Spring time in baseball is a time of eternal happiness and hope.
In 1946, that should have been the case for Jackie Robinson and his wife, Rachel, who were traveling to spring training in Daytona Beach.
A black person in the South was considered a second-class citizen by both custom, law and tradition.
Though he was born in Cairo, Ga., Robinson had grown up in California. He experienced racism there, of course, but nothing like what he discovered on this trip south.
As described by Rachel Robinson in a National Public Radio interview, they were bumped for white passengers from two planes before they arrived in Jacksonville for a bus trip to Daytona Beach.
The Jacksonville experience
"When we got on the bus in Jacksonville, we just sat where there were empty seats. But the bus driver stopped the bus and told us to move to the back bench. And when we moved to the back bench, the back bench was filled.
"And what the black people had done to accommodate new people on the bus is to sit up and sit back. Everybody is on a little bit of the bench."
That was just the start of the indignities that Robinson and his wife experienced in his struggle to simply play baseball. It's all so difficult for young people today to understand.
But it took a special kind of courage to take the constant abuse of players and fans.
Jackie Robinson was chosen by Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey because he had the strength of character to take the abuse without striking back. It was an almost biblical act of sacrifice by a man who had already shown he had the courage to fight back.
Robinson was perfectly capable of standing up for himself.
About a decade before Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Ala., Army soldier Jackie Robinson refused to move on a bus at Fort Hood, Texas. He was court-martialed, won the case and was given an honorable discharge.
That is why Robinson was a trailblazer for the entire nation, not just the baseball or sports world. He showed the stupidity and immorality of racial segregation at a time when, unfortunately, it was not so apparent to many.
What kind of courage does it take to step out alone when even some of your teammates don't approve of you?
The movie "42" about Robinson's life now playing theaters depicts that courage.
Lessons of all of us
Most of us will never have the opportunity to do something as momentous as Robinson. But we can speak up when we see injustice happening around us, especially when the general population seems indifferent to it.
Actually, that is the story of America - a constant progression to fulfill the promises of the Founders. Look at the vote.
Once kept solely for white men of property, it was extended to blacks in the 1860s, then women, then 18-year-olds and then extended once through the civil rights laws of the 1960s.
Part of hesitance to integrate is that the races could not compete without disruptions.
"There had been predictions that if you integrate sports, there would be riots in the stands and on the field and races could not play together," Rachel Robinson said in an interview in Scholastic magazine.
So if there had been fights on the field, the cause of integration could have been set back.
"I think the lesson for us is if you have an overriding goal, a big goal that you're trying to achieve, there are times when you must transcend the obstacles that are being put in your way. Rise above them."
The beauty of America is it is based on an ideal of equality, not on race, religion or ethnicity. That ideal requires constant movement forward.
Jackie Robinson showed the way for all of us.