I Never Had It Made

Personal integrity might best be described as acting in a way that adheres to the moral and ethical values that one believes in. Social responsibility, on the other hand, is an organization or an individual acting in a way that benefits society at large rather than benefiting the organization or individual. Jackie Robinson’s late career in Major League Baseball and his career in business and activism is unquestionably one in which personal integrity was a major characteristic. Robinson’s historic early career in Major League Baseball, however, was one in which social responsibility was the defining characteristic.

In late 1945, when Branch Rickey met with Robinson about the possibility of using him to break the unwritten rule of baseball’s color line, Rickey let him know that what was at stake if his plan was not a success for his club or a success for Robinson, but rather a success for equality and democracy in baseball. Warning Robinson of what would come his way from the opponents of equality, Rickey told him that those opponents would do anything “to prove to the public that a Negro should not be allowed in the major league” (34). Rickey was, in his own way, asking Robinson to sacrifice his personal integrity for social responsibility, meaning that if he accepted the abuse and just played, the game’s unjust color line would shatter, and other black players would follow.