An Evening with Author Howard Bryant! In conversation with The Boston Globe's Adrian Walker

Name: An Evening with Author Howard Bryant! In conversation with The Boston Globe's Adrian Walker
Start: 2026-02-04T19:00:00-05:00
Location: 12 Spruce St., Acton, MA, United States, Massachusetts 01720

Schedule

Wed, 04 Feb, 2026 at 07:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

12 Spruce St., Acton, MA, United States, Massachusetts 01720 | Acton, MA

Calling all sports and history fans! Join us as we host author Howard Bryant, one of the best sports and culture writers working today. Howard will be discussing his new book, Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America, the untold story of sports and fame, Black America and the promise of integration through the Cold War lens of two transformative events.
It's a book that sadly echoes into today. In a time of great division, with America in the midst of a new era of retrenchment and Black athletes again chilled into silence advocating for civil rights, the story of these two titans reverberates today within and beyond Black America. From the revival of government overreach to curb civil liberties to the Cold War-era rhetoric of “the enemy within” levied against fellow citizens, Kings and Pawns is a story of a moment that remains hauntingly present.
This is one of Paul's favorite books of 2026, and Howard Bryant remains one of our best authors and historians, a true double threat. He'll be joined in conversation by The Boston Globe's Adrian Walker. The pair are old friends and we can't wait to host them both!
About Howard Bryant
Howard Bryant is the author of 11 books, including Rickey, The Heritage, Full Dissidence, and The Last Hero, a biography of Hank Aaron, which was named “One of the Ten Best Books of the Year” by Dwight Garner of The New York Times. Bryant served as guest editor of The Best American Sports Writing in 2017, and has been the sports correspondent for NPR’s Weekend Edition since 2006. He is a four-time finalist for the National Magazine Award, an Emmy Award winner, and is twice the winner of the Casey Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year. He lives in Western Massachusetts.
About Adrian Walker
Adrian Walker is an associate editor and metro columnist for The Boston Globe, where he has been a columnist since 1998. Prior to that, he served as the paper's deputy political editor, and he was a contributor to the Globe's Spotlight Team's coverage of “Boston. Racism. Image. Reality," which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting in 2018. Walker provides commentary and opinion on local and regional news as well as society and culture, and his column appears twice weekly.