Jackie Robinson, born Jack Roosevelt Robinson, is notable for being the first African American to play Major League Baseball. He was born on January 31, 1919 in Cairo, Georgia, the grandson of a slave. He was the youngest of five children and at the age of six months his father left them. Around that time, because it was so difficult for African Americans in the South, his mother Mallie Robinson decided to move them to Pasadena, California, where it was easier for African Americans to live and find work. sports, so this move made him quite upset. He played baseball, basketball, football and ran track while attending the University of California, Los Angeles. He was one of the best players on the football team and the only athlete to letter in four different sports. Unfortunately, Jackie dropped out of college before he had a chance to graduate due to financial problems, but not before meeting his future wife Rachel. After his departure from UCLA he began working for the National Youth Administration in a work camp but it soon closed and in 1941 he joined the Honolulu Bears, a professional football team from Honolulu, Hawaii. He was then drafted into the United States Army where he was refused admission to Officer Candidate School. He struggled until he was finally accepted and graduated as a first lieutenant. He was in the Army from 1941 to 1944 and was stationed in Kansas and Fort Hood, Texas. While stationed in Kansas he worked with a boxer named Joe Louis to fight unfair treatment of African Americans in the military and during training at Fort Hood, Texas, he refused to go to the back of the public bus and was court-martialed for insubordination. For this reason he never arrived in Europe with his unit and in 1944 he received an honorable discharge. After his departure from the Army he joined the Kansas City Monarchs, an all-African-American Negro League baseball team. Because of the low pay and constant travel, he decided he didn't want to make a career in baseball, even though he was one of the best players. Until 1947 only white players were allowed in Major League Baseball, but in 1945 Clyde Sukeforth, a Branch Rickey scout who was the club president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, was looking for an African-American player and looked at Jackie for a while.'..