Summary

Free Minds and Hearts at Work (excerpt)

By Jackie Robinson

In 1947, Jackie Robinson pioneered the integration of American professional athletics by

becoming the first black player in Major League Baseball. During his 10 seasons with the

Brooklyn Dodgers, he played on six World Series teams and was voted the National League's

Most Valuable Player in 1949.

In this 1952 essay recorded for Edward R. Murrow's radio series This I Believe, Robinson

discusses his fight against prejudice.

“At the beginning of the World Series of 1947, I experienced a completely new emotion,

when the National Anthem was played. This time, I thought, it is being played for me, as much

as for anyone else. This is organized major league baseball, and I am standing here with all the

others; and everything that takes place includes me.

“About a year later, I went to Atlanta, Georgia, to play in an exhibition game. On the

field, for the first time in Atlanta, there were Negroes and whites. Other Negroes, besides me.

And I thought: What I have always believed has come to be.

“And what is it that I have always believed? First, that imperfections are human. But that

wherever human beings were given room to breathe and time to think, those imperfections would

disappear, no matter how slowly. I do not believe that we have found or even approached

perfection. That is not necessarily in the scheme of human events. Handicaps, stumbling blocks,

prejudices—all of these are imperfect. Yet, they have to be reckoned with because they are in the

scheme of human events.

“Whatever obstacles I found made me fight all the harder. But it would have been

impossible for me to fight at all, except that I was sustained by the personal and deep-rooted

belief that my fight had a chance. It had a chance because it took place in a free society. Not once

was I forced to face and fight an immovable object. Not once was the situation so cast-iron rigid

that I had no chance at all. Free minds and human hearts were at work all around me; and so

there was the probability of improvement. I look at my children now, and know that I must still

prepare them to meet obstacles and prejudices.

“But I can tell them, too, that they will never face some of these prejudices because other

people have gone before them. And to myself I can say that, because progress is unalterable,

many of today’s dogmas will have vanished by the time they grow into adults. I can say to my

children: There is a chance for you. No guarantee, but a chance.”