I want to thank Congressman Neal for his leadership and partnership in the effort to make this day possible.

It’s been an honor to work with Jackie’s wife, Rachel, and their children - Sharon and David.

And President Bush, thank you for joining us on this historic day.

We know Jackie Robinson was a great athlete. His talents earned him a scholarship to UCLA where he lettered in football, basketball, baseball, and track. He was so gifted that people still wonder today whether baseball was even his best sport.

But that’s not why we’re here. While Jackie Robinson never set out to be a civil rights leader -- never sought attention or fame - the civil rights movement found him. It’s hard for some people to imagine a day in America when there was no such thing as being ‘just an African American ballplayer.’ But we can never forget what it meant to live under Jim Crow. Jackie Robinson knew it - he lived it.

The grandson of slaves, the son of sharecroppers -- he answered his country’s call to service and joined the Army in 1942. In the segregated army of those dark days when white and black men could bleed a battlefield red for their country but they couldn’t use the same water fountain, Jackie Robinson stood up for freedom. July 1944 - ten years before the Montgomery Bus Boycott - ten years before Rosa Parks inspired a nation - years before President Truman desegregated the military - active duty Lt. Robinson was ordered to sit in the back of a bus traveling through Texas. He refused and was court-martialed. Jackie Robinson fought the charge and was fully exonerated. He cleared his good name - and won his first battle to clear our racial conscience. Lt. Robinson knew the full meaning of patriotism, the real challenge of the words “my country, right or wrong.” He lived the lesson - if your country’s right, keep it right; if your country’s wrong, make it right. That was Jackie Robinson’s kind of patriotism -- standing up against power and fighting - with courage, with grace, with dignity - for justice. Just beginning, as Dr. King said of him, to challenge “the dark skies of intolerance and frustration." He loved the game of baseball - and played it with skill and speed and a quiet excellence that was a gift from God. One year with the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro League, one year with the minor league Montreal Royals, a try-out with the Red Sox that reminded us all how far we had yet to come. And then, finally, Brooklyn, 1947 - the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball. Very few people today know what those early days were really like. He risked his life, he risked his family. Branch Rickey wondered how he endured the ‘racial epithets and flying cleats, hate letters and death threats, pitchers throwing at his head and legs, catchers spitting on his shoes.’ His double play partner Pee Wee Reese summed it up: “he had to block out everything but this ball coming in at 100 miles per hour. To do what he did has to be the most tremendous thing I’ve ever seen in sports.” More than that -- before the civil rights marches in the South, before some of our major universities admitted African Americans, before Brown v. Board of Education - to do what he did was one of the most courageous things we’d seen in our country. Rookie of the year, a most valuable player award, six pennants, a World Series - these accomplishments on the baseball diamond earned Jackie Robinson a place in Cooperstown. But we honor him today for the courage - the character - the conviction of a lifetime that lead him to put himself on the line for freedom. We honor him because the land of the free became a little freer thanks to this brave man. We honor his passion to make America a better place for all of us, and we remember that work didn’t end when Jackie Robinson broke the color line. His words challenge us today: Jackie said, ''A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives." Well, he had an impact - and we need to remember those words next time someone says we can't make a difference. We got a Civil Rights Act because people were willing to march. Women achieved the right to vote not because it was just given to them, but because they fought for it and demanded it. History chose a 26-year old minister to lead us from bus boycotts to the march on Washington and to the mountaintop to begin to change the hearts of a divided nation. And that journey is still unfinished. Half a century later, in a very different but equally fateful time, honoring Jackie Robinson reminds us of the road traveled and the road still to be traveled. He reminds us that there’s still work for all to do, and no room on the sidelines. The Congressional Gold Medal honors Jackie Robinson for living up to his own standard - and setting the standard for us today. Thank you.