"Offers a personal perspective on the ballplayer’s political evolution. It explores how his faith metamorphosed into frustration, how and why his disdain for Southern Democrats led him to embrace Republicans such as Richard Nixon and Nelson Rockefeller, and how he reappraised figures he had originally undervalued, like John F. Kennedy, and was willing to excoriate idols like Richard Nixon and Nelson Rockefeller when he disagreed with them. The book also provides insights into Robinson’s enduring relationship with his mentor, Branch Rickey, who, as general manager, hired the player for the Dodgers (and who, incidentally, demands a new biography of his own). While some blacks viewed Robinson as too much of a conciliator and a go-along guy, the letters reveal a more complex character. 'I think I’ve been much more aggressive since I left baseball,' he once said. He admonished President Eisenhower for urging blacks to be patient, revealed the depth of his antagonism toward separatists like Malcolm X . . . [and] denounced Rockefeller for publicly endorsing Barry Goldwater. With the help of a professional writer, he wrote and released to the public a letter to Goldwater, whom he later came to know and like personally, in which he rejected the senator’s invitation to a sit-down. 'Senator, on pain of appearing facetious, I must relate to you a rather well-known story regarding the noted musician, Louis Armstrong, who was once asked to explain jazz,' Robinson wrote. '‘If you have to ask,’ Mr. Armstrong replied, ‘you wouldn’t understand.’ If at this late date I have to ask your views on civil rights, Senator, I doubt if I would understand.' Robinson counseled Rockefeller against using the expression 'attaboy' in addressing black men. And in a letter published in The New York Times, he criticized an editorial suggesting American blacks were better off than nonwhites elsewhere. 'It’s high time that you understand that we are interested in comparing ourselves with the standards of our own country and not with the peoples of other lands,' he wrote in 1967. By 1972, after Rockefeller ordered an assault on Attica prison to end a siege by inmates and veered rightward, perhaps to position himself for another presidential campaign, Robinson wrote: 'Somehow, it seems to me, getting ahead politically is more important to you than what is right.' To which Rockefeller replied, 'I can only say to my old friend that I haven’t changed — but conditions have changed.'"—Sam Roberts, The New York Times

"Coinciding with the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's entry into major league baseball, which broke the sport's color barrier, this absorbing collection of letters reveals new facets of the icon's sometimes private nature. The correspondence ranges from 1946 to 1972, with such pen pals as Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Barry Goldwater. Among the more fascinating exchanges are Robinson's dialogues with Richard Nixon over civil rights; his conciliatory responses to damning missives from Malcolm X and Adam Clayton Powell accusing him of an Uncle Tom stance; his blistering note to Mississippi segregationist James Eastland on prejudice; and his quest to make the Republican Party color-blind with notes to Nelson Rockefeller and Goldwater. Assembled by Elizabethtown College religious studies professor Long, the letters trace Robinson's political life, seeking to rationalize the schism between his equal rights fantasies and the reality of a tarnished American dream. Fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers star will find this collection more satisfying than much other published work about him."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)