Robinson learned about racism at a young age as the only Black family on their block in California during the 1920s. The fact that he took the field with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 and broke Major League Baseball's colour barrier, ending more than 50 years of segregation, was merely the beginning.

Robinson spent his entire life courageously fighting discrimination. He was resolved to replicate the transformations he had witnessed in baseball in other aspects of American life. When he acted in a film based on his life storey in 1950, he became one of Hollywood's first leading Black males. Robinson obtained a position at Chock Full o' Nuts after retiring from baseball in 1956.

PBS tells us that became the first Black vice president of a major American corporation. From there he joined the NAACP, becoming the chairman of the Freedom Fund drive which would eventually raise more than a million dollars. Never compromising his moral principles, he actively worked to advance civil rights. Robinson was tireless in his efforts, participating in marches and protests, and corresponding with Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.

Robinson was a founding member and director of the Harlem-based Freedom National Bank in the 1960s. Robinson wanted Black company owners and minorities to be able to get loans that they wouldn't be able to get from white-owned banks. While the bank would eventually close, it was New York's first Black-owned bank and one of the country's largest minority institutions.