A Marker Honoring Jackie Robinson Was Defaced. M.L.B. Helped Replace It.
The New York Times
A series of incidents in Georgia appeared to be targeting markers dedicated to Black Americans. “This should not be happening,” said Robinson’s cousin.
In the countryside of southwestern Georgia, roughly two miles north of the Florida border, in a small clearing of trees alongside Route 154, a brick chimney stands alone. An accompanying historical marker notes that the house that once stood there burned down in 1996. It’s all that remains of the place where one of the most important figures in American history was born.
Jackie Robinson grew up in Pasadena, Calif., where his family relocated in 1920 when he was 18 months old. He was a four-sport star at U.C.L.A. and bounced around the country in the Army. He became the first Black American to play in Major League Baseball, on April 15, 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers, for whom he starred for 10 years. He was a civil rights pioneer.
But Robinson’s life began in this remote place, outside the town of Cairo in Grady County, Ga., born to a family of sharecroppers. And the only way to know it driving around those country roads is the marker, which was erected in 2001.
