On 15 April 1947, the African American Jackie Robinson (1919 – 1972) turned out for the Brooklyn Dodgers. It has been seen as a pivotal moment in American history. Robinson broke the colour bar, the segregation that had operated in Major League Baseball (MLB) since 1884, when Moses Fleetwood Walker (1856 – 1924) had been expelled from the game. Robinson’s employment by the Dodgers was heralded as a sign that America could roll back and reduce its historical segregation and discrimination of African Americans. John Thorn, in commenting on this event, in Ken Burns’ 1994 monumental series of films Baseball said, this is a day ‘when baseball has led America rather than followed it.
But did America follow baseball? Is racism something that can easily be dealt with and reduced? Or is American racism, America’s antipathy, hatred or whatever you want to call it, towards African Americans something that is always there? While it may manifest itself in different ways in different historical settings, is it always waiting for a chance to express itself, to give vent to a belief of innate white superiority? Is it reasonable to expect that the employment of a baseball player would, or could roll back the segregation, discrimination and exploitation that African Americans had historically experienced following their arrival in America as slaves in the early decades of the Seventieth century?
America has tried to end racism and segregation before in a more substantial and thoroughgoing way than with the employment of a baseball player. Following the Civil War, the American Constitution was amended to abolish slavery (13th Amendment), create birth right citizenship (14th Amendment) and the right to vote irrespective of race, colour or previous servitude (15th Amendment). In 1866 and 1875 the Federal Government passed Civil Rights Acts to enable all citizens to ‘equal enjoyment’ of rights irrespective of their race, colour or previous servitude. In Civil Rights Cases in 1883 the Supreme Court ruled these Civil Rights Acts to be unconstitutional. It interpreted the 14th Amendment as being a corrective to state action, not private action. That is, there were no constitutional barriers to whites discriminating against blacks. Moses Fleetwood Walker’s expulsion from baseball followed this decision. In 1896, in Plessy v Ferguson the Supreme Court went further in curtailing the rights of African Americans in announcing its ‘separate but equal’ doctrine which sanctioned segregation of whites and blacks. It was constitutional to keep the races separate.
The point of departure of Howard Bryant’s Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America is that Robinson’s employment, as symbolic as it may have been, did not reduce the segregation and discrimination experienced by African Americans in the decades following him becoming a Dodger. There were broader, more powerful forces at play which sought to restrict the advancement of African Americans. Robinson was caught up in these events when he was used to criticise statements by the African American actor and opera star Paul Robeson (1898 – 1976) who mounted fundamental attacks on America and its treatment of African Americans. In the final analysis this is study of race in America, of how sport has been epiphenomenal to the operation of society. To the extent that it has ‘performed’ any function it is as an opiate for those unable, or unprepared, to see America for what it is.
Bryant begins his account by drawing attention to an 1897 article entitled Strivings of the Negro People written by the African American intellectual and civil rights advocate W. E. B. Du Bois (1868 – 1963). Du Bois highlights the difficulties African Americans experience in balancing the ‘double consciousness’ of being subjected to a segregated society and still feeling ‘American’. Du Bois saw this inner conflict as the defining characteristic of the post-slavery Black experience.
The Robinson–Robeson interaction occurred in the early stages of the Cold War and the anti-communist hysteria that swept America in the late 1940s, and the McCarthyism of the early 1950s. Bryant demonstrates how during this period, what might usefully be described as a ‘Red Scare’, this ‘double consciousness’ of ‘loyalty and conformity [to America] often disguised as anticommunism suppressed the … civil rights’ claims of African Americans (p.4). This is the major thesis of Kings and Pawns. In terms of Du Bois’s notion of ‘double consciousness’ Robinson leaned towards ‘Americanness’; Robeson fearlessly opposed segregation.
Conservative, right-wing, racist forces in both the administration of the Democrat Harry Truman (1884–1972), the Republican Party, most of the administrations of Southern states, if not those in the North, the FBI, the Passport Office, the press and elsewhere – what might loosely be described as ‘white society’ – were opposed to moves to end segregation. In Kings and Pawns Bryant examines how the interaction between Robinson and Robeson was part of the ‘Red Scare’ used to counter attempts to bring about an end to segregation in America in the decade after World War II.
In the early 1940s Paul Robeson was probably the most famous African American in America, if not the world. In 1942 and 1943 he played Othello in a number of northern cities. He had a Broadway run of 296 performances to rapturous applause. Previously, those who played Othello in America were white actors who wore blackface. Bryant observes that Robeson’s playing of Othello highlighted ‘the obviousness of the American contradiction of how it treated its Black citizens…[and] elevated Robeson’s importance to the country’s racial discourse’ (p. 23). At the same time there was debate in the Black Press along the lines of Du Bois’s ‘double consciousness’, of ‘the wisdom of Black soldiers risking their lives for a country that intended to relegate them back to segregation upon their return’ (p. 26).
Also, during 1943, the Black press and other organisations wrote to MLB Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis (1866-1944) urging MLB to sign Black players. Landis responded to this by inviting Robeson and the Black press to address clubs at MLB’s annual meeting in December. Robeson duly attended and made a speech about how ending segregation in baseball would make a positive impression with how ‘peoples all over the world would feel toward us as a country, in a time when we need their help’ (p. 36). The ‘Lords of Baseball’ responded to his speech with sustained applause and did nothing.
Bryant points out there were indications in subsequent deliberations between the ‘Lords’ at this meeting that Branch Rickey (1881 – 1965) of the Brooklyn Dodgers intended to sign an African American player. As is well known, he signed Jackie Robinson in 1945, who spent a year with a minor league club in Montreal before embarking on his career with the Dodgers in 1947.
In September 1946 Robeson led a seven member delegation of Black leaders to meet with Harry Truman at the White House with the hope of securing a federal anti-lynching bill. Bryant documents countless acts of lynching (or killing) and terrorist acts of white vigilantism against African Americans. To the extent that the perpetrators of such violence were ever subject to trial they were invariably found not guilty by an all-white jury.
The meeting with Truman did not go well. Truman had no intention of passing such legislation. He did not want to antagonise the South with a mid-term election pending. In a radio address after the meeting Robeson spoke out against ‘the wave of lynch terror and mob against Negro Americans’ and pledged ‘to defend and fight for the dignity and democratic rights of Negro Americans – to fight for their right to live’ (pp. 84-5).
Following this, Robeson appeared before a Joint Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities in Los Angeles. He was asked several times if he was a member of the Communist Party. Under oath he said, ‘I consider myself anti-fascist and independent’. He urged collaboration between the United States and USSR, a point he had made with Truman. He also stressed the importance of anti-lynching legislation. The Committee concluded that Robeson was a supporter of communist-front organisations. Following his appearance, the Stockton Herald ran a headline, ‘Communism Praised by Robeson at Probe’ (p. 85).
In 1949 Robeson travelled to Europe. He addressed a Peace Conference in Paris in April. He said, ‘It is unthinkable’ that American Negros would go to war on behalf of those who had oppressed us for generations’. The Associated Press dispatch headed his speech, a heading that appeared across the country, ‘Robeson: No Negro Will Fight Soviet’ (p. 106). Given the anti-Soviet hysteria of this time Robeson became a marked man, someone who needed to be dealt with.
The FBI maintained surveillance of Robson for over 30 years. It never found anything it could use against him for the issuing of a warrant for his arrest. Thought was given to a prominent African American appearing before the Un-American Activities Committee to refute Robeson’s claims concerning segregation in America. Jackie Robinson was approached to make such an appearance. Branch Rickey, a staunch conservative, anti-communist, religious and Republican convinced Robinson to testify. Bryant comments:
Robinson leaned toward declining the invitation, but he held Branch Rickey in childlike reverence, and the more Rickey convinced him that testifying against Robeson was part of his responsibility the more Robinson felt he could not say no to the man who gave him his historical importance – and signed his paychecks … Robinson believed deeply in the potential of America, and, like most Americans, saw communism as the enemy. Allowing Robeson’s words to go unchecked might increase the difficulty of the journey for Black America (pp. 133-4).
Bryant also said:
In Jackie Robinson, Branch Rickey created a figure new to American politics: the Black anticommunist…no one at his fame level had ever occupied such a unique, yet schizophrenic space: the Black man celebrated for upholding the values of a segregated society through the rejection of communism (p. 189).
Robinson appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee on 18 July 1949. He started his testimony by pointing out that the white public should understand that ‘every single Negro who is worth his salt’ will stand up to ‘slurs and discrimination because of his race … The fact that it is a Communist who denounces injustice in the courts, police brutality and lynchings when it happens doesn’t change the truth of the charges.’
With respect to Robeson’s statement in Paris ‘that American Negroes would refuse to fight in any war against Russia because we love Russia so much … if Mr. Robeson actually made it, it sounds very silly to me. But he has a right to his personal views, and if he wants to sound silly when he expresses them in public, that’s his business and not mine’. Robinson added he had too much invested for his family ‘in the future of the country, and I and other Americans of many races and faith have too much invested in our country’s welfare, for any of us to throw it away because of a siren song sung in bass…We can win our fight without the Communists and we don’t want their help’. (pp 141-2).
Robinson’s testimony was part of a broader campaign to silence and marginalise Robeson. Robeson was portrayed in the press as a Communist and the FBI worked behind the scenes to reduce his ability to work. Bookings he had were cancelled. In August and September 1949 there were riots with two of his concerts in Peekskill, upstate New York. The first saw the concert cancelled; the second involved attacks on him and concert goers when the concert finished (pp. 153-162).
In June 1950, the State Department cancelled his passport, denying him the ability to travel overseas and earn income with opportunities denied to him domestically. It was only in 1958 when the Supreme Court ruled that a passport could not be denied to a citizen based on their political beliefs that he was able to travel overseas. Bryant documents the various ways in which Robeson’s achievements were erased from the public record following his tarring with the communist brush.
Bryant sees Robinson’s House Un-American Activities Committee testimony as being an important ingredient in the attacks and marginalisation of Robeson. While the interaction between Robinson and Robeson is obviously the primary focus of Kings and Pawns, I submit that it would not be unreasonable to maintain that if Robinson had not testified, Robeson would still have experienced the same attacks and marginalisation that dogged him following his denunciation as a communist by white America. He was the victim of a pile on from governmental agencies, private organisations, the press and a variety of individuals such as those that participated in the Peekskill riots. In the context of the Red Scare that had taken hold of America after World War II, Robeson provided a convenient target for the fear, hysteria and hatred that had been generated.
Robinson accepted the offer that Rickey made to him in 1945 because he believed his employment would help end segregation in baseball, and America more generally. He spent the rest of his life been frustrated on both counts. Baseball took a long time to integrate, with initially only a few clubs employing African American players. In 1950 Rickey joined the Pittsburgh Pirates. During his time there, he never employed an African American; he looked to Latin America for baseball talent.
Following his retirement, Robinson, became involved in civil rights. He fell out with other Black organisations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X (1925 -1965). He supported Richard Nixon (1913-1994) in the 1960 election; offended ‘by the aloofness’ that John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) ‘showed toward civil rights’ and ‘seemed to know so little about Black people’ (pp. 235-26). One of the major strengths of Kings and Pawns is how Bryant unpacks the different stances adopted by black leadership groups as they orbited around Robinson and Robeson.
Robinson’s testimony tarnished his position amongst Black leadership groups. While they may have had their differences with Robeson they did not like the fact that he had testified against Robeson. Bryant portrays Robinson as a difficult person to get on with. He was frustrated with the lack of development concerning civil rights for African Americans. Bryant observed:
Outside of the baseball world, Robinson suffered from the lack of diplomacy that hurt him as a player. Quick to criticize, unaware – or maybe too all aware – of the impact of his words, Robinson found himself as he did during his baseball career, in a state of constant confrontation. Politics required compromise flexibility, and a keen awareness of when to speak and, more importantly, when not to. Robinson’s willingness to always speak his mind was both a tremendous quality and liability. His confrontations were myriad and bipartisan…An even greater disappointment quickly revealed itself: civil rights was his priority, but in the mainstream white world, race was but a topic – not always urgent, always to be balanced against other priorities – as Paul Robeson had been told in 1946 when Truman told him the time wasn’t right to address lynching (pp. 236-7).
America has had moments when the law has promoted the rights of African Americans. Reference has already been made to the Constitutional amendments and the subsequent Civil Rights Acts of 1868 and 1877. It would be almost eighty to ninety years before there would be another burst of activity. In 1954 the Supreme Court in Brown v Board of Education put an end to de jure segregation. In a rerun of initiatives after the Civil War, the Johnson administration passed the Civil Rights Act 1964 to end legal segregation in public facilities and employment, and the Voting Rights Act 1965 to end prohibit racial discrimination in voting.
There was widespread opposition to these measures by whites, especially in the South. During the 1950s and 1960s it was as if America was at war with itself over and against campaigns for civil rights. There was the killing of Emmett Till in 1955, Rosa Parks refusing to sit at the back of the bus and the Montgomery and other bus boycotts, the 1957 Little Rock Central High School crisis where the Governor of Arkansas sought to block the entry of Black students, battles over the enrollment of African Americans on voting lists, freedom rides, the 1963 bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama which resulted in the death of four young African American girls, and the murder of Malcolm X in 1965 and Martin Luther King (1929 – 1968) in 1968.
During America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, which was simply an extension of the Cold War hysteria that engulfed Paul Robeson, there was another playing out of Du Bois’s ‘double consciousness’. In 1965, champion boxer Muhammad Ali said he would refuse to be conscripted to serve in Vietnam: ‘I ain’t got no quarrel with the Viet Cong…no Viet Cong ever called me nigger’. And as happened with Robeson fifteen years earlier, he was rounded on by white society. Ali received a five year jail sentence in 1967, which was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court in 1971.
The major strength of Howard Bryant’s Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America is the way it investigates America; of how it concerns itself with America’s sad dance with race, specifically its treatment of African Americans. Paul Robeson was a major critic of America’s treatment of African Americans. Bryant documents how Jackie Robinson played a small part (after all a pawn is a pawn and not a major piece) in the attacks mounted on Robeson. He demonstrates how Jackie Robinson’s breaking down of segregation in baseball did not act as a spur to a broader dismantling of segregation and its associated evils across America. If anything, it had a negative effect in that Robinson was part of a strategy to use the hysteria of anti-communism to support such segregation. Bryant ruefully comments:
The United States did not recognize its own crimes against the humanity of Black people – the transatlantic slave trade, the hundreds of years of slavery, the murderous legality of Jim Crow, the extralegal killings – because America apologized for nothing (pp. 219-220).
And is it as if America’s race problem has gone away? In recent years there have been the police killings of unarmed African Americans, the Black Lives Matter campaigns and the reemergence of white supremacy under the Trump administration. And as happened in the past in the Reconstruction era, the Supreme Court in recent decisions has undermined the Voting Rights Act 1965. The conclusion one is left with after reading this superb exploration of America is that sport, as important as it may be to those who find themselves ensnared in its net, has been unable to tackle and diminish broader racist long term norms that exist in America. In the final analysis Howard Bryant’s Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America is a sad commentary on America and the human condition.
Howard Bryant, Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America, Mariner Books, New York, Boston, 2026, pp. 309, hardback, US $25.60.
Braham Dabscheck
University of Melbourne