Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America

Sports journalist Bryant (Rickey) charts in this powerful history the intersecting paths of baseball star Jackie Robinson and singer and actor Paul Robeson against the backdrop of U.S. segregation and Cold War politics. In 1943, Robeson was the first Black actor to play Othello in a major U.S. production, and a few years later Robinson broke the color line in Major League Baseball when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Though the two never met, they were publicly pitted against each other. In 1947, Robeson, an advocate for civil rights and critic of capitalism, was deemed a “sponsor of communism” by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Encouraged by Dodgers president Branch Rickey, who wanted an opportunity to separate baseball from any associations with communism, Robinson reluctantly agreed to testify against Robeson. In his testimony, Robinson praised American democracy and denounced Robeson, which led government leaders and the mainstream press to laud him as a national hero. This moment, Bryant astutely demonstrates, personified Black Americans’ internal conflict between patriotism and protest, with “one man appearing in conflicted service to and the other hunted for ferocious critique of a country that would ultimately and decisively wound both.” Deeply researched and expertly crafted, this is an important corrective to the popular understanding of race and politics in mid-century America. (Jan.)