Jackie Robinson Jr. is born in Los Angeles California. The first child of Jackie and Rachel Robinson arrives one month after Jack Sr. completes his first season as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers minor league affiliate Montreal Royals and five months before his historic breakthrough as Major League Baseball’s first Black player.

At the conclusion of his third major league season, Jackie Robinson wins the National League’s MVP award after leading the league with a career high .342 batting average and 37 stolen bases. He finishes second with 124 runs batted in, and third with 38 doubles ,137 singles and 122 runs scored and was named to his first of six straight NL All-Star teams.

Mallie McGriff marries Jerry Robinson in Grady County, Georgia. Mallie was born to former slaves, Edna and Washington McGriff who used loopholes in the Jim Crow system to purchase their own farm, which would instill in Jackie the importance of land ownership. Mallie and Jerry would work as tenant- farmers and then sharecroppers on a white-owned plantation beside her husband’s family. They would have five children: Edgar in 1910, Frank in 1911, Mack in 1914, Willa Mae in 1916 and Jack in 1919.

Jackie Robinson meets President Dwight D. Eisenhower at a dinner in Washington D.C., honoring the 40th anniversary of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. Robinson was among a group of guests attending the dinner at which Eisenhower delivered a speech.  Robinson was among a group of invited guests and was delayed in approaching the dais to shake hands with the President after the speech. Eisenhower was heading back to his seat when he noticed Robinson was approaching and made his way back across the room to greet him. Robinson would describe the moment as “one of the great thrills of my life,” telling a reporter, “To think the President of the United States would come halfway across a room just to shake my hand!”