Baseball has been America’s favorite pastime for generations. So has racism. In the 1940s those two forces collided in what can only be called a date with destiny when Jackie Robinson crossed the color barrier in Major League Baseball after being drafted by the Brooklyn Dodgers, an all-white team, from the Negro Leagues. In 42, the biopic about Robinson’s sports journey and life, Chadwick Boseman plays Robinson and Harrison Ford plays Branch Rickey, the forward thinking president of the Dodgers who recruited baseball’s greatest player. And make no mistake about it, the versatile Robinson was arguably the greatest athlete not only of his generation, but quite possibly the best athlete the world has produced to date. Robinson was so talented that he could have gone pro in a number of sports, including football. But what No. 42 did for this nation in playing side by side with white players was encourage America to reject its rabid racial animus. As Dr. Maya Angelou said, “Strictly speaking, one cannot legislate love, but what one can do is legislate fairness and justice.” Jackie Robinson forced America to do both. –p.d. lee
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