Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson’s story is as much a tale of a society’s tragedy as it is one of individual triumph. Born in 1898 in Princeton, New Jersey, Robeson’s father was a former runaway slave who became a minister; his mother was from the Bustill family that had helped to found the Free African Society and gave assistance to the underground railroad. Robeson was the third African-American admitted to Rutgers University, where he became an All American football player and the class valedictorian. Robeson then graduated with a law degree from Columbia University in 1923. The following year, though, he changed professional tracks. A small group known as the Provincetown Players were producing a play by a young playwright, Eugene O’Neill. Robeson played in O’Neill’s All God’s Chillun Got Wings. The following year he starred in O’Neill’s Emperor Jones, filmed in 1933. Robeson’s success as an actor reached international audiences in a production of Othello, which played in London, and later in New York. When the production toured America, it was often the first time a white audience had seen an African-American kiss a white woman, as Othello embraced Desdemona. Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein had Robeson in mind for the role of Joe in Show Boat: Robeson’s version of "Ol’ Man River" is still a standard. Robeson’s concerts of spirituals and Broadway songs sold out across the country. Even as one of the most recognizable figures in America, Robeson suffered the same discrimination as all African-Americans, barred from many hotels and restaurants. From his travels through America, Europe, and the Soviet Union, Robeson increasingly became a leading voice to end segregation. With the McCarthy era, Robeson’s popularity suffered as he unfavorably compared America’s treatment of minorities with that of the Soviet Union. He was prevented from working in television, concert halls, radio, and films. In 1950, the State Department confiscated his passport, and labeled him “one of the most dangerous men in the world.” In 1958, he was allowed to travel again, which he did to Europe and Russia. In 1963, he came back to live in America, where he died in 1976 in the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia.
