Jackie Robinson's road to breaking baseball's color barrier was a long one. He played four sports at UCLA and starred in the Negro Leagues before signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1945. 

The whole story can be found in the Brooklyn headquarters of National Grid.

"It's an important historical story not only baseball, but more importantly what it represents to us globally," says Melanie Littlejohn, the utility's vice president of community and customer management.

The utility is hosting a pop-up exhibit at One Metro Tech Center, marking 70 years since April 15th 1947, when Robinson stepped onto Ebbets Field as the first black man to play in the big leagues. He also made his mark off the field, in business and a civil rights activist. 

"What an important story for us to tell, in particular some of our young people, who may not understand some of the significance of this history," Littlejohn says.

National Grid partnered with St. Francis College and the Brooklyn Historical Society to stage the exhibit.

Nearby, the Historical Society has a longer-running display of memorabilia like signed baseballs, game programs and even a letter exchange between Robinson and President John F. Kennedy. There is also the original 1955 Dodgers World Series banner. Eight years ealier, Robinson endured a lot when he joined the team. 

"He put up with tremendous grief and offense and racial slurs and horrible things that fans said about him. And even some of his fellow players were you know, not sympathetic and didn't really want him there," says Deborah Schwartz, executive director of the Brooklyn Historical Society. 

But Robinson went on to have a Hall of Fame career. Schwartz says for the Historical Society, one is the keys is how his story of struggling for acceptance relates to what's happening in America today 

"We try to help our audiences think about what is the relationship of Jackie Robinson's story, to their story," she says. 

The Jackie Robinson pop-up exhibit at the National Grid headquarters will be up through April 14th. The Brooklyn Historical Society's exhibit runs through June of 2018. To find out more, head to BrooklynHistory.org.