TV Documentary: JACKIE ROBINSON (2016) AAA

A story that I did not appreciate when I first heard about it in 1947. Mainly because I was a somewhat sheltered kid of 13 years old at the time.  NOW I UNDERSTAND RACE HATRED AND THE PAIN OF THE OPPRESSED !!


From Promotional Material:
The life of Jackie Robinson is given in this well-written, and thoughtfully produced four-hour Ken Burns PBS documentary. His sports career and life story combine to give us a harrowing illustration of the deep-seated racial hatred at the core of American history. 

This documentary takes us on a fascinating journey beginning in Georgia where he is born to a sharecropper and his family. Following the Great Migration of blacks from the South, he grew up in Pasadena, California, and then during college at UCLA demonstrated talent in four sports -- baseball, basketball, football, and boxing. The zeal and entrepreneurial spirit of businessman Branch Rickey led him to shake up the sport of baseball by taking on Jackie Robinson as a Brooklyn Dodger star in 1947. 

Famed documentarian Ken Burns and company vividly convey the phenomenal sweep and impact of this event which brought on a burst of racial hatred from baseball wheelers and dealers, coaches, players, and fans who wanted to keep African-Americans off the field. Bolstered by his wife, Rachel, and a black reporter and friend, Wendell Smith, Robinson weathered the storm of bigots who were willing to do whatever it took to keep baseball segregated. But he dazzled the fans with his playing, helping the Dodgers win the National League pennant in his first season. Even so, one writer described him as "the loneliest man I've ever seen in sports." During the early years of his career, Robinson stifled his hurt, anger, and righteous indignation in the face of a seemingly unending campaign of verbal abuse and treatment lacking dignity. 

Burns, working along with David McMahon and Sarah Burns, has incorporated into this sprawling documentary the much heralded incident of fellow-team member Pee-Wee Reese putting his arm around Jackie; the soulful connections between the superstar and his wife; up-close and personal interviews with two of his children; flashes of anger which often got him in trouble; his public disagreements with Malcolm X; his support for Richard Nixon and his alienation from baseball that lasted for decades.