First Class Citizenship: The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson

I was 9 years old, and living in Brooklyn, when Jackie Robinson broke in in 1947. I saw a few Dodger games - from the center field bleachers (only $.60) - and was a huge fan of Jackie's. Over the years I thought I'd kept up pretty well with his both his baseball career and his later business and political involvments. Nevertheless, this wonderful collection/selection of his correspondence, accurately sub-titled "The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson," just blew me away. Let me be clear: This is not a book primarily for baseball fans, it is a book for all Americans - all people - who want to know more about both this remarkable man and many of the most prominent American leaders of the 1950s and '60s. Robinson corresponded often, and sometimes at considerable length, with Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, Nelson Rockefeller, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johson, Barry Goldwater, and many others. Michael Long, who edited this collection - and provides useful, brief introductions as needed - includes not only Robinson's letters but also many of the responses he received. As with Robinson's letters, these replies shed wonderful insight on the letter-writers. Almost always they are writing for their recipient, not for the public or posterity. I taught American History at a college prep school for 38 years; I thought I knew well the history of the Civil Rights era and the men who made it. It's rare at my age that I find a book that brings genuinely knew information and perspective which causes me to re-think my assessments of men and events. "First Class Citizenship" has done so. I very much hope it gains a wide audience. Readers will become more familiar not only with Jackie Robinson in all his passion and complexity and integrity but also with the men in power, good and not-so-good, who shaped the history of that tumultuous time.