Paul Robeson, who was born in 1898, said in the 1960s (after a public reading in Toronto) that he had but one purpose in life: “to fight for my people that they shall walk this earth as free as any man.” [Ref 1, p437]
In 1915 the 6’3” teenager had won an academic scholarship to Rutgers, and in his football try-out had been ganged up on by the all-white players. Suffering a broken nose and a dislocated shoulder Robeson thought of dropping out. But his father, a boyhood slave born in the south who, as a free man had later worked his way through Lincoln University and had qualified as a Presbyterian priest had always exhorted his youngest son to fight for what was right. So, heeding his father, Paul stayed at Rutgers, and wound up All-American, as well as, at the age of 21, valedictorian. By 25, while singing and waiting in restaurants, as well as acting in the summers, he was not only finishing up a law degree from Columbia but had married Eslanda Goode, or Essie, a young black writer.
While still in law school at Columbia, Robeson had made a small name for himself acting in a Harlem YMCA production of Simon the Cyrenian, and had been invited to act in a summer play in Provincetown – All God’s Chillun Got Wings by Eugene O’Neill.
After completion of his law degree he got a job in an all-white law firm in Manhattan, but when a secretary refused to “take dictation from a (expletive deleted)” [ref.1,p55] he resigned.
Furthering his acting and always getting good or rave reviews, by the 1930s he was in demand as an actor and singer in both Europe and America. He sang in many places, including to unemployed miners in Wales, always identifying with the downtrodden.
His education and friendly personality caused more than a few women in the London Theater to fall in love with him. At one point the British upper-class would-be actress Yolande Jackson was ready to marry him, and Essie was ready to divorce – although in fact Essie and Paul, not always living together, actually remained married until her death in 1965.
The 1950s were Cold War years, and Robeson’s friendly comments about the USSR did not go down well. For a planned Robeson concert in Peekskill, NY, fans were attacked with rocks and bottles amid shouts that Robeson was a “dirty commie”, although in fact Robeson was never a member of the Communist Party. Details of this may be found in Duberman’s extensively-annotated biography [ref 2,pxvii]. Anti-Soviet hysteria at this time also caused the State Department to cancel Robeson’s passport, not re-validated until 1958. In Robeson’s own words [ref 2, p.38]: “… the denial of my passport is proof of nothing except the State Department’s high-handed disregard of civil liberties.”
In the ‘60s he was hospitalized for depression and suicidal feelings, in Moscow, London and New York.
After Essie’s death he spent his last decade living quietly with his sister in Philadelphia choosing to see fewer and fewer people, and dying in 1976.
Finally, I find it interesting to muse whether our present administration would have treated this son of a slave any differently.
References:
1. “Paul Robeson”, by Martin Bauml Duberman; Alfred A.Knopf, Inc, New York, (1988).
2. “Here I Stand”, by Paul Robeson (with Lloyd L. Brown); Beacon Press, 25, Beacon St, Boston., MA 02108. (1958, 1971, 1988).
3. “The Young Paul Robeson”, by Lloyd L. Brown; Wesview Press (a Division of Harper Collins), 5500 Central Ave., Boulder, CO 80301.
David Nightinglale is an emeritus professor of physics at SUNY New Paltz where he taught for 31 years. His first novel, The Centauri Settlement, is produced by TheBookPatch.com .
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