Jackie Robinson made history when he stepped onto Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947. Robinson was not the first African American player in Major League Baseball, but his debut in 1947 broke a color barrier that had segregated the sport since the late 1800s. Robinson worked through insults, death threats, and other abuses to become an all-star player for the Dodgers.
Off the field, Robinson made history in other ways. In the 1960s, he and his family began organizing benefit concerts at their Connecticut home for civil rights organizations. In 1963, 42 jazz musicians—including Dave Brubeck, Billy Taylor, John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie, and Julian Edwin "Cannonball" Adderley—performed in a concert in the Robinsons' backyard. Together, they collected $15,000 in contributions. The money was donated to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which was then then engaged in the multi-month Birmingham campaign and in need of bail money for jailed student protesters. Later jazz concerts organized by the Robinsons benefited groups other organizations and causes. The yearly concert tradition continued under the auspices of the Jackie Robinson Foundation. #JazzAppreciationMonth
📷: Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center
Support of jazz programming is made possible by the LeRoy Neiman and Janet Byrne Neiman Foundation; The Argus Fund; Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation, founding donor of the Smithsonian Jazz Endowment; David C. Frederick and Sophia Lynn; Goldman Sachs; and the John Hammond Performance Series Endowment Fund. ... See MoreSee Less