I NEVER HAD IT MADE.

"I guess if I could choose one of the most important moments in my life, I would go back to 1947 in Yankee Stadium in New York City. It was the opening day of the world series, and I was for the first time playing in the series as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers team. It was a history-making day. It would be the first time that a black man would be allowed to participate in a world series. I had become the first black player in the major leagues.

"I was proud of that, and yet I was uneasy. I was proud to be in the hurricane eye of a significant breakthrough and to be used to prove that a sport can't be called national if blacks are barred from it. Branch Rickey, the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, had rudely awakened America. He had chosen me as the person to lead the way.

"It hadn't been easy to fight the resentment expressed by players on other teams and by their owners and the bigoted fans screaming 'nigger.' The hate mail piled up. There were threats against me and my family and even out-and-out attempts at physical harm to me. In one game a black cat was thrown at me from the stands.

"But on that historic day in 1947 the air was sparkling and the sunlight was warm. The band struck up the national anthem. It should have been a glorious moment for me as the stirring words poured from the stands. However, as I write these words twenty years later, I cannot stand and sing the national anthem. I have learned that I remain a black man in a white world. I never had it made."
-Jackie Robinson