Jackie Robinson, Civil Rights Advocate

Jackie Robinson sent this message to Presidential assistant E. Frederick Morrow in August 1957 as the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction was being negotiated between Congress and the Eisenhower administration. Public citizen Robinson--along with race leaders such as Ralph Bunche, A. Philip Randolph, and the publishers of the popular black newspapers--the Chicago Defender, [Baltimore] Afro-American, and the [New York] Amsterdam News--considered the emerging final version of the 1957 Civil Rights Act too weak and urged Eisenhower to veto it. In the end, Eisenhower signed the bill.

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Dwight D. Eisenhower Library
White House Central Files
Box 733
File: OF-142-A-5

• Telegram to the White House
  August 13, 1957
• Letter to President Eisenhower
  May 13, 1958
• Draft letter from Vice-President Nixon
  November 4, 1960
• Letter to President Kennedy
  February 9, 1961
• Telegram to President Kennedy
  June 15, 1963
• Photograph
  August 28, 1963
• Telegram to President Johnson
  March 9, 1965
• Letter to President Johnson
  April 18, 1967
• Letter to the White House
  April 20, 1972
• Jackie Robinson Quotes