This is Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. These two were leaders of the civil rights movement and fought for equal rights for all people. They endured pain and suffering in their journey, but managed to prevail through all of the hard times. 

"I Have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." - Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. always had this dream and fought for the rights that all people of color have today, but in this process there were many obstacles he and many others had to face. 

Plessy v. Ferguson was a court case that bassicly justified racism by saying that as long as the conditions at a place were the same blacks and whites could be seperate, but the whites did not keep these places the same because they saw the blacks as lesser than themselves and did not think they deserved equal rights. 

After Plessy v. Fergusen had been passed and it was legal for all facilities to be seperate but equal Jim crow laws came about. These were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in mostly the southern states. The laws further enforced African-Americans to be seperate from the whites and helped to created a void between the two races. 

This is all part of the reason why Jackie felt necessary to do what he did. He had a dream similar to Dr. King and Rosa Parks, he wanted all people of color to be equal not only in society but also in sports.