Jackie Robinson: A Spiritual Biography; The Faith of a Boundary-Breaking Hero

In this fast-paced read, Long (Peaceful Neighbor) and Lamb (From Jack Johnson to LeBron James) paint a portrait of groundbreaking baseball player Jackie Robinson that is both refreshing and exciting. The authors argue that his little-known religious life was foundational to his success. Robinson himself attributed his resilience to his deep faith: “There’s nothing like faith in God to help a fellow who gets booted around once in a while.” During his stint in the Army, his baseball career, and his years of civil rights activism, Robinson was indeed “booted around,” examples of which the authors provide in each phase of his well-recorded life, but his faith in God, instilled in him by his mother and nurtured by fervent devotion, guided him to victory over his challenges. His association with such notables as Martin Luther King Jr. taught Robinson that, despite his own wariness of some of Jesus’s teachings, engagement with the civil rights movement had a strong spiritual component, and that people of faith must play a powerful role in the quest for equality. (Mar.)