It’s a celebrated fact that Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball in 1947, becoming the first African-American player in the 20th century to play Major League Baseball. I’ve always loved Robinson’s story, and the game of baseball itself. That’s not only because I have a relative who played in the majors. At its best, baseball is a beautiful, heavenly sport.

That’s why it has always been inspiring, especially around the time of the World Series, to recall the central role that Christianity played in desegregating baseball. Jackie Robinson was a Christian and this faith was central to what he accomplished as a man and as baseball player. Branch Rickey, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers who signed Robinson in 1947, breaking the hideous color barrier, shared Robinson’s faith.

Robinson was also a fiercely independent thinker who championed civil rights while blasting Malcolm X and the radical left. If he were alive today, he would find no place in the Democratic Party.

The Rock on Which Robinson Stood

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 Scott Smith notes that Robinson “relied on prayer to guide him and sustain him during his 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’s partner in the mission was Dodgers owner Branch Rickey: “Rickey’s consistent, deeply ingrained Christian convictions were no where more important than in his efforts to integrate baseball,” Smith observes. Smith then quotes sociologist Dan Dodson, who helped Rickey accomplish the goal of integration: “Without the intelligence, personality, and dedication of Rickey, it would have been very hard to integrate the game.”

Anti-Communism Is the Beginning of Wisdom

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.

Robinson was torn. He was against communism, but also hated racism, and was reluctant to publicly speak out against Robeson, a fellow black man. Branch Rickey told Jackie that the speech must be “a masterpiece of cheek-turning.” Rickey also read passages to Robinson from Papini’s Life of Christ to prepare him.

“I am a religious man,” Robinson told the committee. “Therefore I cherish America where I am free to worship as I please, a privilege which some countries do not give. And I suspect 999 out of 1,000 colored Americans will tell you the same.”

Today’s Democrats Lure Millions of Black Believers Out of the Church

Sadly, too much of modern black America, like the rest of the country, has been suckered by the lure of leftists like Kamala Harris. Robinson was far too smart to fall for their angry, radical cant. In the book True: the Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson, sports writer Kostyra Kennedy reminds readers that Robinson was a devoted friend to Martin Luther King, Jr., and supporter of the civil rights movement.

But he also voted for (pro-civil rights) Richard Nixon in 1960, and rebuked militant black leader Malcolm X. “The Democratic Party, Robinson felt, took the Black vote too quickly for granted,” Kennedy writes. “He thought that perhaps in his dissent he might help spur more urgency on both sides when it came to civil rights. Wary as he was of the creeping right-wing element in the Republican base, neither could he look past the Democrats’ tether to the Dixiecrats of the South.”

Robinson Paid a Price

Robinson’s endorsement of Nixon cost him. At the time he had been retired from baseball since 1957 and was a goodwill ambassador for the Chock full o’Nuts coffee company and a columnist for the then-liberal New York Post. According to True, the Nixon endorsement ended Mr. Robinson’s Post column and forced “a temporary leave of absence” at Chock full o’Nuts.

Soon after, Robinson wrote a syndicated column that appeared in places like the New York Amsterdam News and the Chicago Defender. According to True:

When Robinson chastised Malcolm X, objecting to his brand of militancy and to his separatist views, Malcolm X responded with unveiled ire in the Amsterdam News. He rebuked Robinson for his allegiance to his ‘white boss’ and his ‘white benefactors and for supporting Nixon, and for his general approach.” Malcolm X charged that Robinson would ‘never take an interest in anything in the Negro community until the white man himself takes an interest in it.’

Robinson shot back: “Coming from you an attack is a tribute.” Robinson added that he was proud of his association with baseball’s Branch Rickey and New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, whom Robinson would work for.

True also notes that when he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962, Robinson “asked that his plaque make no mention of his role in integrating baseball.” Robinson’s wife Rachel later had the plaque changed to describe the tremendous courage Robinson displayed in 1947 and after.

True beautifully details Robinson’s decency and grit, revealing him to be a generous yet determined fighter for justice who supported Martin Luther King’s nonviolent approach while making clear that he would “punch back” if assaulted at a civil rights march. Handsome and with the powerful body of a linebacker, Robinson was also a dedicated father and husband and a veteran of World War II.

There’s no way of knowing what Robinson would think of Donald Trump, but he surely would be repulsed by the radicalism of the modern Democratic Party and its platform.

Mark Judge is a writer and filmmaker in Washington, D.C. His new book is The Devil’s Triangle: Mark Judge vs the New American Stasi.