Bill Clinton: “And if he hadn't done what he did and Branch Rickey hadn't done what he did, PeeWee Reese hadn't run the team like he…”

“And if he hadn't done what he did and Branch Rickey hadn't done what he did, PeeWee Reese hadn't run the team like he did, it would have been a very different world. But Jackie Robinson--you know, someone--maybe fate has a way of doing that in history, but he was--he had the unique blend of talent and character to do what he did. And it's made a real difference. It made a real difference to the way people thought about race. I think that's more important than the fact that he was a great baseball player because baseball really was our national pastime then, too, and there was no competition from highly televised pro basketball or pro football or anything else. It was the thing. And so it was--as important as it was, and 3 years later basketball was integrated and other things happened--this was a huge deal. Most Americans now can't even imagine how big a deal it was. This was the year before President Truman signed the order to integrate the Army. This was a huge deal. Mr. Berman. It was really 15 years plus before marches in the sixties. I mean, it was so far ahead of its time----”