Ballplayer or barrier breaker? Branding through the seven statues of Jackie Robinson

Jackie Robinson is the baseball player most frequently depicted by a public statue within the USA, a ubiquity explained by his unique position as barrier breaker of the Major League colour bar. Utilising a detailed inspection of statue designs, locations and inscriptions, and comparisons with wider baseball statuary, Robinson's monuments reveal a distinctive set of cultural projections. These are commemorations distinguished by their age, location away from MLB ballparks, lack of action poses and their use of inscriptions consisting of platitudes or discourse on the subject's relationship with the statue's location as opposed to athletic achievement. Such characteristics indicate that Jackie Robinson statues neither fulfil the typical role of branding host communities through nostalgia and reflected glory nor that of reparations. Instead, Robinson's statues act as mediators of reflected character and as tolerance branding. By projecting the softer aspects of Robinson's personality, and promoting a local history of racial tolerance as much as Robinson's triumph over wider intolerance, the host communities are seeking to identify themselves with these twin positive attributes. However, in neglecting a visual connection with baseball in the design and interpretative material, Robinson's statuary marginalises the relationship between his ability as a sportsman and his wider social impact.