Remembering Jackie Robinson in town where it started

Far off the beaten path, way down in southwest Georgia near the Florida state line, a remarkable life began in the most humble of circumstances.

Jackie Robinson was born just outside the small town of Cairo (pronounced "KAY-ro"), the child of sharecroppers struggling to make ends meet in the grinding poverty of the Jim Crow South.

As Major League Baseball honours the 75th anniversary of Robinson's historic breaking of the colour barrier, let's not forget where he came from.

Robinson spent the first year of his life near Cairo. For decades, there was nothing to mark that he was ever there — a forgotten first chapter to one of America's most significant stories.

That has changed over the last quarter-century.

Even more significantly, the Jackie Robinson Boys & Girls Club was founded about a dozen years ago, striving to create a better life for Cairo's young people, many of whom still face some of the same challenges that Robinson did a century ago.

Stephen Francis, the club's director, proudly notes that it's the only Boys & Girls Club in the entire world to bear Robinson's name.

Its mission certainly would've met with his approval.

"Being named after Jackie Robinson makes us feel a little more special than the normal Boys & Girls Club," Francis said. "But it's also a great responsibility with what he stood for. We have to uphold that and pass it down to the children in our daily programs and the life skills that we teach. We want to make sure we're instilling the character that Jackie Robinson stood for."

What was that?

"It's OK to fall as long as you get back up," Francis replied. "Failing is not falling. Failing is giving up when you fall. You're gonna go through some things. But if something is worth it, it's worth