{"id":1439618,"date":"2022-04-15T07:46:41","date_gmt":"2022-04-15T11:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1439618"},"modified":"2022-04-15T07:46:48","modified_gmt":"2022-04-15T11:46:48","slug":"jackie-robinsons-great-personal-sacrifice-made-america-a-better-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/jackie-robinsons-great-personal-sacrifice-made-america-a-better-nation\/","title":{"rendered":"Jackie Robinson\u2019s Great Personal Sacrifice Made America A Better Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fjackie-robinsons-great-personal-sacrifice-made-america-a-better-nation%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1439618&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/5489619004_3556a6fe9a_k.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>On rare occasions, the secular and sacred elements of culture converge in poetic symmetry. Today, as Christians around the world commemorate Christ\u2019s passion and death, Americans celebrate 75 years since baseball\u2019s color line finally fell.<\/p>\n<p>When churches today read from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, whose song of a suffering servant presaged Christ\u2019s crucifixion, we can also recall how Jackie Robinson suffered to make America a better society, and Americans a better people.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike Isaiah\u2019s servant, Jack Roosevelt Robinson did have a \u201cstately bearing to make us look at him,\u201d and an \u201cappearance that would attract us to him.\u201d A four-sport letterman at the University of California at Los Angeles, Robinson starred on the football team while winning the national championship in the long jump. During World War II, he was accepted into Officer Candidate School and commissioned as a second lieutenant.<\/p>\n<p>But breaking baseball\u2019s color line required a skill far beyond physical dexterity\u2014one Robinson did not know whether he could muster. He admitted that \u201call my life I had believed in payback, retaliation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When in the Army, he had faced court-martial for refusing to move to the back of a bus. He was eventually acquitted, but could someone who considered his dignity \u201cthe most luxurious possession, the richest treasure,\u201d agree to, as Robinson put it, \u201csell [his] birthright?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brooklyn Dodgers owner Branch Rickey made Robinson promise not to retaliate against any racist taunts, jeers, or threats for his first three years in the majors. To win over a baseball establishment highly skeptical of integration, Robinson faced the same treatment as Isaiah\u2019s servant: \u201cThough he was harshly treated, he submitted and opened not his mouth; like a lamb led to the slaughter or a sheep before the shearers, he was silent and opened not his mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The prejudices he faced said much more about American society than Robinson, again echoing Isaiah: \u201cIt was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured.\u201d Philadelphia Phillies manager Ben Chapman spearheaded such vicious bench-jockeying that Robinson later wrote he wanted to explode with rage. Yet when the abuse led to a backlash that jeopardized Chapman\u2019s job, Robinson graciously agreed to pose with a man who had baited him with racist taunts.<\/p>\n<p>The insults didn\u2019t just come from the opposing dugout. Robinson\u2019s own manager with the minor-league Montreal Royals in 1946, Clay Hopper, used a racial epithet to ask whether African Americans were even human beings.<\/p>\n<p>But at a time the armed forces remained segregated, and Martin Luther King Jr. was still in college, Robinson\u2019s on-field achievements despite these indignities began converting the hearts and minds so critical to the civil rights movement\u2019s success. Longtime Dodger broadcaster Red Barber spoke for many Americans when he admitted, \u201cRobinson did more for me than I did for him,\u201d making him recognize that \u201cI had to change my outlook on racial equations\u2026 I had to begin thinking differently.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Once he had successfully integrated baseball, Robinson would regain the voice he had temporarily sacrificed. Later in his life, he criticized black separatists as too radical\u2014and the NAACP as too timid. He kept pushing for his vision for civil rights, based on \u201cthe ballot and the buck,\u201d at a time others might have rested on their laurels. After the price he had paid, he could not do otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>But the stress had taken its toll. Staying silent \u201cate him alive,\u201d as one historian put it. Red Barber believed the abuse, and Robinson\u2019s inability to respond to it, hastened his demise: \u201cThey said that Robinson died from diabetes and other things. I think he died from the load he carried.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His Kansas City Monarchs teammate, Sammie Haynes, put it more bluntly: \u201cHe knew he had the whole black race, so to speak, on his shoulders. So he just said, \u2018I can take it. I can handle it. I will take it for the rest of the country and the guys.\u2019 And that\u2019s why he took all that mess. And it killed him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf he gives his life as an offering for sin, he shall see his descendants in a long life, and the will of the Lord shall be accomplished through him.\u201d Fewer Americans epitomized these words from Isaiah more than Jack Roosevelt Robinson, and fewer to more profound effect.<\/p>\n<p>As Christians worldwide hear those words this afternoon, 75 years to the day after he first stepped onto the grass of Brooklyn\u2019s Ebbets Field, people of all faiths, colors, and nationalities can resolve to emulate Robinson\u2019s heroic example of sacrifice in pursuit of the good.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  Chris Jacobs is founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group, and author of the book, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1645720020\">The Case Against Single Payer<\/a>.&#8221; He is on Twitter: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/chrisjacobshc\">@chrisjacobsHC<\/a>. Previously he was a senior health policy analyst for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a senior policy analyst in The Heritage Foundation\u2019s Center for Health Policy Studies, and a senior policy analyst with the Joint Economic Committee\u2019s Senate Republican staff. During the debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, Jacobs was a policy adviser for the House Republican Conference under then-Chairman Mike Pence. In the first two years of the law\u2019s implementation, he was a health policy analyst for the Senate Republican Policy Committee. Jacobs got his start on Capitol Hill as an intern for then-Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). He holds a bachelor\u2019s degree in political science and history from American University, where he is a part-time teacher of health policy. He currently resides in Washington, D.C.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On rare occasions, the secular and sacred elements of culture converge in poetic symmetry. Today, as Christians around the world commemorate Christ\u2019s passion and death, Americans celebrate 75 years since<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":521,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1439618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1439618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1439618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1439618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1439618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}