Integration at Second Base: Jackie Robinson and the Quest for Black Citizenship

A new biography revealing the remarkable story of Jackie Robinson as a civil rights crusader

Jackie Robinson is one of the most enduring icons of the great American pastime―the man who broke baseball’s color line in the twentieth century, opening the door for his fellow professionals and allowing rising generations to dream of fame and glory on the diamond. But for number 42, playing for the Dodgers was just a beginning. As Peter Eisenstadt demonstrates in this compelling new biography, Robinson’s trailblazing journey was more than a role that fate thrust on him―it was politically informed and consciously connected in Robinson’s mind to a vision of integration and full Black citizenship.

When he ventured out of the Negro Leagues and into the majors, as the league’s sole Black player, his triumph could have stopped at mere tokenism. Eisenstadt reveals a more ambitious goal on Robinson’s part, as well as a side to the great sports hero we have never fully appreciated. This book explores the political and spiritual roots of Jackie Robinson’s quest for Black citizenship from his boyhood in Pasadena to his service days―during which he was court-martialed for refusing to change seats on a segregated bus―to a transcendent athletic career that included an MVP award, a World Series victory, and eventually a place in the Hall of Fame. In his life after baseball, Robinson went on to serve as a civil rights leader, columnist, and political advocate.

The determination that spurred his great achievements was always accompanied by an understanding of just how far society still needed to go: despite his success, at the end of his life he was convinced that he “never had it made.” In telling the story of Robinson’s remarkable life, this book sheds invaluable light on the complex meanings of integration.

Peter Eisenstadt is Affiliate Professor of History at Clemson University and the author of Against the Hounds of Hell: A Life of Howard Thurman.