Promises to Keep: How Jackie Robinson Changed America

Chapter 1 establishes Sharon’s relationship with Jackie Robinson and her reasons for writing a biography about him for young readers. She immediately discloses who Jackie is to her in the first sentence: “On April 15, 1947, my father, Jack Roosevelt Robinson, stepped out of the Brooklyn Dodgers dugout” (6). Throughout the book, Sharon maintains the personal connection by referring to Jackie as “her father” or “Dad.” The familial diction indicates Sharon’s goals for the book. She wants to share the life of a historical figure who was also one of her parents. Sharon states, “[My parents] said we should measure our lives by the impact we had on other people’s lives,” adding, “I hope that through my father’s example, you will understand why making a promise and keeping it is so important” (7). By writing about her father, Sharon hopes that his “promise” to support justice and community will impact readers and inspire them to selflessly dedicate themselves to bettering the lives of others.

In Chapter 2, Sharon zooms out and provides the context for Jackie’s place within US history. She includes a plethora of dates, events, and individuals. The corresponding graphics and images help sort the information. Sharon’s diction is also direct; for example, in the 1619 graphic, she states, “People kidnapped from Africa are brought to the Virginia colony” (8). The term “kidnapped” doesn’t sugarcoat how Black people became enslaved. Additionally, Sharon uses the passive voice, writing that people “are brought” to the colony, which allows her to avoid identifying who brought them. The passive voice doesn’t assign responsibility to slavery but instead reflects the normalization of slavery in the US. It was part of everyday life, and many people accepted it, participated in it, and benefited from it. Even the North, which history regularly characterizes as anti-slavery, profited from slavery: Northern textile factories bought cotton that enslaved people picked and made cheap clothes for enslaved people to wear in the fields.

Chapter 3 juxtaposes Jackie’s life with world events. In other words, Sharon presents Jackie’s story side-by-side with historical accounts, showing how the two interact and deviate. This chapter more fully introduces Jackie, detailing his coming of age, the influence of his principled mother, and the impact of his brothers. In addition, the juxtaposition functions as foreshadowing. By placing Jackie’s maturation next to consequential figures like Ida B. Wells and Langston Hughes, Sharon hints at the power that Jackie acquired. She maintains objectivity, however. While her goal isn’t to produce a lurid biography, she doesn’t want to write a hagiography—a biography that excessively praises its subject. Thus, Sharon confronts Jackie’s flaws. About his friend group, she writes, “They didn’t use drugs, drink alcohol, or start fights. But they did throw clumps of dirt at passing cars, swipe golf balls and sell them back to the golfers, and steal fruit from the local grocers” (16). The thefts and dirt throwing make Jackie relatable. Like many people (young and old), Jackie didn’t always act lawfully or conscientiously.

Jackie’s fight with the young girl across the street alludes to the murder of Black teen Eugene Williams in Chicago during the summer of 1919—what Sharon refers to as the “Red Summer.” Eugene died after a white man threw stones at him for allegedly swimming on the white side of the beach. In Jackie’s situation, the young girl’s father appeared and threw rocks at him. Sharon includes the incident among Jackie’s “relatively small battles against racism in Pasadena” (14). As Eugene’s murder shows, throwing rocks isn’t harmless. The girl’s father could have injured or killed Jackie.

The book’s three central themes relate to Jackie, Jackie’s family, and historical events. Jackie’s mother embodied the theme of Change Through Persistence: She rejected exploitative sharecropping and moved her family to Pasadena. Jackie likewise represented change through persistence, flourishing in athletics despite constant racism. In addition, Jackie’s actions connect to The Different Methods to Combat Racism. Athletics allowed Jackie, Mack, Jesse Owens, and others to form acclaimed identities for themselves and draw attention to the accomplishments of Black people. Through journalism, Wells highlighted the viciousness of racism. Using literature, Hughes and Hurston gave a positive voice to the Black experience. Underscoring the theme of The Tension Between Activism and Capitalism, while Owens struggled to capitalize on his four gold medals, Hughes became a major cultural figure, one of the few writers to earn a decent living from his books and articles.