Paul Robeson was one of the most talented and outstanding African-American singers and actors.
Background
Paul Robeson was born in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1898, to Reverend William Drew Robeson and Maria Louisa Bustill. His mother was from a prominent Quaker family of mixed ancestry: African, Anglo-American, and Lenape. His father, William, whose family traced their ancestry to the Igbo people of present-day Nigeria, escaped from a plantation in his teens and eventually became the minister of Princeton's Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church in 1881. Robeson had three brothers: William Drew, Jr., Reeve, and Ben; and one sister, Marian.
Education
At 17 Robeson won a scholarship to Rutgers University, becoming its only black student. There he was both a brilliant student, elected to Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year, and a star athlete, chosen twice for the All-American football team. After graduating from Rutgers he earned a law degree from Columbia University.
Career
In late 1915, Robeson became the third African-American student ever enrolled at Rutgers, and the only one at the time. He tried out for the Rutgers Scarlet Knights football team, and his resolve to make the squad was tested as his teammates engaged in excessive play, during which his nose was broken and his shoulder dislocated. The coach, Foster Sanford, decided he had overcome the provocation and announced that he had made the team.
Robeson joined the debating team and sang off-campus for spending money, and on-campus with the Glee Club informally, as membership required attending all-white mixers. He also joined the other collegiate athletic teams. As a sophomore, amidst Rutgers' sesquicentennial celebration, he was benched when a Southern team refused to take the field, because the Scarlet Knights had fielded a Negro, Robeson.
Robeson began dating Eslanda "Essie" Goode and after her coaxing, he gave his theatrical debut as Simon in Ridgely Torrence's Simon of Cyrene. After a year of courtship, they were married in August 1921.
Robeson worked briefly as a lawyer, but he renounced a career in law due to extant racism. Essie financially supported them and they frequented the social functions at the future Schomburg Center. In December 1924 he landed the lead role of Jim in Eugene O'Neill's All God's Chillun Got Wings, which culminated with Jim metaphorically consummating his marriage with his white wife by symbolically emasculating himself. Chillun's opening was postponed due to nationwide controversy over its plot.
Chillun's delay led to a revival of The Emperor Jones with Robeson as Brutus, a role pioneered by Charles Sidney Gilpin. The role terrified and galvanized Robeson, as it was practically a 90-minute soliloquy. Reviews declared him an unequivocal success. Though arguably clouded by its controversial subject, his Jim in Chillun was less well received. He deflected criticism of its plot by writing that fate had drawn him to the "untrodden path" of drama and the true measure of a culture is in its artistic contributions, and the only true American culture was African-American.
In 1928, Robeson played "Joe" in the London production of the American musical Show Boat, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. His rendition of "Ol' Man River" became the benchmark for all future performers of the song. Some black critics were not pleased with the play due to its usage of the word nigger. It was, nonetheless, immensely popular with white audiences. He was summoned for a Royal Command Performance at Buckingham Palace and Robeson was befriended by MPs from the House of Commons. Show Boat continued for 350 performances and, as of 2001, it remained the Royal's most profitable venture.The Robesons bought a home in Hampstead. He reflected on his life in his diary and wrote that it was all part of a "higher plan" and "God watches over me and guides me. He's with me and lets me fight my own battles and hopes I'll win." However, an incident at the Savoy Grill, in which he was refused seating, sparked him to issue a press release describing the insult which subsequently became a matter of public debate.
In 1933 Robeson played the role of Jim in the London production of Chillun, virtually gratis; then returned to the United States to star as Brutus in the film The Emperor Jones, "a feat not repeated for more than two decades in the U.S." His acting in Jones the first film to feature an African American in a starring role was well received. On the film set he rejected any slight to his dignity, despite the widespread Jim Crow atmosphere in the United States. Upon returning to England he publicly criticized African Americans' rejection of their own culture. Despite negative reactions from the press, such as a New York Amsterdam News retort that Robeson had made a "jolly well [ass of himself]", he also announced that he would reject any offers to perform European opera, because the music had no connection to his heritage.
In early 1934 Robeson enrolled in the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where he studied some 20 African dialects. His "sudden interest" in African history and its impact on culture coincided with his essay "I Want to be African", wherein he wrote of his desire to embrace his ancestry.
Robeson believed that the struggle against fascism during the Spanish Civil War was a turning point in his life and transformed him into a political activist. In 1937, he used his concert performances to advocate the Republican cause and the war's refugees. He permanently modified his renditions of Ol' Man River from a tragic "song of resignation with a hint of protest implied" into a battle hymn of unwavering defiance. His business agent expressed concern about his political involvement,but Robeson overruled him and decided that contemporary events trumped commercialism. In Wales, he commemorated the Welsh killed while fighting for the Republicans, where he recorded a message which would become his epitaph: "The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative."
After an invitation from J. B. S. Haldane, he traveled to Spain in 1938 because he believed in the International Brigades's cause, visited the hospital of the Benicàssim, singing to the wounded soldiers. Also visited the battlefront and provided a morale boost to the Republicans at a time when their victory was unlikely. Back in England, he hosted Jawaharlal Nehru to support Indian independence, whereat Nehru expounded on imperialism's affiliation with Fascism. Robeson reevaluated the direction of his career and decided to focus his attention on utilizing his talents to bring attention to the ordeals of "common people", and subsequently he appeared in the pro-labor play Plant in the Sun[ by Herbert Marshall. With Max Yergan, and the CAA, Robeson became an advocate in the aspirations of African colonialists for political independence.
Robeson's last British film was The Proud Valley (released 1940), set in a Welsh coal-mining town. After the outbreak of World War II, Robeson returned to the United States and became America's "no.1 entertainer" with a radio broadcast of Ballad for Americans. Nevertheless, during an ensuing tour, the Beverly Wilshire Hotel was the only hotel willing to accommodate him due to his race, and he therefore dedicated two hours every afternoon sitting in the lobby "to ensure that the next time Blacks come through, they'll have a place to stay."
In 1963, Robeson returned to the United States and for the remainder of his life lived in seclusion. He momentarily assumed a role in the civil rights movement, making a few major public appearances before falling seriously ill during a tour. Double pneumonia and a kidney blockage in 1965 nearly killed him.
Robeson was contacted by both Bayard Rustin and James Farmer about the possibility of becoming involved with the mainstream of the Civil Rights Movement. Because of Rustin's past anti-Communist stances, Robeson declined to meet with him. Robeson eventually met with Farmer, but because he was asked to denounce Communism and the Soviet Union in order to assume a place in the mainstream, Robeson adamantly declined.
After Essie, who had been his spokesperson to the media, died in December 1965, Robeson moved in with his son's family in New York City. He was rarely seen strolling near his Harlem apartment on Jumal Place (sic.), and his son responded to press inquiries that his "father's health does not permit him to perform or answer questions."
Achievements
Paul Leroy Robeson was a multi-talented man. He made his international debut in singing and acting in theatre and films. Charles Gilpin and Robeson, as the first black men to play serious roles on the American stage, opened up this aspect of the theater for blacks. While playing opposite white actress Mary Ure, he became the first black ever to do the role in England's Shakespeare Memorial Theater.
Not limiting his indulgences to just artistic endeavours, he played a quintessential role in political activism and actively advocated against Spanish Civil War, fascism, and social injustice. His radical thought on anti-communalism and anti-imperialism led him to be blacklisted from the country.
Connections
In 1921 Paul married Eslanda Goode Cardozo, they had one child.
Father:
William Drew Robeson
Mother:
Bustill
She was a member of the distinguished Bustill family of Philadelphia, which included patriots in the Revolutionary War, helped found the Free African Society, and maintained agents in the Underground Railroad.
Wife:
Eslanda
She wrote a short, colorful biography, Paul Robeson, Negro (1930), a personal account of Robeson's early years which strongly reflects her own biases and sentiments.
