Jackie Robinson

There's not an American in this country free until every one of us is free.

The way I figured it, I was even with baseball and baseball with me. The game had done much for me, and I had done much for it.

My problem was my inability to spend much time at home. I thought my family was secure, so I went running around everyplace else. I guess I had more of an effect on other people's kids than I did my own.

I had no future with the Dodgers, because I was too closely identified with Branch Rickey. After the club was taken over by Walter O'Malley, you couldn't even mention Mr. Rickey's name in front of him. I considered Mr. Rickey the greatest human being I had ever known.

The colonel replied that he didn't care how my men had got the job done. He was happy that it had been accomplished. He said that, obviously, no matter how much or how little I knew technically, I was able to get the best out of people I worked with.

When I look back at what I had to go through in black baseball, I can only marvel at the many black players who stuck it out for years in the Jim Crow leagues because they had nowhere else to go.

In all my years of baseball, I have always expected to be traded. I never liked the idea.

Many people resented my impatience and honesty, but I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about respect.

Life is not a spectator sport.

The black press, some liberal sportswriters, and even a few politicians were banging away at those Jim Crow barriers in baseball. I never expected the walls to come tumbling down in my lifetime.

When I am playing baseball, I give it all that I have on the ball field. When the ball game is over, I certainly don't take it home. My little girl who is sitting out there wouldn't know the difference between a third strike and a foul ball. We don't talk about baseball at home.

The old Dodgers were something special, but of my teammates overall, there was nobody like Pee Wee Reese for me.

It would make everything I worked for meaningless if baseball is integrated but political parties were segregated.

In my opinion, baseball is as big a business as anything there is. It has to be a business, the way it is conducted.

Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he's losing; nobody wants you to quit when you're ahead.

I want everybody to understand that I am an American Negro first before I am a member of any political party.

This ain't fun. But you watch me, I'll get it done.

After two years at UCLA, I decided to leave. I was convinced that no amount of education would help a black man get a job.

I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.

I felt unhappy and trapped. If I left baseball, where could I go, what could I do to earn enough money to help my mother and to marry Rachel? The solution to my problem was only days away in the hands of a tough, shrewd, courageous man called Branch Rickey, the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

My protest about the post exchange seating bore some results. More seats were allocated for blacks, but there were still separate sections for blacks and for whites. At least I had made my men realize that something could be accomplished by speaking out, and I hoped they would be less resigned to unjust conditions.