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April 15 is Jackie Robinson Day and this year it marks the 73rd anniversary of Robinson's breaking of the major league color barrier.
While on this day Jackie Robinson Day is usually recognized at major league ballparks across the country, with every player wearing Robinson's No. 42 on their uniforms, this year is clearly different.
The coronavirus pandemic has put the 2020 Major League Baseball season on hold indefinitely. But the celebration of one of America's most significant sportsmen and civil rights leaders goes on.
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The Jackie Robinson Foundation is hosting a virtual learning website to coincide with this year's Jackie Robinson Day — and fans can also learn more about Robinson's life in the Fox Nation documentary, "42 Faith."
Ed Henry, "America's Newsroom" co-host and author of "42 Faith: The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story," said Robinson's legacy of moral strength and character is just as relevant today as it was on April 15th, 1947, when he became the first African-American athlete to take part in America's pastime.
"One of the many African-American players who Jackie paved the way for was pitcher Don Newcombe," said Henry. "Newcombe recalled that he got bitter sometimes about the lack of progress in baseball and in America, but he would always think to the hopeful vision that Jackie shared with Newcombe when he said to his teammate, ‘You’ve got to change one letter in that word. Forget about bitter. Try to make things better.’"
"Jackie made things better in America," Henry continued, "And at a time during this pandemic when we could feel bitter, what a terrific legacy Jackie left for all of us on the importance of fighting through challenges with all you have, and eventually prevailing.”
In the Fox Nation documentary, "42 Faith," Henry reexamines Robinson's life, from his upbringing in rural Georgia to his discovery of faith, the major leagues and eventually his emergence as a voice in the civil rights movement.
"This was a fiery person," said award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns in the Fox Nation documentary, "as a kid was getting into scrapes with the cops who are treating him badly, who would insist on sitting in a lunch counter in a place where they didn't let blacks."
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Central to Robinson's story is his deep faith in God and the bond that he formed with legendary Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey.
"Rickey was privately determined to finally integrate baseball and was sending his scouts far and wide to find the most talented players in the Negro Leagues," narrates Henry. "But he had clear marching orders for his scouts. He wasn't just looking for talented ballplayers, they should have the right personality, the right strength, the right upbringing."
"Branch Rickey sees [Robinson] as someone of character who's a great baseball player," said Fox News co-host Juan Williams. "And why is that important? Because he understands that if people are coming into second with their spikes up intending to cut him, he wants a man of character who's not going to retaliate."
Burns told Henry that Robinson's accomplishments on and off the playing field set precedents that athletes and American civil rights icons were to follow.
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"We think of Martin Luther King and understand by virtue of a national holiday, by virtue of teaching about him in every great school in the country, his centrality to American history," said Burns.
"But you have to remember that when Jackie Robinson walked out to first base at Ebbets Field on April 15th, 1947," he continued, "Rosa Parks had not refused to give up her seat on a bus."
From left, Brooklyn Dodgers baseball players John Jorgensen, Pee Wee Reese, Ed Stanky and Jackie Robinson pose at Ebbets Field in New York on April 15, 1947. (AP)
"[Robinson] had also sat at lunch counters when people told him he couldn't sit there, the lunch counter demonstrations hadn't begun to happen," Burns said. "Brown vs. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision that made segregation based on race illegal in the United States hadn't taken place. There hadn't been all the kinds of things that we see as the beginning parts of the civil rights movement."
"So Martin Luther King needed Jackie Robinson to open that door in order to go through the doors that he would go through," Burns concluded, "In fact, he was a junior at Morehouse College watching with awe and gratitude as this man, this proud grandson of a slave, made his way to first base that day. American social history made a profound turn."
Watch all of "42 Faith," on Fox Nation.
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