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Jackie Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia in 1919 to a family of sharecroppers. His mother, Mallie Robinson, raised Jackie and her four other children on her own. They were the only black family on their block, and therefore encountered a great deal of racial prejudices. For a man coming from a poor family of sharecroppers, his beginning, would help him become the first baseball player to break Major League Baseball's color barrier that segregated major league baseball for many decades. Robinson excelled early at all sports and learned to make his own way in life. While at UCLA, Jackie Robinson became the first athlete to wi