Jackie Robinson Museum

When Jack Roosevelt Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers debuted at Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947, officially breaching Major League Baseball's (MLB) twentieth-century color line, he was well aware of the moment's sociocultural and historical impact. What he could not have known was that his career as an athlete and an activist would be memorialized in a museum. The Jackie Robinson Museum, spearheaded by Robinson's devoted wife, Rachel, children David and Sharon, and the Jackie Robinson Foundation, opened on July 23, 2022. The exhibition space, roughly 8,000 square feet, not including 3,500 square feet dedicated to education, houses approximately 4,000 artifacts and photographs, arranged to create a narrative foregrounding Robinson's social activism and family life in historical context.The museum is divided into three sections. The Main Gallery is dedicated to telling Robinson's story beyond the field of play. The smaller Yawkey Sports Gallery focuses on Robinson as an athlete, always with cultural context in mind. A much smaller space presents Robinson as a pop-culture icon, displaying posters, advertisements, toys, and other related artifacts. The three galleries are designed to be approached sequentially. Visitors are not encouraged to view the third—or visit the restroom—without walking through the other two in order.The Main Gallery exhibit begins with a short video. That the museum's mission is to present Robinson as a civil rights advocate and a family man, first and foremost, is made clear here and is constantly reinforced throughout the museum. What the museum does best is storytelling by means of objects, documents, photography, and substantive labels and captions, as well as videos such as the first one. One particularly well-designed section showcases Robinson's partnership with Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers general manager responsible for signing the ballplayer. Its introductory panel is clear, concise, and nuanced, moving beyond the generally accepted accounts of their relationship. Leaving the complicated questions such as Rickey's motivation for signing Robinson open-ended suggests a certain complexity that is often missing in museums that pay tribute to the life and work of an individual. On view are Robinson's contracts, both major and minor league, as well as correspondence between the two men and between Rickey and others regarding Robinson. Rickey's interest in protecting Robinson's image is illustrated in a letter from the GM to Arthur Mann, one of the screenwriters of the Robinson biopic The Jackie Robinson Story (1950). It includes Rickey's suggested changes to the dialog, ostensibly for the sake of accuracy, but certainly with Robinson's public identity in mind.Another excellent feature is a narrative timeline, printed around the wall in the Main Gallery, centering on Robinson's civil rights activism and personal life. Here, the visitor is given historical context for the major events that influenced him. For example, the timeline juxtaposes Robinson's birth in 1919, accompanied with the requisite baby photos, with race riots of 1919–1920, illustrated with reproduced newspaper reports of violence. The entry for 1925 briefly recounts the story of A. Philip Randolph's organization of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, a major event in African American history and in the history of the American labor movement. These and every other entry are clearly written with an eye toward expanding visitors’ knowledge of its subject. Timeline entries never speak down to or in any way underestimate their audience, but it is nevertheless designed to be approachable by a wide variety of visitors.In addition to photographs and written narrative, the timeline entries are punctuated by small display cases filled with well-curated pieces. Small- and medium-sized display cases are also strategically placed throughout the museum. A case near the entrance is labeled “Man of Action,” and includes Robinson's service record and his Congressional Medal of Honor. It reinforces the video presentation, while making a statement in its own right. It and several other display cases, however, are placed very low on the wall, making it difficult for able-bodied visitors to examine and, with the narrative printed below, even harder to read. Central to the museum's mission is accessibility. Not only is the space constructed to conform to standards established by the Americans with Disabilities Act, but it goes beyond, providing accommodations including a quiet space for the neurodiverse and a recorded narrative aimed at visitors with vision impairments and anyone else who chooses to listen to it. Indeed, its accessibility is commendable. But the printed captions accompanying the “Man of Action” and several other displays are so low on the wall that reading them presents a challenge not just to the able bodied, but also to wheelchair users. As such, the placement defeats its own purpose.In contrast are the story towers—large, floor-to-ceiling display cases, easily viewable by all visitors. They span the length of the gallery, and have the appearance of Greek columns, albeit filled with artifacts, large and small. Each tower focuses on a single important event or detail relating to Robinson's civil rights work and his personal life. Various towers are dedicated to his military career, including his stand against institutional racism, different aspects of his political activism, and his post-baseball professional life, for example. One such tower takes on the difficult subject of Robinson's testimony in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) investigation into perceived communist infiltration into Hollywood. On view is the typed speech from which he drew his testimony, making clear his support for actor, singer, and civil rights activist Paul Robeson. It is a powerful document. However, Robinson's decision to testify in front of HUAC is a complicated issue. The given explanation simply states, “He did not want to be smeared as a Communist sympathizer. . . . Unhappy to be forced to defend the loyalty of all Black Americans Robinson said, ‘I'm not a politician, I'm a ballplayer.’” One of the museum's strengths is its insistence that some questions may not have easy answers, as is true in the Rickey display. The reluctance to do so here hints at an unwillingness to represent Robinson as a complicated person. Raising questions might actually have made this section even more powerful than it is already. The other towers that deal with less difficult issues do a more complete and nuanced job of storytelling.At the end of the Main Gallery is an interactive video display with forty-two small screens and attached audio devices, featuring individuals whose lives were impacted by Robinson, either directly or indirectly. Among them are fellow athletes, such as Sandy Koufax, CC Sabathia, and Mookie Betts, as well as public figures like Eric Holder, W. Kamau Bell, and the seemingly ubiquitous Ken Burns. Their comments are insightful. Unfortunately, roughly half of the displays do not seem to work at any given time, and the interface is not user-friendly. Judging by a small sampling of online reviews, this appears to be an ongoing issue.The Main Gallery leads into the Yawkey Sports Gallery. Though considerably smaller, it is designed in the same way as the Main Gallery, featuring display cases and its own timeline and story towers, showcasing items such as Robinson's Dodgers uniform and his original Hall of Fame plaque. Notable is a story tower focusing on his season with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League. It is an important and well-presented piece of the exhibit. Still, given Robinson's pivotal role in the desegregation of MLB, more attention might have been paid to the Negro Leagues. In a narrative that uses MLB's desegregation to understand the fight for civil rights, it seems appropriate to dive deeper into the segregated sport prior to 1947.Next, visitors are directed toward the small Pop Culture Gallery. It is packed with artifacts, displayed somewhat haphazardly against a bright wallpaper with poster reproductions and the restroom. Its design is a counterpoint to the calm, clean design of the other galleries. Unfortunately, the design seems random and chaotic, making the objects difficult to see.Finally, as might be expected, there is an adjacent gift shop, which is also approachable from the street. On sale are museum T-shirts, replica Dodgers jerseys, and coffee-related products—beans, cups, and the like from David Robinson's Sweet Unity coffee farm in Tanzania. Proceeds go to the museum, as is generally the case with most museums.Overall, the Jackie Robinson Museum is an excellent example of how a museum can inform, educate, and entertain. It fulfills its mission to pay tribute to a star athlete who was a major player in the fight for civil rights and a devoted family man. However, the curatorial decision to present Robinson's story in two separate galleries with two separate timelines is a bit confusing. It's clear that the intent is to direct visitors’ attention to the accomplishments of Robinson the man rather than Robinson the athlete. But he was both, and the two seem inseparable. Perhaps it might have made for a more coherent story had the two narratives been intertwined. But this is a minor flaw. Overall, the museum is well worth a visit.