How Jackie Robinson Inspired 90-Year-Old NYC Teacher to Build World's Best Collection of African American Artifacts

It's been 75 years since Jackie Robinson broke the baseball color barrier when he started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.

That historic moment inspired one fan of number 42 to build a lifelong collection of more than 20,000 pieces of African American memorabilia. Now she's ready to pass that collection to the next generation.

Former New York City teacher Elizabeth Meaders spent 60 years collecting items relating to slavery, the fight for civil rights, sports, politics, and the military.

"Jackie was the beginning. He was like the plug that pushed me. But once I got into the collecting field and found out how magnificent and how unappreciated these African-American artifacts and ephemera were, I was just overpowered because I switched from sports to military," Meaders said.

She said her obsession became a labor of love over several decades, collecting many of the items through catalogs and attending collectibles shows. 

"I am obsessed by African-American history and it was worth my time, worth my emotional investment, because here is a history of a noble people that is completely unknown, disrespected, unacknowledged, unembraced," Meaders explained. 

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She also described her passion to collect historical items, but told the Associated Press it's time to let her collection go. 

"I would be bumping into people and knocking them out of my way and grabbing history for 20 more years. But the reality is I've run out of gas. I'm too old. I can't go any further. I'm worn out physically. I have to accept reality and say it's time for some institution or a person who is a humanitarian, philanthropist, patriotic American to take this collection to the next level," Meaders said.

Now, the 90-year-old is putting the items up for auction after storing her collection in her three-story Staten Island home for years. 

An official with the Guernsey Auction House called the collection "the best of its kind in the world."

"A collection that really has no equal, people far more knowledgeable than I, very qualified Museum directors and historians, have described the Meaders collection as likely the best of its type in the world. I mean, that's saying a lot," Arlan Ettinger, president of the auction house, noted.

Ettinger said several of the pieces are relatively obscure which makes this auction unprecedented.

Both Meaders and Guernsey hope that the collection will find its final home in a museum or university where they believe it could benefit the public.   

The collection is set to be auctioned off Monday, Feb. 28 at the auction house in Manhattan.