Why Jackie Robinson Testified Against Paul Robeson | ‘Kings and Pawns’ explores Jackie Robinson’s…

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Why Jackie Robinson Testified Against Paul Robeson

In Brooklyn, there’s a one-hundred-and-sixty-two-year-old building that stands at 40 Greene Avenue. For much of its life, the structure was a Catholic church, known as St. Casimir’s. But in 1980 it was purchased and renovated by Dr. Josephine English. English, the first Black woman to open a private practice in the state of New York, was known as Brooklyn’s Birth Mother. She had delivered some six thousand babies, including the children of Betty Shabazz and Malcolm X. She became a philanthropist, and her patronage of the arts was perhaps best represented by her conversion of St. Casimir’s into a haven for theatre, performance, and community engagement. She named the venue after the actor, singer, sportsman, and activist Paul Robeson, who decades earlier had been one of the most respected and beloved Black men in the world, until he was deemed an enemy of the state, in 1950.

'Kings and Pawns' explores Jackie Robinson's reluctant testimony against Paul Robeson

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At the beginning of the Cold War in 1949, Jackie Robinson appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee to disavow the comments of another prominent Black American, actor, singer and activist Paul Robeson. That testimony is the subject of "Kings and Pawns" by Howard Bryant. Amna Nawaz sat down with Bryant to unpack the forces that ultimately pitted the men against each other.

Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

At the beginning of the Cold War in 1949, baseball great Jackie Robinson appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee to publicly disavow the comments of another prominent Black American actor, singer and activist Paul Robeson. That fateful testimony is the subject of a new book, "Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America," by journalist and author Howard Bryant.

‘Kings and Pawns’ unearths story of conflict between Black icons Robinson and Robeson

As the first African-American athlete in Major League Baseball’s history, Jackie Robinson fought for six All-Star appearances, a 1955 World Series ring and a legacy of integration in professional sports. But until now, the story of one of Robinson’s most infamous battles has gone largely untold — and it happened not on the field, but in the courtroom.

“I always knew that Jackie had testified against [Paul] Robeson. What I didn’t know was how he got there,” said Howard Bryant, author of “Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America.”

Harkening back to a society dominated by anti-communism sentiment, “Kings and Pawns” explores the factors leading to the career death of Paul Robeson, who revolutionized college football, helped desegregate Broadway, and lit up stage and screen as an iconic singer and film actor. While Bryant says Robeson was once “the most famous Black man in the world,” he was disillusioned by post-WWII America’s treatment of Black veterans and turned his support toward the United States’ Cold War adversary.

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