"The right of every American to first-class citizenship is the most important issue of our time."
-Jackie Robinson
-Jackie Robinson
Life After Baseball
Robinson with the civil rights great, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Despite ending his baseball career, Robinson's quest for racial equality was not yet over. He continued to campaign for desegregation throughout America. He corresponded with several different political leaders about civil rights. On June 15, 1963, Robinson sent a telegram to John F. Kennedy concerning the well-being of Martin Luther King, Jr. when he traveled to Mississippi for the funeral of Medgar Evers, a black man who had been shot to death only a few weeks earlier. Robinson was well aware of the racism that was was still very much alive in southern states like Mississippi. Robinson begged the president to protect King while he was in Mississippi. Robinson knew that if King was killed while in Mississippi, a massive war between blacks and whites could erupt, tearing America apart. Jackie pleaded with Kennedy to "... protect a man sorely needed for this era." On May 13,1958, Robinson wrote a letter to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, requesting that he take a more decisive stance on the issue of desegregating schools. He told Eisenhower that if he was going to only promise integration but never actually deliver it, it was better for him to say that he was not ever going to integrate schools at all. He reminded the President that "forbearance and not actual integration is the goal the pro-segregation leaders seek." He refused to be satisfied with the successes of his own life, saying that "I won't 'have it made' until the most underprivileged Negro in Mississippi can live in equal dignity with anyone else in America." In 1964, Robinson wrote a letter to Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee for president. After Robinson had labeled him a bigot, Goldwater wrote a letter to Robinson, saying that he wished to be able to explain his views on civil rights to him oneday. Robinson responded by writing back to Goldwater, saying that "If... I have to ask your views on civil rights, Senator, I doubt if I would understand." Robinson also asked why Goldwater had become "political bedfellows with some of the slimiest elements in the nation, such as the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society..." Even after his retirement from baseball, Jackie Robinson still remained active in civil rights movement. He even once said himself, "I think I've been much more aggressive since I left baseball."