Baseball Legend Jackie Robinson Was Court-Martialed for Refusing to Move to the Back of a Bus

[Sherman A1]

The U.S. military has always adapted to social change faster than the rest of the United States. President Harry S. Truman signed the order desegregating the military in July 1948. Almost four years to the day before, a future Major League Baseball Hall of Famer was facing a court-martial for six violations of the Articles of War.

All because Jackie Robinson refused to move to the back of a bus.

At the time, Robinson was not the Jackie Robinson who broke MLB’s color barrier and the league record for stolen bases. When he was drafted into the Army in 1942, he had just arrived in Los Angeles from Honolulu to play football for the LA Bulldogs. The Imperial Japanese Navy struck Pearl Harbor the previous December and the United States entered World War II.

Robinson lettered in baseball while he was a student at UCLA in the late 1930s, along with basketball, football and track. Baseball, he said, was actually his "worst sport." He was one of 1.2 million Black Americans to be drafted during the war, but the Army he entered looked very different from the Army of today.

https://www.military.com/history/baseball-legend-jackie-robinson-was-court-martialed-refusing-move-back-of-bus.html

[Karadeniz]

1. We've come far, but we still have a loooooong way to go.