� � � � � �In March 1946, Jackie Robinson was traveling from California to Florida, hoping to become the first African American baseball player to break segregation laws in Florida. That spring, Branch Rickey, the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, decided he was going to lift the color bar. The color bar was a system of written and unwritten rules, which kept baseball players separated by race. He decided to let Jackie Robinson become the first person to play integrated baseball in Florida. On March 17, 1946, Jackie Robinson stepped onto City Island Ballpark in Daytona, in an exhibition game against the Dodgers. It was the first time a black player played for a minor league team against a major league team since the color bar was implemented in baseball in the 1880’s. This made Daytona Beach the very first city in Florida to allow integrated baseball when segregation laws were enforced.� It was a�historical moment that paved the way for other baseball teams in Florida to allow integrated baseball. It served as a spark for the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Jackie Robinson made my success possible, without him, I would never have been able to do what I did.”