Robeson, Paul

ROBESON, PAUL (1989-1976). Paul Leroy Robeson was born in Princeton, New Jersey. His father, William Drew Robeson, enslaved in Martin County, North Carolina, had escaped to Philadelphia via the underground railroad and attended the historically-Black Lincoln University before becoming a Presbyterian minister. His mother, Maria Louisa Bustill, a Quaker, died when he was six years old.

Robeson recalled later that his father, known as a vocal critic of social injustice, had left an indelible imprint on his worldview. He was also significantly influenced by a handful of other notables, including James Weldon Johnson and W.E.B. Du Bois, and two leading African-American figures in the Communist Party, Ben Davis, and William Patterson.

An outstanding student, Robeson attended Rutgers University (1915-1919) as the third African American student to enroll to that time. At Rutgers, he excelled as an athlete, a singer, and a scholar. His classmates recognized his accomplishments by choosing him as class valedictorian. Shortly after graduating, Robeson enrolled in law school. Meanwhile, he continued to perform on Broadway and to play football. He ended his NFL career in 1922, the year he received his law degree.

In 1921, Robeson met his future wife and partner, Eslanda Cardozo Goode. They soon wed, and for a time they lived in Harlem. Essie was an anthropologist, author, actor and civil rights activist who served as her husband’s manager. She gave abiding support and allegiance to a man who seemed consumed with wanderlust and regularly embroiled in controversy. As a socially-prominent couple, they were frequently in the company of the literati and glitterati as well as Leftwing luminaries, such as famed artists and political leaders. They remained together until her death in 1965.

Robeson’s career took off in London, and beginning in the 1920s the couple lived happily there for extended periods. In England, over the years, they met a number of African and Caribbean intellectuals, including Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Joshua Nkomo of the future Zimbabwe, Nnamdi Azikiwe of Nigeria and C.L.R. James of Trinidad. These future leaders in turn shaped Robeson’s own Pan-African views. The couple abandoned London only when World War II intensified. When the war ended, they were once again welcomed by the British public, but as the Cold War intensified, Robeson’s passport was taken away. Allowed to travel abroad only after a decade passed, they returned in a later-life triumph, if dogged by health problems. They confessed to feeling more comfortable living in London and other places outside of the United States. The Soviet Union offered them an experience relatively free of racism and with zealous government support of anti-colonial struggles. Their son, Paul Jr., lived and went to school in Moscow as well as Connecticut, before spending most of his life in the United States.

After Robeson’s theater and concert career had been successfully launched, he moved to motion pictures. Robeson performed in Emperor Jones on stage in New York in 1923, as casted by Eugene O’Neill, followed by performances in London. He starred in the movie version a decade later. In 1924, he performed in another O’Neill play, All God’s Chillun Got Wings, which provoked racial controversies and lukewarm reviews fueled by Robeson’s character in the play and his affair with the playwright’s (white) wife. The play’s title, based on an old Negro spiritual, greatly dramatized Robeson’s role in according this musical genre international recognition. He sang Negro spirituals in England, Ireland and Wales among other places. Many of his songs, sung in a variety of the languages, appealed to the working classes in many countries.

The sensational bass performance of “Ol’ Man River” in Showboat on stage (1927 in London) and on screen (1936 in Hollywood) solidified Robeson’s career. “Ol’ Man River” was translated into many languages, including several in South Asia, and considered a song of resistance among freedom fighters throughout the world—and banned in South Africa until the end of the white regime. Robeson was the first Black actor since 1860 to head the cast in a major production of Shakespeare’s Othello (1930 in London, 1943 in New York). These productions were among his shining moments, lifting him into a class all his own.

While the largesse of film helped him to fund various causes, he was never happy with the medium. He lacked control of his image, and whites in the industry essentially caricatured African Americans as savages or buffoons. Pilloried in the Black press for his parts in films across a span of twelve productions, he reluctantly gave up movie-acting in 1940.

The “artist as revolutionary” was also deeply entrenched in global liberation struggles. In 1937, with a hefty donation of $1,500, he helped start, and for a time personally led, the Council of African Affairs. He subsidized the radical West African Student Union in Britain. He also threw his weight behind the Scottsboro defense in the 1930s, seeking freedom for the nine African American youngsters falsely accused of raping two young white women.

A generous donor to India’s independence struggle from Great Britain, Robeson was considered an important ally by Mohandas Gandhi, India’s anti-colonial giant. Gandhi, in turn, influenced the US civil rights movement with tactics of non-violent resistance. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, called Robeson “This great humanist.”

Robeson’s militancy and his courage cost him dearly. As McCarthyism went into high gear, he spoke in Paris insisting that American Blacks should not, would not fight in any war against Russia. He refused to back down from this position, which he later reiterated in opposing Vice President Richard Nixon’s proposal to enter the Vietnam War. In 1951, Robeson and William Patterson, along with the Civil Rights Congress, petitioned the United Nations for redress, accusing the United States of genocide against African Americans. The State Department viewed this act as subversive.

Hauled in several occasions before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Robeson was grilled about supposed communist affiliations. His derisive tone naturally incurred the ire of the committee, led by Senator Joseph McCarthy. Robeson was badly hurt by the betrayal of old allies, including athletes such as Jackie Robinson and Don Newcombe, the players he had earlier rallied behind to desegregate major league baseball. Walter White, head of the NAACP, John Johnson, publisher of Ebony magazine, and Max Yergan, who helped him establish the Council on African Affairs, also turned on him.

Robeson’s recordings and films were as much as banned, his concerts boycotted, and he was effectively blacklisted. His six-figure income took a nose-dive, and his passport was revoked. Undeterred, Robeson shifted even more sharply toward activism. In 1951, he established the newspaper Freedom with Louis Burnham, addressing racism, colonialism, political repression and the nascent anti-apartheid struggle. Prominent contributors to Freedom included W.E.B. Du Bois, Alice Childress, Beah Richards and Loraine Hansberry, the first African American woman to have a play performed on Broadway. Unable to secure a sound financial basis, Freedom closed in 1955, but gave its name and many contributors to Freedomways, founded in 1961 and for decades the leading publication of the African-American Left.

After so many liberals had forsaken him, including the leaders of the ACLU, Robeson still had many prominent supporters, among them several international leaders who echoed his humanistic ideals. Even in countries allied with the United States, including Great Britain, the Scandinavian countries and Israel, leading figures voiced their support. In the United States, young actors such as Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier, joined by the still-younger William Marshall, put on a benefit for Freedom. Several high-wattage Hollywood actors were also in his corner, along with several churches and unions. In 1958, Actors’ Equity presented a resolution, led by Ossie Davis, appealing for his passport to be restored. The Supreme Court decision in Kent v. Dulles, which linked the right to travel to free speech, laid the basis for the return of his passport in 1958.

Robeson’s insistence on the persistence of malignant racism against the claims of the nation as a beacon of freedom nevertheless put a spotlight on major contradictions. He nevertheless had faith that his exposure of Jim Crow, at home and abroad, would eventually have an impact. As Gerald Horne noted in his biography, Paul Robeson:The Artist as Revolutionary, Robeson “had touched the Achilles heel of the republic.”

Essie died in 1965. Robeson, in failing health, retreated from public life. No longer able to live alone, he moved to his sister’s home in Philadelphia. Earlier, during the couple’s darkest Cold War moments, they lived together for nearly eight years in self-imposed isolation. The invitations kept streaming in from all over the country and the globe, but they politely declined. The eulogizing of Lorraine Hansberry’s death in 1965 as well as the sermonizing of his old friend Ben Davis, who died that same year, brought him out, but these were rare occasions.

Still “the tallest tree in the forest,” as Mary McCleod Bethune once extolled, Paul Robeson died of stroke complications in Philadelphia, January 23, 1976. At his death, prominent admirers venerated his memory. Among them were Arthur Ashe, Andrew Young, Cesar Chavez and the newly established Congressional Black Caucus that bestowed upon him the Trailblazer’s Award. Coleman Young, Detroit’s first Black mayor, said it well: “The freedom struggle initiated by Paul Robeson many years ago might be looked upon as the opening gun in what is now commonly conceded to be the second American Revolution.”

Harry Belafonte speaks of Paul Robeson, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xunfp9s7ICw, February 23, 2013.

Duberman, Martin. Paul Robeson: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1989.

Goodman, Jordan. Paul Robeson: A Watched Man. New York: Verso, 2013.

Horne, Gerald. Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary. London: Pluto, 2016.