The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson

Eleven years before Rosa Parks resisted going to the back of the bus, a young black second lieutenant, hungry to fight Nazis in Europe, refused to move to the back of a U.S. Army bus in Texas and found himself court-martialed. The defiant soldier was Jack Roosevelt Robinson, already in 1944 a celebrated athlete in track and football and in a few years the man who would break Major League BaseballΓÇÖs color barrier. This was the pivotal moment in Jackie RobinsonΓÇÖs pre-MLB career. Had he been found guilty, he would not have been the man who broke baseballΓÇÖs color barrier. Had the incident never happened, he wouldΓÇÖve gone overseas with the Black Panther tank battalionΓÇöand who knows what after that. Having survived this crucible of unjust prosecution as an American soldier, RobinsonΓÇöalready a talented multisport athleteΓÇöbecame the ideal player to integrate baseball.This is a dramatic story, deeply engaging and enraging. ItΓÇÖs a Jackie Robinson story and a baseball story, but it is also an army story as well as an American story.