Paul Robeson

Paul LeRoy Robeson Bustill ( Princeton (New Jersey) , April 9 1898 - Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) , January 23 1976 ) was a black American actor, athlete, singer, writer and political activist.

Contents

 * 1 Birth family
 * 2 Training
 * 3 Marriage and children
 * 4 Singer and actor
 * 5 Films
 * 6 Criticism of US
 * 7 McCarthy era
 * 8 Death and burial
 * 9 Epilogue
 * 10 References

Birth, family
Robeson was born in Princeton, New Jersey and went to high school in New Jersey, where he excelled in singing, acting and athletics. His mother, Maria Louisa Bustill (1853-1904) was an accident killed when a burning coal from the stove put her dress on fire. Paul was six years old. He was brought up by his father William Drew Robeson I (1845-1918), an escaped slave who later became a minister. His father urged him deep interest by learning to improve themselves. Paul had several siblings: William Drew Robeson, a physician who had practice in Washington, DC; Benjamin Reeve Robeson, pastor; and Marian Robeson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania lived.

Education [ edit ]
Paul took honors graduating from high school in 1915. He won a scholarship to Rutgers University where he excelled both academically and athletic field. He was only the third black American could study at Rutgers.He had to Princeton University have liked but there was at that time never admitted a black American. Paul was one of three classmates at Rutgers that might be a member of Phi Beta Kappa, an exclusive sorority.He was the best of the year, played football for the US national team, and distinguished himself repeatedly in sports. He moved to Harlem and earned his law degree at the University of Columbia . After graduating in 1923 he became the first black woman in one of the most prominent New York law firms went to work, and Stotesbury Miner . He left after a secretary refused by typing letters dictated to him because of his skin color. Robeson also studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, where he learned about the history of Africa, which he said made ​​him aware of the power and wealth of its heritage as black.

Marriage and children [ edit ]
He married in August 1921 with Essie Cardozo Goode (1896-1965). She was the head of the pathological laboratory in a hospital in the city of New York. They had a child together: Paul Robeson II (1927-).

Singer and actor [ edit ]
Robeson became famous as an actor and as a singer; He had a beautiful, very deep bass voice. In addition to his roles on the stage were also his renditions of Negro spirituals famous. His first roles were in 1922 when Simon in Simon the Cyrenian at the YMCA in Harlem and Jim in Taboo in the Sam Harris Theatre in Harlem. Taboo was later renamed Voodoo. His title role in the oeropvoering of Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones garnered much praise. He also played Crown in Porgy and Bess in 1930 and he played Othello in England, when no US company would adopt him in that role. Afterwards he played that role well in New York in 1943-1945. At the time, the series of performances of Othello on Broadway was the longest ever played on Broadway by any stretch of Shakespeare . Robe Sons repertoire of American black folk wore it at this much broader disclose to the general public both in and outside the US; especially his famous interpretation of "Go Down, Moses."

Movies [ edit ]
Paul Robeson as painted by Betsy Graves Reyneau, in the collection of the National Archives and Records Administration

Between 1925 and 1942, Robeson appeared in eleven films, fifth made in England after he and his wife in the late 20s moved to England. He lived there until the outbreak of the Second World War, interrupted by long tours in which he performed as a singer. In the period when his popularity was up in the thirties of the last century, Robe Sons name a guarantee of full houses in films such as Song of Freedom and The Proud Valley . In the US, he filmed his stage success with The Emperor Jones in 1933. He also played the role of Joe in the film adaptation of Showboat in 1936. The famous song Ol 'Man River herein was almost his business card, and is still considered by many the best rendition ever seen. In the movie King Solomon's Mines (1937) he played Umbopa. Eventually he was placed on the black list by the Hollywood bosses for his political ideas and the way he was carrying.

[Criticism of US edit ]
During his travels and tours in Western Europe and the Soviet Union, Robeson was expressed very critical of the conditions under which African Americans were forced to live, especially in the southern states. He was active in the fight against lynching . He practiced in 1946 strong force President Harry S. Truman, with comments which implied the possibility of armed self-defense of black Americans was named as the government would not do, and laid the foundations in that year the American Crusade Against Lynching. This public position, along with also publicly expressed sympathy for the Soviet Union in general, and Joseph Stalin in particular, his membership in the American Communist Party, and his regular trips to the Soviet Union led the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover opened a file on him. Robeson was followed by the FBI between 1941 and 1974, when the FBI decided that "the continuation of the investigation was not necessary."

He sang still occasionally overseas, including an appearance in the Welsh National Eisteddfod by phone (!). In 1940, Robeson had played in the film 'The Proud Valley' in which he played a black laborer in a village in Wales captured the hearts of the local population; and in real life remained afterwards a certain link between Wales and Robeson. His political ideas were not in Wales out of tune. He is to this day not forgotten in Wales and has said that "South Wales was his favorite place on earth." In 1949 he garnered in Moscow during a tour of the Soviet Union after 'the anthem of the people "to have sung a round of applause which lasted for more than fifteen minutes.

In 1949 also, however, Robeson performed at near Peekskill in New York. After a benefit concert for the civil rights departing concertgoers were attacked by supporters of anti-communist and racist groups, while the police looked on without intervening. There were about 140 wounded. The local newspaper was accused of having fueled the riots, now known as the "Peekskill riots.

[McCarthy era edit ]
Robeson was also examined by the Committee on Un-American Activities of the US Congress, which tried to sue him for refusing to sign a non-communist statement. To this the government refused him a passportto provide so that he could no longer travel abroad. On 18 May 1952 in the course of an American tour a concert organized by the Peace Arch on the border between Washington state and British Columbia (Canada). This was an act of protest against the government forbade him to go across the border. Robeson was on the US side of the border on the back of a flatbed truck and sang for an audience of 20,000 to 40,000 people who were on the Canadian side.

In December 1952 Paul Robeson was the International Stalin Prize for Strengthening Peace among the nations that made ​​it into the United States even more controversial.

In hearings before the House Committee on Un-American Activities appealed Robeson repeatedly on the fifth constitutional amendment (someone has to answer questions if the answer him in court could instruct) with questions about membership of political parties and he made ​​speeches against the committee members about civil rights for black Americans. At one point he said: "You yourself are the non-patriots, and not the Americans, and you should be ashamed." Only in 1958 Robeson got his passport back after a decision by the Supreme Court that the right of an American citizen to travel abroad could not be curtailed without trial.

Before that Robeson wrote a book, "Here I stand (here I stand, also a quote from Martin Luther ) which called for concerted action against the unfairness of the Jim Crow laws (laws and regulations which provided for segregation and other unequal treatment of blacks and whites). After he got his passport back, he moved back to England. He spent the next five years with by traveling the world and act.

He became ill and spent time in hospitals in Russia and East Germany.

Some critics of Robeson have argued that his status as a "victim of the McCarthy witch hunt 'unjustly because he had indeed extensive connections with the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the USA, which were known to be actively spied was USA

Robeson met in the Soviet Union at his request, the poet Itzik Feffer, a Jewish poet who was arrested and later murdered on the orders of Stalin, by the authorities under controlled conditions. Although he could see Feffer was tortured and knew this could not speak freely with him when he and afterwards not to criticize the Soviet Union heard.

He later told his son that he had known it indeed making him promise not to tell until after his death, because he had sworn never to publicly say ugly things about the Soviet Union.

Robeson wrote in April 1953 also a memorial to Joseph Stalin after his death, entitled "To you, dear comrade."

In 1961 Robeson slashed his wrists with a razor blade in a hotel room in Moscow. His son, Paul Robeson Jr., claims that this was due to hallucinogenic drugs that would be done by a CIA agent in his drink at a party that was given by the state for him. Many others think Robe Sons disappointment with the Soviet Union is a more likely explanation.

Robeson in 1963 returned back to the US to live there. Throughout the rest of his life he was plagued by health problems and depression, and he performed only rarely. She's 75th anniversary was celebrated on an evening in Carnegie Hall, where he found himself was not present; was only plays a recorded message from him.

Death and funeral [ edit ]
Paul Robeson died in 1976 in Philadelphia where he lived with his sister. He is buried at the Ferncliff Cemetery in New York . His obituary appeared on the front page of The New York Times on January 24, 1976.

[Epilogue edit ]
Robeson was, as apparent from the above, in many unlikely areas very gifted, and he used that gift also by working hard. The tragedy of his life was that he always, but especially in childhood and young adult years, struggling against racism and prejudice because of his skin color. This drove him into the arms of the communist movement and made him a showpiece of Communist regimes overseas, where at least his skin was not a problem, what to him was so important that he other shortcomings of these regimes did not want to see. Although Robeson has been one of the great forerunners of the black civil rights movement, his memory by the time McCarthy nearly erased from the current younger generation of Americans. In 1998, he received a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award . In Europe and the Netherlands, he is especially known as a singer still remained. His voice was a bass-baritone with a very low timbre.

He could save himself in more than 20 languages, and was at one point important enough to be mentioned for the post of Vice President in the presidential candidacy of Henry Wallace in 1948.

In 2004 appeared in a US postage stamp Robeson in the series' black heritage (black heritage). The East German postal service have depicted him in 1983 on a postage stamp.

[References edit ]

 * Paul Robeson - Here I Stand. DVD. Director: St. Claire Bourne. Winstar Home Entertainment. DVD Release Date: August 24, 1999. Duration: 117 minutes.
 * Duberman, Martin Paul Robeson.: A Biography. 804 pp. New Press; Reissue edition (May 1, 1995). ISBN 1-56584-288-X .
 * Foner, Philip S. Paul Robeson Speaks: Writings, Speeches, and Interviews, a Centennial Celebration. Citadel Press; Reprint edition (September 1, 1982). 644 pp. ISBN 0-8065-0815-9 .
 * Robeson, Paul. Here I Stand. Beacon Press (January 1, 1998). 160 pp. ISBN 0-8070-6445-9 .
 * Whitman, Alden. Paul Robeson Dead at 77. New York Times. P. 57, column 2. January 24, 1976.