Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America
Howard Bryant
Mariner Books
Kings and Pawns is the untold story of sports and fame, Black America and the promise of integration through the Cold War lens of two transformative events.
The first occurred July 18, 1949 in Washington, D.C., when a reluctant Jackie Robinson, the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball star who integrated the game and at the time was the most famous Black man in America, appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee to discredit Paul Robeson, the legendary athlete, baritone, and actor — himself once the most famous Black man in America. The testimony would be a defining moment in Robinson’s life and contribute heavily to the destruction of Robeson’s iconic reputation in the eyes of America.
The second occurred June 12, 1956, in the midst of the last, demagogic roar of McCarthyism, when a battered, defiant Robeson – prohibited from leaving the United States – faced off in a final showdown with HUAC in the same setting Robinson appeared in seven years earlier.
These two moments would epitomize the ongoing Black American conflict between patriotism and protest.