Jackie Robinson started playing Major League Baseball when he was 28.
He played hard for ten years. By the end of the 1956 season, his body was wearing down. Plus, Branch Rickey, who always had been his strongest supporter, had left the team.
Robinson heard that the Dodgers were going to trade him to the New York Giants. After thinking about his aging body and how much he liked the Dodgers, Robinson decided to retire. He wanted to try new things.

▲ The first year he could be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame was 1962. Players have to get enough votes from the Baseball Writers of America to be elected. Robinson didn’t think he’d make it. He figured too many writers hated him for speaking his mind so much. Instead, he got 77 percent of the votes. Here, Branch Rickey joins Robinson’s wife and mother at the ceremony.


◀ Jackie Robinson also wanted to help other African Americans. He became chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Freedom Fund Drive. The NAACP had taken the case to allow Blacks and whites to attend school together to the Supreme Court. Jackie did more than raise money. He spoke out whenever he saw injustice. Here, he’s on a picket line at a construction site in 1963. The company wouldn’t hire African Americans.

▲ In the 1960s, the civil rights movement became stronger. Jackie Robinson was a big supporter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The Robinson family was proud to be part of the March on Washington on August 28, 1963.
Jackie and Rachel found out that Jackie Junior was a drug addict. They stuck by him. He beat the addiction through a program called Daytop Village. In 1971, Jackie Junior was planning a benefit concert for the program when he died in a car crash. ▶


▲ To mark the 25th anniversary of his first year with the Dodgers, Jackie Robinson was asked to throw out a ball at the 1972 World Series. Many African American players were in the major leagues by then. However, there were no managers or coaches. Robinson thought that was a shame. At the ceremony, he said, “I am extremely proud and pleased. I am going to be tremendously more proud and pleased when I look at that third base coaching line one day and see a Black face managing in baseball.”

◀ Right after he retired from baseball, Robinson learned that he had diabetes. Diabetes affects people in different ways. In bad cases, a diabetic person can go blind. Problems with blood circulation can lead to the loss of a leg. Over the years, Robinson’s health got worse, and he lost sight in one eye. On October 24, 1972, at age 53, Jackie Robinson passed away. Don Newcombe and Pee Wee Reese helped carry the casket.