Was Jackie Robinson in a gang?

Answer 1

Jackie was indeed a member of a gang. He not only was in the gang, it is 99.95% likely he formed it himself as a means of taking small levels of vengeance out on the white community. I have detailed the events that suggest this to be truth below.

Jack "Jackie" Roosevelt Robinson, was a much different person in his youth than the controlled man known by most. Once it was said that his pranks gravitated toward cruelty at times, and that it seemed as if he enjoyed those instances more than average. He was described as antagonistic by his sister, Willa Mae. She stated he wasn't a stranger to trading racial slurs with other kids, nor hesitant to throw rocks at them as retaliation for throwing them first. She joked that his talent for throwing baseballs and footballs was a result of his rock throwing.

Jackie himself relates how he was harassed, but makes no mention of a burning cross on the lawn or of physical attacks by neighbors, even though both are popular stories. A direct quote from Jackie follows:

"I must have been about eight years old the first time I ran into racial trouble. I was sweeping our sidewalk when a little neighbor girl shouted at me, "Nig***r, ***ger, ni***r." I was old enough to know how to answer that. I had learned from my older brother that, in the South, the most insulting name you can call a white person is "crac***." That is what I called her, and her father stormed out of the house to confront me. I don't remember who threw the first stone, but the father and I had a pretty good stone-throwing fight going until the girl's mother came out and made him go back into the house. That incident was part of a pattern. Our white neighbors had done unfriendly things before, such as summoning the police and complaining that my brother Edgar made too much noise on their sidewalks with his skates. They had signed petitions to try to get rid of us.

I had a lot of free time, and a lot of freedom. Some of it I put to good use - I had a paper route, I cut grass and ran errands when I could. The rest of the time, I stole - all sorts of small things from stores, particularly food - and I was a member in good standing of the Pepper Street gang. Our gang was made up of blacks, Japanese, and Mexican kids; all of us came from poor families and had extra time on our hands. We never got into vicious or violent crime, but hardly a week went by when we didn't have to report to Captain Morgan, the policeman who was head of the Youth Division. We threw dirt clods at cars; we hid out on the local Golf course and snatched any balls that came our way and often sold them back to their recent owners; we swiped fruit from stands and ran off in a pack; we snitched what we could from the local stores; and all the time we were aware of a growing resentment at being deprived of some of the advantages the white kids had."

At 8 years old in 1927, Jackie was not yet part of a gang and minority families, other than the Robinsons, were still not living on Pepper Street. This is an indication that, Jackie, as the only minority gang member residing on Pepper Street for which the gang was named, is the most logical person to have formed the gang.

At approximately age 10, in the year 1929, Jackie and the Pepper Street Gang are caught breaking into a pool by the Sheriff and arrested.

While in fifth grade, approximately 11 years of age around the year 1930, Jackie's grades began to fall drastically from his normal standard. This was attributed to increasing gang activity that he was participating in.

Continuing along that line of reasoning, Jackie already had a criminal record, resulting from his gang affiliations, at age 18 in 1937.

The dates seem to indicate a 2 year window where the gang may have formed, and Jackie was highly likely to still be the sole minority youth living on Pepper Street.

Self-proclaimed former Pepper Street gang member, Ray Bartlett, stated that Jackie was much more bothered by segregation than the rest of the gang was. His descriptions of how Jackie responded when confronted with segregation in daily life conjure up pictures of an extremely agitated Robinson aching to lash out.

Jackie had a deep resentment for the treatment his family received, such as people signing petitions for them to move out, racist name calling and taunts, and the complaining to the police done about noise level when his brother would skate on the sidewalk. This growing resentment spread outward from his personal life, and soon he reacted personally every time he came face to face with segregation.

His rational response to these situations, that did not cause physical damage to person or property, was to form a gang comprised of minorities and the impoverished. When it was fully formed, it was populated by minorities like Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and a handful of poor whites. All of them from the City of Pasadena, CA. The gang was mostly involved in vandalism, (throwing dirt clods at cars, breaking windows on residences occupied by white people, and throwing rocks at people), but also routinely stole from local white shop owners.

What began as simple mischief, devolved into criminal acts of vengeance. The Pepper Street Gang was classified as simply being "miserable trouble" at first, but soon reached a level where Pasadena Police indicated that Pepper Street's leader, Jackie Robinson, was now considered to be a priority take-down.

Jackie was able to set himself on more productive paths eventually, becoming a sports and civil rights icon. However, denying any part of his less than perfect past as an angry and vengeful juvenile is doing him a disservice. Jackie admits his failings as a youth because he's proud of how far he came, and proud of his accomplishments as a man. Understanding exactly how deep the downward spiral of retaliation took him, shows us just how far he had to climb to transcend prejudice. If he hadn't had the discipline to make the climb, he could never have tolerated players taunting him. If he hadn't learned to tolerate ignorance, he would not be the legend he is today.