Jackie Robinson: The Courage of Self-Control

Jack Roosevelt Robinson was a celebrated American baseball player, known for being the first African American to play baseball for Major League Baseball. He started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15th, 1947. He was a key figure in ending racial segregation in professional baseball, which had earlier limited black players to the “Negro leagues” since the 1880s.

Robinson was raised in California and played college football at UCLA. In college, he was better known for playing football than baseball. He was drafted to serve during World War II, and refused to sit at the back of a segregated army bus. For this he was charged and acquitted,  but was eventually “honorably” discharged because of it. He won the well-known Rookie of the Year award in 1947, and years after he won several other awards like Most Valuable Player in 1949 and being entered into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962. 

Robinson was known for his use of nonviolence. Nonviolence is the practice of pursuing social change without causing harm to others under any circumstances. It may stem from the belief that harming people, animals, or the environment is neither necessary nor justified to achieve a desired outcome. The term can also refer to a broader philosophy of rejecting general violence. Nonviolence can be grounded in moral, religious, or spiritual principles, or could be adopted for the purpose of strategic or practical reasons. 

Psychologically, Robinson did feel anger, but managed to not react as immediately and impulsively, which displays concepts called response inhibition and self-control. Robinson had steady emotional regulation because he often had to control how he expressed his very justified anger. He faced death threats and racist insults when initially entering Major League Baseball. Branch Rickey, a Major League Baseball executive, asked Robinson to act with courage by not reacting. Rickey believed that reacting aggressively could be used as an excuse to vilify Robinson and slow integration of baseball. Robinson agreed not to retaliate, helping to pave the way for future desegregation.