Bryant School in Roxbury, Mass., to speak about Robinson’s racial impact on Major League Baseball and his connection to the Boston Red Sox. Red Sox Hall of Famer Tommy Harper and Red Sox Alumnus Darnell McDonald will be in attendance for the annual event now in its 20th year.

Although Robinson’s family came to Pasadena to escape the horrors of Jim Crow when they came to Pasadena.

A cross was burned on the family’s front lawn.

And at that time, the City’s municipal swimming pool was still segregated.

Perhaps the most horrific incident the family faced was a police brutality case involving Edgar Robinson on the Rose Parade route.

Those incidents and the treatment of Mack Robinson, Jackie’s brother, who had helped defeat Hitler’s aryan superiority ideology, left Robinson bitter towards the City.

Mack earned a silver medal in the 200 meters at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, finishing behind Jesse Owens. 

Unlike Jackie, Mack returned to Pasadena, but he could only find work as a street sweeper.

“Pasadena regarded us as intruders,” Robinson said in his autobiography. “My brothers and I were in many a fight that started with a racial slur on the very street we lived on. We saw movies from segregated balconies, swam in the municipal pool only on Tuesdays, and were permitted in the YMCA on only one night a week. Restaurant doors were slammed in our faces. In certain respects, Pasadenans were less understanding than Southerners and even more openly hostile.”