Correspondence, memoranda, telegrams, subject files, baseball contracts, fan mail, speeches and writings, financial and legal records, congressional testimony, military records, and a variety of printed material relating chiefly to Robinson's career as a baseball player and corporate executive, and to his participation in political activities, religious and civic organizations, the civil rights movement, and media affairs. When Jackie Robinson began his career with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, he broke the unwritten racial color line that had existed in major league baseball since the late nineteenth century, and a significant portion of the collection is devoted to his pioneering efforts in this regard. Topics also include the Albany movement, African independence movement, and economic development in the African-American community. Correspondents include Buzzie Bavasi, Roy Campanella, Happy Chandler, Charles Dressen, Alfred Duckett, Arthur Mann, Ralph Norton, Walter F. O'Malley, Joseph L. Reichler, and Branch Rickey.

Individuals represented include Chester Bowles, Barry M. Goldwater, W. Averell Harriman, Hubert H. Humphrey, Lyndon B. Johnson, Kenneth B. Keating, Robert F. Kennedy, Adam Clayton Powell, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Carl Thomas Rowan, and Malcolm X. Organizations represented include the African-American Students Federation, American Committee on Africa, Chock Full O'Nuts, Freedom National Bank, New York, N.Y., Jackie Robinson Foundation, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, New York Giants, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the U.S. Congress House Committee on Un-American Activities.