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Jackie Robinson has stretch of major freeway named after him

Before Jackie Robinson broke the Major League Baseball color barrier, helping set into motion a dramatic shift in racial attitude in this nation, he was a four-sport star at UCLA.

In addition to playing baseball, he won 1940 NCAA Men’s Track and Field Championships and was one of only four black players on the school’s football team.

Now, more than three quarters of a century after his college career, Robinson’s local community is paying its respects.

A stretch of the 210 freeway in Los Angeles where Robinson grew up is now named after the late-great civil rights pioneer.

“Jackie Robinson is not only an inspiring figure to us for his accomplishments in athletics, but also as a civil-rights-era trailblazer who advocated for social change,” Assemblyman Mike Gatto said about the honor, via ABC 7. “His contributions to baseball and society have made an everlasting impression on our nation.”

The stretch is over four miles long and will be named the Jackie Robinson Memorial Highway.

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