There's not an American in this country free until every one of us is free.
It would make everything I worked for meaningless if baseball is integrated but political parties were segregated.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Jackie Robinson emphasizes the importance of integration in all areas of society, not just in sports.
In this quote, Jackie Robinson highlights the hypocrisy of advocating for racial integration in baseball while allowing political divisions to remain segregated. He suggests that true progress cannot be achieved if there are still areas of society that perpetuate separation and inequality. Robinson's words reflect a broader understanding that meaningful change in one domain must be accompanied by change in others, advocating for a more unified and equitable society.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on civil rights, one might quote Robinson to emphasize the need for comprehensive change.
More from Jackie Robinson
All quotes βThe 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.
Similar quotes
We stopped eating meat many years ago. During the course of a Sunday lunch we happened to look out of the kitchen window at our young lambs playing happily in the fields. Glancing down at our plates, we suddenly realized that we were eating the leg of an animal who had until recently been playing in a field herself. We looked at each other and said, "Wait a minute, we love these sheep-they're such gentle creatures. So why are we eating them?" It was the last time we ever did.
On those days when we're not ready to stop being offended, not ready to forgive, still determined to dish out the silent treatment, what we're actually saying is, "Thanks, but I don't want to become more like the Savior today. Maybe tomorrow, but not today." Perhaps those are the times when we need to pray the hardest, the times it becomes clear that a change in behavior is not enough--that we must have a change in nature.
But say some, would you expose woman to the contact of rough, rude, drinking, swearing, fighting men at the ballot box? What a humiliating confession lies in this plea for keeping woman in the background!
Everyone needs a chance to evolve.
Here in Georgia, we continue to grapple with our own vestiges of hate. The image carved into Stone Mountain, like Confederate monuments across this state, stand as constant reminders of racism, intolerance, and division.
Revolution is not a one time event.