The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Call Him Jack: The Story of Jackie Robinson, Black Freedom Fighter by Yohuru Williams, Michael G. Long

Episode Date: October 13, 2022

Call Him Jack: The Story of Jackie Robinson, Black Freedom Fighter by Yohuru Williams, Michael G. Long An enthralling, eye-opening portrayal of this barrier-breaking American hero as a lifelong, relentlessly proud fighter for Black justice and civil rights. According to Martin Luther King, Jr., Jackie Robinson was “a sit-inner before the sit-ins, a freedom rider before the Freedom Rides.” According to Hank Aaron, Robinson was a leader of the Black Power movement before there was a Black Power movement. According to his wife, Rachel Robinson, he was always Jack, not Jackie―the diminutive form of his name bestowed on him in college by white sports writers. And throughout his whole life, Jack Robinson was a fighter for justice, an advocate for equality, and an inspiration beyond just baseball. From prominent Robinson scholars Yohuru Williams and Michael G. Long comes Call Him Jack, an exciting biography that recovers the real person behind the legend, reanimating this famed figure’s legacy for new generations, widening our focus from the sportsman to the man as a whole, and deepening our appreciation for his achievements on the playing field in the process.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. Chris Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Hey, the podcast we certainly appreciate you tuning in we've got an amazing story that's going to blow your mind today his second appearance on the show michael

g long on the show he's a prolific author writer he's been writing for quite some time publishing books and he's on here with the newest book that he has that just came out september 20th 22 22 about jackie rob. We'll get to him in a second. In the meantime, make sure you go subscribe to the podcast wherever you find it. We're over there on LinkedIn, the big LinkedIn group, the newsletter. We're doing audio chats over there on LinkedIn. So check those out as well. Go to all our groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, youtube.com, 4chesschrisfoss, and Goodreads.com, 4ChefsChrisFoss. Hot off the presses, September 20th, 2022, the book is entitled, Call Him Jack, the story of Jackie Robinson, Black Freedom Fighter,

by you, Hurrah Williams, and Michael G. Long. Michael is on the show with us today. Welcome to the show, Michael. How are you? Hey, Chris. I'm doing well. How are you today? It's good to hear you once again, by the way. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate the compliment. I'm surprised I still have one or a brain at this point for all the good stuff. And welcome back to the show. You have a PhD from Emory University. You're the author and editor of numerous books on nonviolent protests, civil rights,

LGBTQ plus rights, politics and religion. And you just keep going. In fact, I think we had you on twice. I think we had you on for your Jackie Robinson book. And then I think one for kids, didn't we? Yeah, I think we were here today. 42 today. We're still in the march.

Yeah. Student protesters. That's right. So this is your third appearance. I stand corrected. Right. Yeah. I remember all that stuff. So your is your third appearance. I stand corrected. Right. I remember all that stuff.

Your work's been featured all over the place. MSNBC, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The LA Times. The list goes on and on. CNN, etc. So welcome to the show. Congratulations on the new book. Give us your.com so we can find you on the interwebs. Sure. You can find me on Facebook

at Michael Long. You can find me on Twitter at MichaelGLong2 and Instagram at Michael something. Michael G. Long. So we had you on for 42 today. And then the other book, Kids on the March, stories of speaking out, protesting and fighting for justice, which were both just amazing books. So those of you who might be following up on this, be sure to go watch those episodes as well and pick up the books. What motivated you to want to write this book? A couple of things. Well, when I was a kid, when I was in fifth grade, my teacher was Mr. Stroup. And Mr. Stroup was notorious in the school for using his number two pencil to clean up his ear. But that really wasn't the inspiration behind the book, how I think about it. He encouraged one of my friends, Dean, to read biographies.

And sure enough, I was competitive with Dean in my own mind, and I decided to pick up a biography as well. These were the orange biographies published by Bob Smirrell. They were pretty popular when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s. So I latched onto those, and I really loved reading those biographies late at night on my parents' couch, under the light, after everybody had gone to bed. It was just a really beautiful time for me in my younger years. And I wanted to provide that same experience for kids who are at this point the age that I was when I experienced those biographies. So I really wanted to add a compelling biography to their life. The other really important inspiration

is the need to unfreeze Jack from 1947. You know, the biographies of Jackie Robinson that I grew up with are the ones that freeze him on April 15th, 1947. And this is the year that he's turning the other cheek. He's peaceful. He's polite. He's nonviolent. He's not threatening to white America by any stretch of the imagination in those books. My colleague, Yuhuru Williams, and I wanted to offer another type of Jack, the Jack that was also there, the Jack who was burning inside with righteous anger at racism and who really had a straight backbone and fought throughout his entire life in the early years and in the later years for first-class citizenship for all Americans. So, Chris, we really wanted to offer a different type of Jackie Robinson than the kids

were used to. There you go. There you go. Because, you know, he was a Black freedom fighter. He was someone who I think knew Martin Luther King and different people and wanted, you know, to make a difference, right? Yeah. And, you know, turning the other cheek in those early years wasn't easy for him as he fought for freedom on the baseball dime. And he was not naturally nonviolent. He was not naturally peaceful. I can tell you that even in 1947, and those of you who watched the movie 42 know this story pretty well. You know, Ben Chapman, the manager of the Dodgers, is in the Phillies dugout and he's hurling every possible racist slur at Robinson's head. And while Robinson in that moment does swallow his anger and turn it into muscle in that season, in that moment, he also wanted to throw that bat down to march over the dugout, and I'm almost using his exact words here, to march over to the dugout to use what he says is my despised black fist to smash the teeth of those white sons of you-know-whats.

So that's who Robinson was in his inner war. He was a fierce fighter. So turning the other cheek in 1947 was really difficult for him, though he did it for the cause of the movement for Black players to enter Major League Baseball. Yeah. And if I recall, didn't people throw things from the stands onto the field at him and stuff he had to deal with like that? Yeah. So it's one thing to compile Hall of Fame statistics, as Robinson did. He batted 311 during his Major League Baseball career. And then the Hall of Fame recently bumped that up to 313 because it admitted statistics from the Negro Leagues as well. And he was the Rookie of the Year in 1947. He was a most valuable player then,

and he helped the Dodgers win the World Series. And it's one thing to compile all those statistics and have that excellent career. It's another thing to compile those statistics while playing and performing under incredible racist duress. So, yes, while he's going out on the field, not only are people yelling at him and throwing things, they're also sending him death threats. And so he's sending death threats in the mail. And he's going out into the outfield at Cressley Field, for example, thinking that somebody is in the stands that afternoon and they're going to shoot him. And yet he performs at the highest level. It's really a remarkable career. Yes.

So you lay out in the book five different parts. You start with the foundations. You go to his college years in the Army. Then he covers baseball. Then you cover his civil rights and his patriotism and family years. Let's start out with the foundations. Give us some insight. You've got some interesting chapters here.

There's Tarring Jim Crow and Taking the Freedom Train. Tell us a little bit about what lays in the foundationist part there. Sure. Yeah. Let's start with the Freedom Train. So Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia on January 31st, 1919. And his parents were sharecroppers. His dad was Jerry and his mother is Mally. And Jerry decides that he's going to leave for Florida with another woman when Jackie is only six months old. That leaves Mally with five kids on a sharecropping farm in Georgia.

And this is the summer when violence is just running unchecked throughout the South. So Mally decides at the urging of a relative that she's going to go head to the promised land. And where's the promised land? It's always in California. So she packs up the kids, five of them, and heads on what she calls the freedom train, and they disembark in Pasadena, California. And that's where they set up residence. These were tough days in Pasadena. Sure, it was in California. It wasn't in the deep south.

But it was a pretty racist town. And the neighbors didn't want the Robinson family on their otherwise all-white block. And so they burned a cross on the Robinson lawn. They called the police officers frequently on the Robinson family. Jack could go to the swimming pool, the public swimming pool, but only one day out of the week. They called it International Day as if to suggest the kids, kids of color in Pasadena, weren't part of community. And then after International Day, they drained the pool and scrubbed the walls and refilled it with fresh water as if to suggest that Jack and his friends had infectious diseases. So this was the type of

community that Robinson grew up in. It wasn't easy. It wasn't the South, but Pasadena was no promised land in that sense. It's just amazing how, what's the right word, how just racism was so rampant back then. And some things have changed in some areas. And so he goes through all this and goes to the next stage of his life. He goes to college in the Army. What was that like for him? And when does he first put his hands on a baseball bat? When does he take interest in the game?

When he's in elementary school. Oh, really? Yeah, he becomes known actually throughout Pasadena for his athletic prowess by the time he leaves junior high school and then when he enters high school he's really well known throughout pasadena and by the way the papers in pasadena usually referred to him as jack rather than jackie when he was growing up and when he was signing his yearbook for high school, he was signing his name Jack Robinson rather than Jackie and really preferred the name Jack at that point. But yeah, he heads to UCLA. First after high school, he goes to Pasadena Junior College. And that was a typical track for

kids of color who lived in Pasadena and were going to college. He went to junior college in Pasadena. And then UCLA plucks him because he's such an excellent star. And he goes to UCLA and he letters in baseball, basketball, track and field, and football. Let me tell you, during his football career from high school on, he played punter, kicker, running back, and quarterback. The guy was amazing. And, Chris, he won the state tennis championship in California. And he was known for being really good at ping pong and marbles. So he goes to UCLA.

But the real highlight, if you were to ask Jack what the real highlight of his time at UCLA was, he would say, meeting my future wife, Rachel Ice, who became Rachel Robinson. Wow. That's quite a story, man. He was a hell of an athlete. I mean, can you imagine in today's world? I mean, he could have been like, there was a lot of great athletes that did multiple, you know, that excelled. I'm trying to think of some. I know Michael Jordan did. I'm not sure if he had to do baseball because of the gambling thing. Was he fortunate?

Ergo Jackson was right up there. Obviously, going way back, Jim Thorpe. But I think Jack Robinson and Jim Thorpe really belong in that pantheon of the greatest athletes in U.S. history. Wow. Thorpe really belong in that pantheon of the greatest athletes in U.S. history. You know, Rachel, when she was at UCLA, she was really attracted to Jack. He had broad shoulders. He was a big man on campus because of his athletic prowess. But she was also attracted to him because of his pride in his race. And she said that he wore bright white shirts to accentuate just how dark he was.

Oh, really? Go back to these foundations a bit and tell you this really interesting story. Mally, his mother, taught him the traditional story of Adam and Eve from the Hebrew scriptures. But she taught him that Adam and Eve were originally black.

And that when God caught them eating the apple of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were so afraid, so fearful, so freaked out that they turned white. To give the story to teach Jack that the color of his skin and dark was really a mark of God's divine intent. And that is a sign of divine dignity and was really grounded. And Rachel was attracted to that. There you go. There you go. At one point, you talk in the book in part two about how he fights the army.

Touch on that a little bit for us. Yeah. As you might imagine, Robinson encountered a lot of racism in the U.S. military. The U.S. military wasn't really officially desegregated until 1948, President Truman's order. So Robinson experienced that type of racial segregation, but he experienced some really tough personal events as well. There were some teams on the base, athletic teams, where he couldn't play because he was Black,

even though he was probably the best athlete on the base. And then there was a time when he was taking a bus. Back from a visit to the hospital. He had some problems with his spurs in his ankles. And on the bus, he sits next to a light-colored woman. And Robinson at this point is a lieutenant. He's an officer. And he recognizes this light-conflected woman who's a Black American because her husband is also a Black American officer with Robinson in the same unit. So he sits next to her and he starts chatting, and the bus driver sees this, and the driver, who is white, thinks that Robinson is chatting up a white woman. And he gets angry,

and he tells Robinson to move to the back of the bus. And Robinson says no, because he knows that there's this federal rule and regulation coming down that says that transportation should not be desegregated when federal facilities are like this, and in federal buses like this. So Robinson puts up a stink, and the bus driver goes out, and he corrals a couple officers, military police officers, and they come on and eventually Robinson hears one of them call him the N-word and he's court-martialed because he tells the person who calls him an N-word that he will break him in two. And Robinson dropped the F-bomb quite a bit at this point in his life. And so he's dropping the F-bomb while he's talking to the MPs. He's eventually court-martialed

for insubordination. Really. For refusing to move to the back of a bus that he did in the back end. But he escapes it. He eventually is acquitted of all charges. Oh, wow. Well, man, it's just

he really, there's a lot of different stuff in his life that could have gone wrong that would have kept him from becoming a great World Series person. Then you get into part three, you talk about baseball. He has to come up through what,

back then they had separate leagues for black people. He has to come up through there and then crushing the minors and then getting into where he can play in the big league. Yeah. You know, the great question is always, why did Branch Rickey choose and settle on Jack Robinson rather than anybody else?

And some say that Robinson wasn't the best player in the Negro Leagues. I think that's certainly arguable. Robinson had compiled excellent statistics during his short time in the Negro Leagues with Kansas City Monarchs. He was there only five months. He detested the Negro Leagues, by the way, because of their poor conditions and the segregation that they had to suffer and so on. So he was glad to get out of the Negro Leagues. When he enters the Brooklyn Dodger clubhouse, though, there's no locker room for him. And so they're concerned

that he might not make the team. He also gave them a really high number. And I think I told you this before, they gave him a high number of 42, which wasn't a number that people strove for at this point in history. You know, the low numbers were the ones that were desirable. But he makes a number out of that 42, and then 47 to

48, he turns the other cheek for the sake of other black players and players of color so that they might enter major league baseball but those are really tough days for him nevertheless wow what statistics he compiled throughout his career and i think that's just testament not only to his athletic prowess, but also a solid moral character. Hi, folks. Chris Voss here with a little station break. Hope you're enjoying the show so far. We'll resume here in a second. I'd like to invite you to come to my coaching, speaking, and training courses website. You can also see our new podcast over there at chrisvossleadershipinstitute.com. Over there, you can find all the

different stuff that we do for speaking engagements, if you'd like to hire me, training courses that we offer, and coaching for leadership, management, entrepreneurism, podcasting, corporate stuff. With over 35 years of experience in business and running companies as a CEO, I think I can offer a wonderful breadth of information and knowledge to you or anyone that you want to invite me to for your company. Thanks for tuning in. We certainly appreciate you listening to the show and be sure to check out ChrisVossLeadershipInstitute.com.

Now back to the show. And he realizes the weight of that then, that he's the first one to break through, and he's got to pave a way for everyone else and represent, I guess. Is that a good way to describe it? Yeah, and according to Rachel, it was a weighty experience. It weighed on him heavily. And she could see it when he came home from the ballpark at night. And sometimes he would be silent, sullen, withdrawn, and he would head into their bedroom in this small apartment and he would get on his knees and pray to God for strength and courage to continue on. But there were some times, some days in those early years when he seriously thought about giving up. I mean, it was a weighty experience.

Sounds like it. It would be. I mean, I couldn't take that, and I've never had to deal with racism. But, I mean, it's a hard thing to do. And he's got so much talent, so much skill, and you're just trying to, you know, be the best at what you're being as a human being and amplify your skill and talent.

And then you've got all this other crap you've got to deal with. That was very, very hard to deal with. Yeah, you know, when Ricky and Robinson first met, when Ricky was signing Robinson, he asked Robinson whether he was married. And Robinson said he wasn't, that he had a girlfriend. And that was Rachel, of course, at the time. And I really think that a lot of Robinson's career, the success of his career, is attributable to the presence of Rachel. She was a solid presence in his life.

She's still alive, by the way. She's 100 years old. And, yeah, after Jack died in 1972, she started the Jackie Robinson Foundation, which provides scholarships for students of color. And she ran that for many, many years. But she was a really sharp, solid, toughest nails presence in Jack's life. And I think that I know that he relied on her to get through some of the most tough days, the toughest days in his Major League Baseball career. Wow. So it sounds like she was kind of a she kind of was a calming or balancing sort of influence in his life. She was also a really smart influence, I think. She was tough and she would go and visit Ricky with her husband, Jack Jack, and she would be the one who would demand a higher salary.

Really? Yeah, she was a tough negotiating partner. There you go. She also later on earned a degree in psychiatric nursing and she became head of psychiatric nursing at Yale University Hospital. She was a really smart cookie. And I believe, too, that she helped Jack realize the power of women in his life. You know, Jack was from the old school. And so for him, feminism was about acting with chivalry. And Rachel was far beyond that. And I really think that when she went to work at Yale and when she went to work at other places, she really pulled Jack along. At first, of his life. Let's talk about that. There's a

lot of different things that he does between Malcolm X and marching in Washington. Let's cover some of those chapters. Sure. So I can tell you that in 1956, Robinson was awarded the Spengarn Medal from the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. And Robinson called it the highlight of his career. Now, again, this is the guy who compiled Hall of Fame statistics, right? Stole home plate 19 times. And yet he's saying this is the high point of his career. So Robinson considered himself personally invested in the Civil Rights Movement

and really treasured that time when he could work for the movement. And from 1956 to 1972 was his last day on earth, he fought hard for civil rights. And you're right, he did. He did have serious engagements with Malcolm X and Dr. King. I can tell you that Jack and Malcolm X didn't always get along. You know, there were two fundamental points that kept them together. One was the issue of black separatism. You know, Malcolm X, at least early on, called for a black separate state. And Robinson, like Dr. King, was a thoroughgoing integrationist. He said, my ancestors have invested in this country, and we want the rewards from that investment.

They also differed, he and Malcolm, over the issue of the use of any means necessary. So Malcolm called for the use of any means necessary in self-defense. And Robinson believed that the use of any means necessary just shouldn't happen in the civil rights movement. What's really interesting, though, Chris, and I think a lot of people might miss this, is that Robinson believed in the need to defend oneself. He was not a pacifist. He was not nonviolent. In fact, later on in his life, he decides that he's going to stand with the Black Panthers, and I believe been attacked by some white police officers unnecessarily. So it's really fascinating. And I think later in his life, we can really see him and Malcolm growing together. Of course, by this point, Malcolm had been assassinated in 1965.

But yeah, it's a fascinating career in civil rights. I can talk a little bit about Dr. King, unless you wanted to jump in. No, please do. Please do. Let's get into that. Because I think that was, he seemed to be more aligned with Martin Luther King in that more sort of Gandhi sort of way. Yeah. Martin Luther King Jr. and Jack were really heroes to each other. When Jack entered the Hall of Fame in 1962, King wrote a testament at the time praising Jack as a sit-inner before the sit-ins, a freedom rider before the freedom rides. And he recognized that he, Martin Luther King Jr., stood on the broad shoulders of Jack Robinson. In many ways, Robinson was a pioneer to the modern

civil rights movement that King led. But King was also a real hero to Jack Robinson. And so Robinson started paying attention to King's leadership of the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956 and was a huge admirer. And Dr. King actually reaches out to Jack for a couple of reasons to come to the movement where King is leading the troops and desegregation campaigns and really to rally the troops. And he asked Jack to do this because Jack is like Oprah. You know, Jack is wildly popular at this point in U.S. history. And so Jack goes to wherever Dr. King is and he rallies the troops. And King is immensely grateful.

In 1962, Robinson travels to Albany, Georgia, and commits to rebuilding three churches that were burned because they dared, three black churches, excuse me, that were burned because they dared to register black aboders. And in 1963, he travels to the Birmingham movement and praises all those young kids who are standing against the German shepherds and the German shepherds that are being unleashed by police officers in the high-pressured hose. And he stands with those kids and praises them. 1963, he also joins King at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. He doesn't speak at the mean program, but Jack Robinson speaks in the preliminary program and marches at the center, at the front of the march, with his son David. Oh, wow. Wow. Did he choose to do it at that place, or was that just how it panned out, or was there a reason he did it that way? You know, one of the interesting things about the March on Washington is that if you look at the program,

all the speakers at the official program are men. And the women who were part of the organizing committees, really protested that. And one of the ways they tried to satisfy the women's concerns was by saying that we can have two streams of the march from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial. One stream would be headed by King and his colleagues, and the other stream would be headed by women. And so the big stream on Independence Avenue was headed by King, and the smaller stream was headed by women. And Jack Robinson went to that stream because one of his good friends, Daisy Bates of Little Rock, Arkansas, was leading that part of the march. And so I think that's how he ended up at the front of that part. Wow. Wow. Extraordinary stuff.

So he does a lot of work to help with civil rights. The last part of the book, part five, you talk about patriotism and family. And refusing to fly the flag, I thought, was an interesting chapter. Yeah. I remember when the Colin Kaepernick scandal was just beginning to happen and somebody asked Rachel Robinson whether she thought that Jack would have supported that. And if I remember correctly, she said that Jack would not have supported that. And I found that curious in some ways, because in 1969, the New York Times approached Jack to talk about the flag, the U.S. flag. And the article was on the flag day. Oh, no, I'm sorry.

The article was on July 4th. And they asked him about the flag. And Robinson said, I wouldn't fly the flag today or any other day. And he was upset at that point. Remember, this is 1969 because of the white backlash to the civil rights movement. And he thought that that white backlash was being led by Richard Nixon, who had just been elected to office. He also believed that the flag had become captive to the white backlash movement.

And so Robinson says in this fascinating article, anytime I see the flag, I figure the person who's flying it isn't my friend. He later says a couple couple years later, 1972, that he wouldn't stand for the national anthem. And I believe these are his exact words, because I know I'm a black man in a white world. But Robinson, late in his life, he was really disappointed with the white backlash. He was disappointed with the Nixon worshipers. He was disappointed with slashes to welfare programs that benefited black people. He was disappointed with the Nixon worshipers. He was disappointed with slashes to welfare programs that benefited black people. He was just disappointed all around. But you know,

he was also suffering from diabetes at this point in his life. His body had been absolutely wrecked. There was talk of amputating his legs. He was blind in one eye. He was shaky on his feet. These were tough days for Robinson. So when he makes that statement about the flag and the national anthem, it's good to put all of this in its context. And he may have been, you know, disturbed, angry, upset, you know, with the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X. And there was the other poll worker, I forget his name. You know, we've had authors on that have talked about how hard that was. James Baldwin, you know, it affected him quite a bit

when his friends were assassinated. And it must have been incredibly disheartening to have that happen. We have a picture in Call Him Jack, our new book, of Jack Robinson right after Dr. King was assassinated. It's a picture of him in a dark suit at the funeral in Atlanta for Dr. King. And the look on his face is just absolutely jolting. He looks as if the life had been drained out of him. I think Dr. King's assassination was absolutely horrific, brutal, life draining for all of those who've been active in the civil rights movement with him. And then, you know, Doc Kennedy, excuse me, Bobby Kennedy's assassinated in 1968. And that's another major blow to the civil rights movement. And though Robinson wasn't a huge fan of Bobby Kennedy, he thought he was a carpetbagger and that he shouldn't have won the Senate seat in New York. He certainly regretted the death of a lot of the progressive politics that happened with Kennedy's assassination. Yeah, those were tough days for Robinson. I imagine they, I mean, that would make me bitter. I won't raise the flag.

In fact, it's gotten kind of weird with the flag there for about four years of a presidency a little time ago, where, you know, if you put out a flag, you kind of almost were of a certain party. You know, now things seem to have lightened up a little bit. But I can't blame him. I mean, I supported, what's his face, taking the knee and having a response. You know, I mean, this is what our Constitution is written on, the ability to protest the First Amendment rights, to be able to say, hey, I think things are screwed up here, and I think they'd be better. I mean, it's in the Constitution. We're striving

towards a more perfect union. We won't ever get there, but we're going to keep zigging and zagging until we get there. And that's what it's all about. And fortunately, if all of us, hopefully if all of us put our two cents in and contribute and speak our minds and debate and get to that, we can get to that better place or get close. And, you know, speaking one's mind was really important to Robinson. He did not agree with Malcolm X, but he praised Malcolm X for speaking his mind. Robinson did not agree with Muhammad Ali's decision not to serve in the Vietnam War. Oh, really?

He didn't support that decision at all, but he praised Muhammad Ali for taking a position, sticking with it, and speaking his mind. Yeah, Robinson was fervent and fervently anti-communist. He also had a son, Jackie Jr., who had served in the Vietnam War. And Jackie Jr. was involved in a fierce battle in the Vietnam conflict. And friends on either side of him killed in this fierce battle. And he pulled them out of the bush. And Robinson, Jackie Jr., was injured as well. And he came home from war, addicted to drugs, and had a difficult life.

Eventually, he did the drugs. But Robinson really supported the young men who went to war, but he also supported the war itself. He just hated communism. He did. Like many of the men in his generation, he believed in the domino effect. You know, Vietnam falls, the rest of the world's going to fall to communism. It's an interesting thing. Now we're dealing with the rise of authoritarian fascism around the world.

It's interesting what's going on in Brazil. So we went from communism to the other thing. I don't know. So amazing stuff. And you've written how many books about Jackie Robinson? You've covered him extensively. Well, I think this is the fourth. Yes, the fourth.

My first class citizenship was my first. And then Beyond Home Plate, second. Third was Jackie Robinson, A Spiritual Biography, and fourth is Column Jack. I can tell you that the fourth one, this one, is my favorite one. There you go. There you go. Well, it's very insightful, man. And anything you want to tease on in the book before we go? Yeah. So I think that by the time you finish reading this book, if you're still calling Robinson Jackie, then I'll say you don't know Jack. And that's why you called it, call Jack then. Right. There we go. The title of the book. And there it is. It's an amazing life story of a man who has incredible athleticism, talent, brilliance, strong mind, especially to put up with, you know, what he had to put up with on top of everything else. I mean, just to be a great athlete, just to be a great talent, you know, it's not just physical. It's a mindset, you know, it's what goes into, you know, how you think and how you do.

And then, of course, to be dealing with everything else that he had to deal with that shouldn't have been, it's just extraordinary. So a man of exemplary courage and life and talent and just a great profile that you drew of him. And it's great that we celebrate his life. As we go out, give us your plugs on the website where people will find out more about you, Michael, to learn more about you. Sure. Twitter, MichaelGLong2. Facebook, Michael Long. And you can find my bio on Amazon under Michael G. Long.

There you go. Thanks for coming on again, Michael. Third time's a charm. I don't know. Thanks, Chris. They were all pretty charming. It was Long. There you go. Thanks for coming on again, Michael. Third time's a charm. I don't know. Thanks, Chris. They were all pretty charming. It was wonderful to have you all. So there you go. And you're always welcome back, my friend. Always welcome back. See you soon. There you go.

There you go. I hope to see you soon, too. I hope we all see each other soon, because if we don't see each other, then I don't know. I'm at the age where I don't know if anybody will see me soon. We love to be seen. I'm just doing jokes. I like to other then i don't know i'm at the age where i don't know if anybody will see me soon we love to be seen i'm just doing jokes i like to be heard too so there you go thanks michael for coming on the show thanks so much for tuning in go to goodreads.com for chest christmas youtube.com for chest christmas all those places on the interwebs the big linkedin show and all that

stuff go see that over there as well thanks for tuning in be good to each other stay safe order up the book wherever fine books are sold call him him Jack, the story of Jackie Robinson, Black Freedom Fighter, available September 20th, 2022, just a couple weeks ago. There you go. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. And that should take us out, Michael.