About this item
Before the United States Supreme Court ruled against segregation in public schools, and before Rosa Parks refused to surrender her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama, Jackie Robinson walked onto the diamond on April 15, 1947, as first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers, making history as the first African American to integrate Major League Baseball in the twentieth century. Today a national icon, Robinson was a complicated man who navigated an even more complicated world that both celebrated and despised him. Many are familiar with Robinson as a baseball hero. Few, however, know of the inner turmoil that came with his historic status. Featuring piercing essays from a range of distinguished sportswriters, cultural critics, and scholars, this book explores Robinson's perspectives and legacies on civil rights, sports, faith, youth, and nonviolence, while providing rare glimpses into the struggles and strength of one of the nation's most athletically gifted and politically significant citizens.
About the Author
Michael G. Long (longmg4242@gmail.com) has a Ph.D. from Emory University and is the author or editor of numerous books on nonviolent protest, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, politics, and religion. He's currently working on picture books and books for young readers, with subjects ranging from civil rights leader Bayard Rustin to the 1917 Silent Protest Parade to nonviolent protests led by kids. Long's coauthored biography of transgender rights pioneer Phyllis Frye is under contract. Long's first YA nonfiction biography--a coauthored book titled Troublemaker for Justice: The Story of Bayard Rustin, the Man Behind the March on Washington (City Lights Books) --earned starred reviews in Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and the School Library Journal. The Bank Street Center, Kirkus, and SLJ selected Troublemaker as a best book of the year. Long has also written on civil rights and protest for the Los Angeles Times, The Undefeated (ESPN) , the Progressive, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the New York Daily News, the Afro, USA Today, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and the Huffington Post.His work has been featured in or on MSNBC, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, USA Today, The Root, The Nation, The Undefeated (ESPN) , Mother Jones, Huffington Post, Salon, CNN, Book Forum, Ebony/Jet, and many other places.Long has spoken at City Lights Bookstore, Fenway Park, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Library of Congress, the National Museum of American History, the National Archives, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, the City Club of San Diego, the Schomberg Center of the New York Public Library, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the New-York Historical Society, among other places, and he has appeared on PBS, C-Span, and National Public Radio. Long lives in Lower Allen Township (PA) with Karin, Nate, and their Boston terrier, George Abner. His older son Jack is a firefighter.You can reach Mike at longmg4242@gmail.com.
