CAIRO, Ga. — The Cairo High School Syrupmakers baseball team in rural south Georgia joined the Jackie Robinson Boys & Girls Club to celebrate the centennial of baseball legend Jackie Robinson this week.

“We want to make an event for such a special occasion to remember a great man who literally changed the world and was born right here in Cairo,” said Syrupmakers coach Chad Parkerson. 

Syrupmakers paid tribute to Robinson at the local Jackie Robinson Field at the high school by unveiling throwback uniforms inspired by the Brooklyn Dodgers, the team the famed baseball star once played for.

Parkerson said he helped create the old-fashioned, high-sock uniforms with Robinson’s number 42 on the sleeves with a designer at New Balance.

“I tried to be as close to the Brooklyn Dodgers as I could,” Parkerson said.

Robinson, who died in 1972 and is best known for breaking major league baseball’s color barrier, was born in Cairo and would have turned 100 years old Thursday.

Boys & Girls Club members in the small community arrived at Jackie Robinson Field wearing baseball attire of the Dodgers and other major league teams. The children participated in the national anthem on the field with the players. Children will be able to run the bases of the field and interact with players.

Jack Roosevelt Robinson became the first black player in modern Major League Baseball history in 1947, but it was in south Georgia along Hadley Ferry Road in a three-room cabin in the Rocky Hills community near the Ochlockonee River where the future star was born to a family of tenant farmers Jan. 31, 1919. 

Kathy Young, Robinson’s niece who currently lives in Los Angeles, California, said Jackie’s biggest impact was standing up for issues he believed were important. “I think it’s the strength in his character that we’ve seen retold over continues to carry his legacy,” Young said.

Jackie, the fifth child of Mallie McGriff Robinson and Jerry Robinson and the grandson of former slaves, was born at approximately 6 p.m. He was delivered by his grandmother Edna, a nurse midwife.

Details of Robinson’s brief time in Cairo are inconsistent. Some accounts, including that of Robinson biographer Arnold Rampersad, believe it is likelier that Jackie was actually born several miles away on the grounds of the old Sasser Plantation.

A historical marker noting Jackie’s place of birth is currently at the Hadley Ferry location, which the Robinson family states was where it occurred.

Robinson as a young child when his family left Cairo. He spent most of his formative years in California, where he and his older brother Mack, Young’s father, became active in sports.

Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey elevated Robinson from the Negro Baseball League to the majors in 1947, ending the segregation of the sport which had existed since the 1880s.

The Cairo High School baseball field was renamed the Jackie Robinson Field in 1996 and the Jackie Robinson Boys & Girls Club was founded in Cairo in 2009. Each year the institute holds an essay contest for middle school students in Thomas and Grady counties on Robinson’s impact.

Robinson, who died in 1972, is only known to have returned to Cairo twice, first in 1949 while the Dodgers were playing a series of exhibition games in Georgia.

Already famous at the time for having broken baseball’s color barrier, Robinson was accompanied by teammates Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe. The African-American community in Cairo held a parade for the hometown star and Robinson gave a brief speech.

Robinson declined a cash gift he was presented by the crowd, instead requesting a country ham, which he brought back to New York.

An additional visit to Cairo may have occurred sometime in the early 1960s, when Robinson was an active voice for African-Americans during the Civil Rights movement.

According to Robinson’s family, Jackie brought a suitcase full money to bail out students in Albany who participated in protests at segregated lunch counters when the visit is believed to have occurred, though there are no further details.

Although Robinson didn’t spend much of his life in Cairo, organizers of this week’s events believe the community should care about their native son.