Jackie Robinson’s daughter ‘insulted’ by use of father’s image in Trump campaign ad
Donald Trump’s re-election campaign this week released a new ad featuring black-and-white images of America from the first half of the last century – including a photo of Major League Baseball legend Jackie Robinson.
Robinson’s daughter, Sharon Robinson, took to Twitter on Thursday to say that the Trump campaign embodies the very things Robinson fought against. She tagged the president and demanded the image be removed from the ad.
Robinson, an author and the educational consultant for MLB who sits on the board of the Jackie Robinson Foundation, may not have the legal recourse to have the image removed, Yahoo Sports reported.
“Unless she owns the image and the campaign used it without her permission, the most she may be able to do is publicly call for them to remove it,” Yahoo says.
The ad, which is titled “Say What You Will About America,” was released this week on Trump’s official YouTube account and features images of Jim Thorpe, Martin Luther King Jr. and Jackie Robinson.
Jackie Robinson shattered racial barriers in baseball in the late 1940s when he became the first Black man to play the sport with the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1947, his first year in the league, Robinson won Rookie of the Year and was an All-Star for six consecutive seasons during his 10-year MLB career. He played in six World Series, including the Dodgers’ 1955 World Series championship. He was inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.
In 1997, MLB retired Robinson’s uniform number, 42. The league also celebrates “Jackie Robinson Day,” when every player in the majors wears No. 42.
Robinson contributed heavily to the civil rights movement by joining King Jr. as honorary chairman of the Youth March for Integrated Schools in 1958, Biography.com says. He also had his own syndicated newspaper column where he “mused on matters of race relations, family life and politics.”
McClatchy News has reached out to both Trump’s campaign and the White House for comment.
This story was originally published October 8, 2020 at 4:15 PM with the headline "Jackie Robinson’s daughter ‘insulted’ by use of father’s image in Trump campaign ad."