Jackie Robinson’s Family Wants Dance Room Named After Robinson Matriarch, Not Troop

Two members of the Robinson family are calling on the City to name a dance room after Jackie Robinson’s mother instead of a local R&B group.

Rose Robinson, the youngest daughter of Mack and Delano Robinson, made the request to the City along with her cousin Mary Ann Warren.

The City’s Recreation and Parks Commission is set to discuss a recommendation to name the dance room at the Jackie Robinson Recreation Center after Troop at 6 p.m. on Tuesday at the City Yards, Public Works Building — Second Floor, 233 W. Mountain St.

The group was founded at Pasadena High School in the early 1980s.

The group had three number-one singles and ten top-ten singles on the Billboard R&B Singles chart between 1988 and 1992 and three certified gold albums and one certified platinum album.

The City Council discussed naming a portion of Dayton Street in honor of the Pasadena R&B group.

The plan faced opposition from the Castle Green Homeowners Association, which argued that Dayton Street’s historic significance should be preserved.

Since that time, talks of honoring the group have been ongoing.

Other options include a plaque at the Convention Center.

The year-long effort has been spearheaded by Keisha Wilkins, but so far all efforts to honor the group have failed to gain steam.

And now opposition has arisen over the dance room.

“The ‘family’ [is rejecting] naming the Dance Room after ‘Troop,'” said Rose Robinson.

Jackie and Mack Robinson made their mark on history at the height of the Jim Crow era.

Mack won a silver medal in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and helped defeat Hitler’s claims of Aryan superiority.

In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball when he joined the Dodgers.

Mallie moved Mack, Jackie, and their siblings to Pasadena in the 1920s to a house on Pepper Street, a few blocks from where the recreation center is located today.

“Mallie wanted an environment for her four boys and daughter that would provide all that she was determined to do, as a single parent,” Warren wrote. “With her deep religious belief and trust that the Lord was watching over her, she acquired this huge property that had more than one house on the land. I remember it very well. I spent a lot of time at her house in the early 50s, along with my sisters, when we were very young.”

Mallie concluded her letter asking the City Council and the Recreation and Parks Commission to vote to rename the dance room the “Mallie Robinson Dance Room.”

There are several tributes to Jackie and Mack Robinson in the City. This would be the first honor for their mother Mallie.