Roughly four weeks ago, in this same space, we extolled the seemingly indefatigable actions of high school students across the country that were organizing, marching, and moving the needle on the gun-control conversation. Inspired by the movement sparked by survivors of yet another senseless, automatic weapon-authored massacre (Marjorie Stoneman Douglas HS in Florida), these “kids” were making the adults in charge look ridiculous.
“It seems that in recent days and weeks we have descended (or ascended?) to an alternate plane of reality, where the children are the leaders—the mature, the astute, the experienced—and the leaders are the children—entitled, immature, woefully misinformed,” we wrote.
Those teens have shown us that we can find heroes anywhere, in all walks of life, in any demographic.
This week, we’ve noticed that we can even reach back in our shared history for heroes, for inspirational figures that in many ways can help us in striving forward.
In Queens, we need not look further for a spark than a name that some of us see every day: Jackie Robinson. The City recently announced that it has installed signs along the parkway bearing his name that for the first time include an image of the groundbreaking athlete and civil rights icon.
We all know Robinson for the monumental achievement of breaking Major League Baseball’s color barrier in 1947. However, the former Addisleigh Park, Queens, resident was so much more than a hall-of-fame ballplayer.
Jackie Robinson also was a successful businessman, opening and operating a men’s apparel store in Harlem for most of the 1950s. He became vice president of Chock Full o’Nuts coffee in 1957. He established the Jackie Robinson Construction Company to build housing for families with low incomes. And Robinson served in numerous campaigns and on the board of directors for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People from 1957-1967.
“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives,” he once said.
Jackie Robinson has impacted generations.
Merriam-Webster defines a hero as “a person admired for achievements and noble qualities; one who shows great courage.”
True heroes are all around us. They are in our present. They are teenage students bringing the fight for sensible gun-control
laws, an inexplicable battle to attempt to avoid future slaughters, to the people who have been “leading” with unchecked power for far too long.
And they are in our past. Humble, dignified souls like Jack Roosevelt Robinson who played baseball and inspired a world.
Here’s to finding our heroes.
