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Paul Robeson (Bass)

Born: April 9, 1898 - Princeton, New Jersey, USA
Died: January 23, 1976 - Philadelphia, USA

Paul (Bustill) Robeson was a famous African-American athlete, singer, actor, and advocate for the civil rights of people around the world. He rose to prominence in a time when segregation was legal in the United States, and Black people were being lynched by racist mobs, especially in the South.

Paul Robeson was the youngest of five children. His father was a runaway slave who went on to graduate from Lincoln University, and his mother came from an abolitionist Quaker family. Robeson's family knew both hardship and the determination to rise above it. His own life was no less challenging.

In 1915, Paul Robeson won a four-year academic scholarship to Rutgers University. Despite violence and racism from teammates, he won 15 varsity letters in sports (baseball, basketball, track) and was twice named to the All-American Football Team. He received the Phi Beta Kappa key in his junior year, belonged to the Cap & Skull Honor Society, and graduated as Valedictorian. However, it wasn't until 1995, 19 years after his death, that Paul Robeson was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

At Columbia Law School (1919-1923), Paul Robeson met and married Eslanda Cordoza Goode, who was to become the first Black woman to head a pathology laboratory. He took a job with a law firm, but left when a white secretary refused to take dictation from him. He left the practice of law to use his artistic talents in theater and music to promote African and African-American history and culture.

In London, Paul Robeson earned international acclaim for his lead role in Othello, for which he won the Donaldson Award for Best Acting Performance (1944), and performed in Eugene O'Neill's Emperor Jones and All God's Chillun Got Wings. He is known for changing the lines of the Showboat song "Old Man River" from the meek "...I'm tired of livin' and 'feared of dyin'....," to a declaration of resistance, "... I must keep fightin' until I'm dying....". His 11 films included Body and Soul (1924), Jericho (1937), and Proud Valley (1939). Robeson's travels taught him that racism was not as virulent in Europe as in the USA. At home, it was difficult to find restaurants that would serve him, theaters in New York would only seat Blacks in the upper balconies, and his performances were often surrounded with threats or outright harassment. In London, on the other hand, Robeson's opening night performance of Emperor Jones brought the audience to its feet with cheers for twelve encores.

Paul Robeson used his deep baritone voice to promote Black spirituals, to share the cultures of other countries, and to benefit the labor and social movements of his time. He sang for peace and justice in 25 languages throughout the U.S., Europe, the Soviet Union, and Africa. Robeson became known as a citizen of the world, equally comfortable with the people of Moscow, Nairobi, and Harlem. Among his friends were future African leader Jomo Kenyatta, India's Nehru, historian Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, anarchist Emma Goldman, and writers James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway. In 1933, Robeson donated the proceeds of All God's Chillun to Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler's Germany. At a 1937 rally for the anti-fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War, he declared, "The artist must elect to fight for Freedom or for Slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative." In New York in 1939, he premiered in Earl Robinson's Ballad for Americans, a cantata celebrating the multi-ethnic, multi-racial face of America. It was greeted with the largest audience response since Orson Welles' famous "War of the Worlds."

During the 1940’s, Paul Robeson continued to perform and to speak out against racism, in support of labor, and for peace. He was a champion of working people and organized labor. He spoke and performed at strike rallies, conferences, and labor festivals worldwide. As a passionate believer in international cooperation, Robeson protested the growing Cold War and worked tirelessly for friendship and respect between the USA and the USSR. In 1945, he headed an organization that challenged President Truman to support an anti-lynching law. In the late 1940s, when dissent was scarcely tolerated in the U.S., Robeson openly questioned why African Americans should fight in the army of a government that tolerated racism. Because of his outspokenness, he was accused by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) of being a Communist. He saw this as an attack on the democratic rights of everyone who worked for international friendship and for equality. The accusation nearly ended his career. Eighty of his concerts were canceled, and in 1949 two interracial outdoor concerts in Peekskill, New York were attacked by racist mobs while state police stood by. Robeson responded, "I'm going to sing wherever the people want me to sing...and I won't be frightened by crosses burning in Peekskill or anywhere else."

In 1950, the USA revoked Paul Robeson's passport, leading to an eight-year battle to resecure it and to travel again. During those years, Robeson studied Chinese, met with Albert Einstein to discuss the prospects for world peace, published his autobiography, Here I Stand, and sang at Carnegie Hall. Two major labor-related events took place during this time. In 1952 and 1953, he held two concerts at Peace Arch Park on the USA-Canadian border, singing to 30-40,000 people in both countries. In 1957, he made a transatlantic radiophone broadcast from New York to coal miners in Wales. In 1960, Robeson made his last concert tour to New Zealand and Australia. In ill health, Paul Robeson retired from public life in 1963.


More Photos

Source: University of Chicago Website
Contributed by
Aryeh Oron (August 2004)

Recordings of Bach Cantatas & Other Vocal Works

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Works

Under his name

Bass

Aria from BWV 4

Links to other Sites

Princeton Public Library - Paul Robeson on the Web
Paul Robeson a biography from the University of Chicago
Artist Hero: Paul Robeson (My Hero) The My Hero's Hero portion of this site features Paul Robeson's Heroes, by Jennifer Beck.
Biography: Paul Robeson (Rob Nagel)
Brief Biography of Paul Robeson (Marilyn Elie)
The Childhood of Paul Robeson and His Journey to Rutgers University (W.E.B. DuBois Learning Center)
Compiled and edited by Leon Dixon from Here I Stand and two biographies.
Old Man River (Tom Rue) Article from The River Reporter (Narrowsburg, NY), February 27, 1986.
Paul Robeson (AfricanAmericans.com)
Paul Robeson (American Masters, PBS) Includes a career timeline.
Paul Robeson (Black History 366 Days a Year!)
Paul Robeson (Charles Isbell, A Deeper Shade of Black)
Paul Robeson (Electronic New Jersey) The section on his youth includes a photograph of the house in Princeton where he lived as a child.
Paul Robeson (Corey K. Creekmur, St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture)
Paul Robeson (W.E.B. DuBois Learning Center, Kansas City, MO)
Paul Robeson, 1898-1976 An article by Helen O'Neill that first appeared in the Hartford Courant,February 11, 1996.
Paul Robeson (1898-1976) By Randye L. Jones for Afrocentric Voices in "Classical" Music.
Paul Robeson: A Biographical Sketch of a Friend & Acquaintance of Aleister Crowley (J.Edward & Marlene Cornelius)
Paul Robeson: A Brief Biography (African Genesis)
The Paul Robeson Collection (University Publications of America)
Paul Robeson: Athlete, Singer, Actor, Political Activist (Rutgers Hall of Distinguished Alumni)


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