The book Strength for the Fight: the Life and Faith of Jackie Robinson, highlights how Robinson’s Christian faith was the rock upon which he built his activism. Author Gary Scot Smith notes that Robinson “relied on prayer to guide him and sustain him drying this trials.” Robinson was particularly influenced by three Methodists: his mother Mallie, pastor Karl Down, and MLB commissioner Branch Rickey, who was pivotal to Robinson desegregating the major leagues. One pastor, Richard Stoll Armstrong, found himself “tremendously impressed by Jackie Robinson’s spiritual depth and theological maturity.”

Robinson’s faith, writes Smith, “empowered him to cope with frustration and failure and resolutely pursue … social justice and economic advancement for African Americans.” Robinson’s “Christian faith, consistent church attendance, and biblical morality” helped him push through the pain of racism. …

Robinson was also a member of a vanished breed: the smart, reflective citizen who may not be a full-blown conservative, but has the common sense to reject communism. In 1949, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) asked Robinson to testify against after Stalinist singer Paul Robeson claimed that, due to racism, blacks would not be willing to defend America against the Soviet Union. The Communist Party, U.S.A., had cynically adapted civil rights as a cause to sow division in America, even as it defended a Soviet regime that had subjected many ethnic minorities to deportation and genocide.

[Interesting perspective, and it reminds us that this contest of ideologies is not new, especially for black Americans, who have endured plenty of oppression in their history. — Ed]