In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

And from there, the work began.

Meet the version of Jackie that the history books conveniently forget as we tell the story of Jackie Robinson and Paul Roberson

versus the United States government.

The beautiful thing about having this platform known as Black Diamonds is that we've gotten

an opportunity to share a lot of different stories from the Negro

leagues. We've talked about why Jackie was the first man to walk on the moon. And as we get

ready for another Jackie Robinson Day celebration, I think it's important that we understand

that the first man to walk on the moon was far more than just a

baseball player. Don't get me wrong. His barrier-breaking role with the Brooklyn Dodgers, in essence,

launched the civil rights movement in this country. But there are also these kinds of views about Jackie that he was soft, that he was some kind of Uncle Tom.

And this is not what I think.

These are things that I've heard from young people in particular who cannot quite understand a grasp how in the world this man could take the things that he had to take as he was blazing this path to play Major League Baseball.

And I remind them that Jackie had to humble himself for the greater good, and that it takes more strength

not to fight back than it does to fight. And so as we start to look at Jackie, hopefully

in a new light, his complexities, the things that haven't always been talked about, his political views,

that, to be quite frank, ruffled the feathers among black folks. There were black folks who did

not like the fact that Jackie Robinson was a Republican at that time. And it was once upon a time when virtually every

black person was a Republican in this country, but that had shifted. Our alignment universally

had become more democratic in nature. And here was Jackie speaking out against really the headhorse

of the Democratic Party at that time, John F. Kennedy.

And yet I go back to something that Buck O'Neill said to me, and he's oftentimes said

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