Documentary Style
NarrativeJackie Robinson
The athlete who broke baseball's color barrier became an even fiercer activist afterward. Robinson's post-baseball fight for civil rights lasted twice as long as his career.
Year
2016
Type
series
Episodes
2
Language
English
Director
Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon
Genres
Summary
Jackie Robinson's story transcends baseball—it's about a fierce integrationist whose battles for equality never ended.
Burns chronicles Robinson from sharecropper's son to the man Branch Rickey chose to break baseball's color barrier, enduring death threats and violence while wife Rachel anchored him. For three years Robinson suppressed his fighting nature, earning America's admiration. But once established, he refused silence—writing columns, raising over $1 million for the NAACP, and becoming a Republican activist. Robinson's uncompromising advocacy made him beloved, then controversial—until diabetes and exhaustion claimed him at 53.
A portrait of courage and the brutal cost of being first to challenge injustice—on the baseball diamond and far beyond it.