Back on the mainland, Jackie took a job playing with the semi-professional basketball team, the Los Angeles Red Devils. But in the March of1942, he was drafted and sent to Fort Riley, Kansas for basic training. Here too, race played a defining role in the options available to black men.

After completing basic training, Jackie applied to the Officers Candidate School (OCS), a program that trained qualified soldiers to become officers. Even with a university education and having passed all the required exams, Jackie and other black soldiers were not accepted. Jackie soon realized that the army had no real desire to enroll and train black officers.

The armed forces were guilty of the segregationist policies of "Jim Crow," widely practiced and accepted in the south. Soldiers lived in segregated quarters. The base's best restaurants, drinking fountains, toilets, and recreational facilities were primarily reserved for white soldiers. When blacks were allowed to use the facilities, they had to compete for small and/or inferior areas.

Until he was honorably discharged from the army in November 1944, Jackie would experience repeated incidence of racial inequity. With each experience he refused to give in to ignorance. Instead, he forced the army to be accountable to its black soldiers. The armed forces were "integrated" in 1949, but this did not end the attitudes and systemic practices of Jim Crow.