Sharon Robinson will have a place, finally, to showcase her mother’s flowing white wedding gown. The pleated dress has been sitting in a dark closet in Connecticut for some 70 years, avoiding the ravages of age, and soon enough it will be on display at a new Jackie Robinson Museum in New York, near the Holland Tunnel.

There will be other memorabilia at the museum about Jackie Robinson’s life and baseball career, plenty of it, when the place opens in spring 2019. There will be baseball bats, autographed photos and videos of Robinson pilfering yet another base. But that isn’t really the big idea. At the ceremonial groundbreaking on Thursday, founders expressed the hope that this long-sought gallery will educate and inspire a fresh generation of children to conquer barriers and battle bullies of all demographics.

“Mom turns 95 in July, and this is her birthday present,” Sharon Robinson said about her mother, Rachel. “This is what she wanted for his legacy, to show that struggle is a process. We knew him in the family not as a baseball player, but as an activist.”

The museum has been in the works for decades, but the Jackie Robinson Foundation only recently collected enough money to make it reality. A reported $6.5 million grant over three years from the Strada Education Network put the project over the top, giving the Jackie Robinson Foundation a total of $25 million — enough to remodel the loftlike space on the first floor of the building at the corner of Varick and Canal Streets. Organizers estimate they will need an additional $18 million to operate the museum, and will continue collecting donations to reach that level.