At the beginning of the Cold War in 1949, baseball great Jackie Robinson appeared before the House

on American Activities Committee to publicly disavow the comments of another prominent Black American,

actor, singer, and activist, Paul Robeson. That fateful testimony is the subject of a new book,

Kings and Ponds, Jackie Robinson, and Paul Robeson in America, by journalist and author Howard Bryant.

I sat down with Bryant recently to unpack the parallel lives of these two trailblazing men

and the forces that ultimately pitted them against each other.

Howard Bryant, welcome back to the News Hour.

Thanks for having me back.

And let's start our conversation with the key moment in your book, that testimony in front of the House on American Activities Committee in 1949, Paul Robson was this outspoken activist with Soviet sympathies.

And he had been quoted as saying, it turned out the quote was somewhat

exaggerated, but he was saying that black Americans would never fight for a country like the

U.S. against a country like the Soviet Union that believed in their equality. And this was

Robinson's response in front of the committee.

I've been asked to express my views on Paul Robeson's statement in Paris to the effect

that American Negroes would refuse to fight in any war against Russia because we love Russia

so much.

I haven't any comment to make except that on that statement except that if Mr. Robson actually made it, it sounds very silly to me.

But he has a right to his personal views, and if he wants to sound silly,

when he expresses him in public, that's his business and not mine.

So how did Jackie Robinson find himself there pitted against Paul Robson?

Well, the biggest reason he found himself

pitted against Robeson is from his employer. Branch Ricky, the president of the Brooklyn

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