Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier, taking the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. To mark the occasion, every major league ballplayer in the country wears his number, 42, on April 15.
Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier, taking the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. To mark the occasion, every major league ballplayer in the country wears his number, 42, on April 15. ( Photo: Bob Sandberg/Look/Wikimedia Commons)

Every MLB player in the country on April 15 wore number 42 in honor of Jackie Robinson, who in 1947 became the first black player in major league baseball history. But scholars say that as heroic as Robinson was, baseball’s integration was driven by political pressure and hidden civil rights coalitions.

The Many Twists and Turns behind the Jackie Robinson Story
16 Apr 2026 | 01:40
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The late Jackie Robinson is remembered as a Brooklyn Dodgers hero and a civil rights icon, but his path to that status was not preordained.

While Robinson is widely celebrated as the player who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947 when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, a panel of scholars...

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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (at mic) is with Deputy Mayor Julie Su (right) and Manhattan borough president Brad Hoylman-Sigal as the mayor announces at site next to La Marqueta in East Harlem will be the site for the city’s first publicly subsidized grocery store.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (at mic) is with Deputy Mayor Julie Su (right) and Manhattan borough president Brad Hoylman-Sigal as the mayor announces at site next to La Marqueta in East Harlem will be the site for the city’s first publicly subsidized grocery store. ( Photo: Kara McCurdy/Mayoral photography office)

Mamdani Unveils UES Site as First Grocery Store to be Run by NYC
15 Apr 2026 | 05:15

Mayor Zohran Mamdani journeyed to East Harlem on April 14 to visit La Marqueta marketplace, which he...

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