Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson (April 9, 1898 - January 23, 1976) was an American actor, athlete, singer, writer, and political and civil rights activist.
Robeson was born in Princeton, New Jersey. After the early death of his mother, he was raised by his father, a preacher and escaped slave, who impressed upon him the need for self-improvement through education. Taking this to heart, he won a scholarship to Rutgers University where he excelled in both academics and sports (he made All-American in American Football), and went on to earn a law degree at Columbia University. He was in the same law school class as William O. Douglas. He quit the legal profession after a secretary refused to take dictation from a Black man.
It was as an actor and singer that Robeson found fame, including acclaimed performances in Emperor Jones, Porgy and Bess and, in 1930, as Othello in England, when no US company would employ him for the role. He reprised the role in New York in 1943. At the time the Broadway run of Othello was the longest Broadway run of any Shakespeare play. He won the Spingarn Medal in 1945 for his performance. Uta Hagen played Desdemona, and José Ferrer played Iago. Robeson's repertoire of African-American folk songs helped bring these to much wider attention both inside the US and abroad - in particular his stunning rendition of "Go Down Moses".
On his frequent trips overseas he was highly critical of the conditions experienced by black Americans, especially in the segregated southern states, and this outspokenness, together with sympathies expressed towards the people of the Soviet Union (which largely stemmed from his belief that the African-American slaves shared a common bond with the pre-revolutionary serfs of Russia) found him branded a communist by the McCarthyite HUAC committee, and the US State Department denied him a passport. Undeterred, he still occasionally sang overseas, including a performance at the Welsh National Eisteddfod conducted over the telephone. In 1940, Robeson had appeared in The Proud Valley, in which he played a black labourer arriving in south Wales and winning the hearts of the local population; he continues to be thought of as having particular links with Wales, where his political views did him no harm at all.
In 1949, Robeson gave a concert in Peekskill, New York. After the concert, organized anti-communist and racist vigilantes attacked departing concertgoers, while local police stood by and did nothing. The local newspaper was accused of encouraging the attacks.
Prior to his passport's return in 1958, Robeson wrote a book, Here I Stand, which eloquently makes an impassioned case for concerted action to right the inequities of the Jim Crow system. After he got back his passport he spent five years touring the world, playing Othello again in 1959 in Tony Richardson's production at Stratford-upon-Avon, and singing throughout Europe and in Australia and New Zealand. It was on his visit to England that he befriended English actor Andrew Faulds and inspired him to take up a career in politics. His health broke down and he spent time in Russia and East Germany in hospitals. The remainder of his life was plagued by ill health and depression, and his appearances were relatively few. His 75th birthday was celebrated in Carnegie Hall where a taped message from him was played.
Paul Robeson died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1976 where he had been living with his sister. He was interred in the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. His wife Essie Cardozo Goode (who was related to Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo) preceded him in death.
Although Robeson is one of the "Great Forerunners" in Black equality, the McCarthy era virtually erased his memory from the consciousness of younger Americans. He was conversant in over 20 languages, and at one time carried enough clout to be considered for a vice presidential spot on Henry A. Wallace's 1948 ticket. His singing voice was a sonorous bass-baritone once described thus: "If God should come to earth and sing, He would sound something like Paul Robeson."
Many feel that Robeson’s status as a “victim” of the HUAC’s investigation is unwaranted due to the extensive ties Robeson had with both the Soviet Union and the CPUSA, which was known to be actively involved in espionage against the United States.
As a member of the CPUSA, Robeson enthusiastically supported the 1940 Smith Act which made it an offence under which members of organizations that advocated the violent overthrow of the government could be prosecuted. The Party saw the Act as a means of using WWII as an excuse to legally persecute Trotskyists. While addressing a convention of the Civil Rights Conference Robeson rejected an appeal by a Trotskyist who feared he would lose his government pension, saying that “Trotskyists were no better than fascists and Klansmen and not deserving of any rights”.
In was in 1948 Robeson was on one of his periodic visits to the Soviet Union when he asked to meet with Yiddish poet Itzik Feffer. Feffer, along with the actor Solomon Mikhoels and other prominent Jews were victims of the latest anti-Semitic purge by Stalin. They had been hosted by Robeson during a World War II visit to the U.S. as part of Stalin's Jewish "Anti-Fascist" Committee and Robeson had been urged to intervene on their behalf. Though he had been cleaned up and dressed in a suit, Feffer's fingernails had been torn out.
Though he couldn't speak openly, Robeson later told his son that the poet indicated by gestures and a few handwritten words that Mikhoels had been murdered on the orders of Stalin and that the other Jewish prisoners were being prepared for the same fate. After the two friends said goodbye, Feffer was taken back to the Lubyanka. He would never be seen alive again.
When Robeson returned home he condemned as anti-Soviet propaganda reports that Pfeffer and other Jews had been killed. Not once did Robeson denounce Pfeffer's murder. Later on Robeson confided in his son Paul Robeson Jr. the details of his meeting with Feffer. He made his son vow not to make the story public until well after his death, "because he had promised himself that the would never publicly criticize the USSR."
It was in appreciation of this unwavering support that in 1952 Joseph Stalin awarded him the modestly named Stalin Peace Prize, which Robeson proudly accepted.
Robeson also wrote a tribute to Joseph Stalin in April, 1953 shortly after Stalin's death entitled "To You Beloved Comrade".