Reginald “Reggie” Jackson was born on May 18, 1946 in the 
northern part of Philadelphia in a neighborhood called Wyncote. In 1950 Jackson
went through his first hardship as his father, Martinez Jackson, and mother,
Clara Martinez, decided to get a divorce. When Clara left she took Dolores,
James, and Tina, leaving Reggie and Beverly with Martinez. Jackson has an
unusual background for a black major league baseball player. “Unlike most black
players of his generation and the preceding ones, Jackson was neither born in
the South nor raised in an urban black community" thus he, "never had to deal with
Jim Crow or the bruising poverty of the urban ghetto or the sharecropping
economy”(Perry, 10). Coming from this environment, Jackson did not pay the price
for his motormouth and troublemaking, as “the progressive-minded Jewish
community in Wyncote demanded little of Jackson in the way of social conformity”
(Perry, 11). Jackson still had to be careful as parents did not always like their
kids playing with Jackson. One story that is highlighted in ESPN SportsCentury
is when Jackson was dating a white girl in high school, George Beck, a
childhood friend of Jackson’s, had to pick her up and drop her off at her
house. The parents of the girl did not approve of her dating Jackson; Jackson
found a way around it by making her parents think that she was dating George
Beck instead of Jackson.

            Jackson faced family hardships once
again as his father was sentenced to jail for bootlegging moonshine. In high
school Jackson excelled in football and baseball, which got him noticed by
numerous colleges, some that would even break the color barrier: Alabama,
Georgia, and Oklahoma. Jackson also got offers from the Giants, Dodgers and
Twins to play professional baseball right out of high school. Martinez,
however, wanted Reggie to go to college to further his education. Jackson was
awarded a full scholarship and $15 per week to spend on anything he wanted from
Arizona State University. ASU was the only college that allowed Jackson to play
both football and baseball.