Jackie Robinson: A Biography

An illuminating portrait of one of baseball's most celebrated players chronicles the life of Jackie Robinson from his rural Southern childhood to his early career in the Negro Leagues to his role as the man who broke professional baseball's color barrier. Simultaneous.

/ 4 hours
Read by LeVar Burton

AudioBook contains the historic recording of Jackie Robinson's Baseball Hall of Fame induction speech.
The extraordinary life of Jackie Robinson is illuminated as never before in this full-scale biography by Arnold Rampersad, who was chosen by Jack's widow, Rachel, to tell her husband's story, and was given unprecedented access to his private papers. We are brought closer than we have ever been to the great ballplayer, a man of courage and quality who became a pivotal figure in the areas of race and civil rights.

Born in the rural South, the son of a sharecropper, Robinson was reared in southern California. We see him blossom there as a student-athlete as he struggled against poverty and racism to uphold the beliefs instilled in him by his mother--faith in family, education, America, and God.

We follow Robinson through World War II, when, in the first wave of racial integration in the armed forces, he was