GRADY COUNTY, Ga. — A marker noting the birthplace of baseball legend and Civil Rights icon Jackie Robinson has been vandalized, the Georgia Historical Society said. It is one of several that have been damaged in recent months.
The marker, “The Birthplace of Jackie Robinson,” which was erected in 2001 in Grady County, Georgia, was hit multiple times by gunfire.
Robinson is known for breaking baseball's color barrier and his Civil Rights activism beyond the playing field.
“Jackie Robinson was a pioneer in the integration of Major League Baseball and someone whose accomplishments should bring pride to all Americans," Dr. W. Todd Groce, President and CEO of the Georgia Historical Society, said. "This is a shameful act of vandalism that unfortunately has been carried out against several other markers that commemorate Civil Rights figures, in Georgia and beyond.”
Other historical markers on the Georgia Civil Rights Trail that have been vandalized include “Mary Turner and the Lynching Rampage of 1918" in Lowndes County and “Flat Rock African Methodist Episcopal Church” in Fayette County.
They said a marker in Savannah marking the terminus of General William T. Sherman’s March to the Sea and a Civil War-related marker in Fulton County were also defaced, marking an increase in vandalism of historical markers relating to African-American history, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the end of slavery.
"This act of destruction underscores the need for an endowment for the GHS historical marker program that will help us replace this marker and others like it and ensure that our commitment to telling all of Georgia’s history will not be subject to other senseless acts of destruction," Davis said.