The first man to break the color barrier in Major League Baseball in the 20th century, Jackie Robinson is one of the most celebrated baseball players in history. Jim, the moral center of Mark Twain’s The Adventure’s of Huckleberry Finn .Who doesn’t portray a baseball player, yet both Jackie Robinson and Jim both share the same heroic qualities. Both are courageous, noble, and strong-minded.
Jackie Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia on January 31, 1919 and grew up in Pasadena, California, where he attended UCLA. While attending there he won letters in football, baseball, basketball, and track. He was regarded as the most all-around athlete in the U.S. at the time. After serving three years in the army, he began playing baseball with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro leagues. After hid successful season in 1946 with the team’s Farmclub he became the first African American major league baseball player since the 19th century. In 1947 he signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers. But before Jackie Robinson there was Moses Fleetwood Walker, he was the 1st African American major league baseball player to play baseball in the late 1800’s. On April 15, 1947 Jackie Robinson became the 1st African American to play major league baseball. He broke the color line, which led to many white teams playing against all black teams or interracial teams: Jackie Robinson caught many Americans attention and his story was widely retold through American culture in many different forms. Such as through movies, radio talk shows, sheet music, comic books, and sports magazines. Even though many of Jackie’s fans showed their support towards him, many who hated him sent him death threats or even threw things at him. While under all this pressure Jackie still focused on baseball and showed everyone that he was a great baseball player: “ Baseball was just part of my life. Thank God that I didn’t allow a sport or a business or any part of my life to dominate me completely … I felt that I had my time in the athletics and that was it.”
He won a lot of peoples respect and also became a symbol of black opportunity. Even the magazine Sporting News, which was against black baseball players, acknowledged his great skill and ability in the game of baseball and awarded him with the Rookie of the Year award in 1947. Robinson’s outstanding ten-year career compiled a .311 lifetime batting average; he played in six World Series, and stole home nineteen times. He was awarded National league MVP in 1949 and led the league with a .342 batting average and thirty-seven stolen bases: “ His incredible speed, powerful hitting, and strong fielding made him a key player on a team with many stars.”
Robinson’s history making achievements in baseball were only part of his extraordinary life and the legacy behind it. His outspoken leadership on issues of civil and human rights where made visible throughout the years as a corporate executive, civil servant, and major figure in national politics. Robinson was proud of being black and he challenged many racial pretensions throughout his life. As and army lieutenant he resisted on moving to the back of the bus and for that he was court marshaled and was found innocent. As a baseball player he railed against teams and individuals he believed were racists. His vigilance against racial wrong doings was a legacy he wanted to pass on to his children: “ To be willing to stand up for what they believe and to lawfully press for their rights as a full-fledged American who happened to be black.”
He was deeply concerned with the struggle for civil rights. Starting in 1957 he began traveling extensively to raise funds for the NAACP. There efforts led him to a close relationship with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other prominent civil rights leaders. His concern with politics led him to influence leaders such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, and Nelson Rockefeller. In 1964 he re-signed as vice-president of Chock Full ó Nuts to work full time on the campaign of Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, who later appointed Jackie as a special assistant of community affairs. He worked tirelessly over the years with a variety of church groups and community organizations. He served on the board of managers of the Harlem YMCA building, which now bears his name in his honor. In 1970 he organized the Jackie Robinson construction company. Jackie’s major aim was to contribute to the improvement of living conditions for black Americans, especially in the metropolitan areas. In 1973 a year after his death, his commitment to youth was recognized when his wife Robinson founded the Jackie Robinson Foundation. Even today the Jackie Robinson Foundation continues to fight for human dignity and brotherhood by supporting college-bound minorities and poor people seeking to develop their potential. The Jackie Robinson Foundation carries on the struggle for dignity, unity and courageous leadership that where the hallmark of Jackie Robinson’s life: “ Jackie as a figure of history was a rock in the water, creating concentric circles and the ripples of new possibility. He was medicine. He was immunized by God, from catching the diseases that he fought. The Lords arms of protection enabled him to go through dangers seen and unseen, and he had the capacity to wear glory with grace.”

In 1997, Major League baseball celebrated the fifty-eth year of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier of baseball by retiring his number 42 into perpetuity during a ceremony at Shea Stadium with baseball commissioner Alan Seleg, Rachel Robinson, and ex President Bill Clinton. In the same way, Jim from the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn resembles Jackie Robinson in the way that he was, which was strong, courageous, and noble. Jim risked his freedom and his life for the sake of his young white friend Huck. Jim knew that he would be taking a chance of losing his life or being caught for being with Huck, but Huck would’ve done the same thing for him: “ Jim was not only a slave, but a human being a symbol of humanity, and in freeing Jim, Huck makes a bid to free himself of the conventionalized evil from the town.”
Even though Jim is a runaway slave, both him and Huck end up forming a bond between each other, this breaks the color barrier of the book, similar to the was that Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in the game of baseball. Jim was superstitious and occasionally sentimental, he was also intelligent, practical and more of an adult than anyone else in the book. Because he was a black man and a runaway slave, Jim was at the mercy of almost all the other characters in the book, and was often forced into ridiculous and degrading situations. Jim was a man of remarkable intelligence and compassion. He also seems to be superstitious to the point of idiocy, but a careful reading about the time that Jim and Huck spent on Jackson Island, revealed that Jim’s superstitious concealed a deep knowledge of the natural world and represented an alternate form of truth or intelligence. Although he has been separated

from his wife and children, which he misses terribly, and the thought of a permanent separation motivated him to commit a criminal act by running away from Miss Watson, his owner. Jim becomes a surrogate father, as well as a friend to Huck’s taking care of him without being intrusive or smothering. He is the one who provides a positive, respectable example for Huck to follow. The first man to break the color barrier in Major League, Jackie Robinson and the moral center of Mark Twain’s The Adventure’s of Huckleberry Finn, Jim both share the same heroic qualities. Both are courageous, noble, and strong-minded. They did this in different ways but both had the same characteristics and where very similar in the way they were, even though one was real and one came from a book.