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Paul Robson

What kickstarted or influenced your career in Travel?

Since I was a child I have always loved the Travel industry. When I went on work experience I completed it in my local independent travel agency and then went to college to become a qualified agent. From there my experience and love for the industry grew and grew. I have always wanted to start up myself and work from home which I am now able to do in this amazing industry. My love and passion for travel will never die.

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What is your most memorable destination?

My favourite destination so far has to be Golden Sands, Bulgaria. Beautiful beaches, friendly locals and plenty of opportunity to delve into the local culture.

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Family holidays, Party holidays, European, Luxury escapes, UK breaks, Caravan holidays

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African American Heritage

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Paul Robeson (April 9, 1898 - January 29, 1976)

Paul Leroy Robeson was born in Princeton, NJ, on April 9, 1898. His mother was a schoolteacher, and his father was a runaway slave who became a Presbyterian minister. Robeson graduated from Rutgers University, where he excelled in athletics and held a Phi Beta Kappa key. Afterwards, he played professional football and graduated from Columbia University School of Law.  

Although he worked briefly as a lawyer, Robeson turned his back on a legal career due to issues of racism. Instead, he turned his attention toward acting and singing. During the Harlem Renaissance, he starred in the Broadway productions of The Emperor Jones and All God’s Chillun Got Wings . He performed renditions of African American folk songs and spirituals alongside musician Lawrence Brown at Provincetown Playhouse in Manhattan. Later, his popularity rose when he starred in a production of Show Boat at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London. He became increasingly well-known for his rendition of the song “Ol’ Man River.” His most notable film roles were in Body and Soul (1925) and Show Boat (1936).  

Robeson was also involved in politics, receiving the 1953 Stalin Peace Prize for openly supporting the Soviet Union. He gained a reputation as an outspoken Black Nationalist who criticized the U.S. government’s perpetuation of racism and imperialist activities. This stance earned him scrutiny from Senator Joseph McCarthy in the days of the Red Scare. In 1950, his passport was revoked as a result of being deemed a threat to national security, but his travel ban ended in 1958. He continued to perform concerts in Europe until he became ill and returned to the U.S. In 1976, he died of cerebral vascular disorder at the age of 77 in Philadelphia. To this day, he remains a symbol of pride and consciousness to many African Americans.

Paul Robeson leading Moore Shipyard workers in singing the Star-Spangled Banner ( NAID 535874 )

Search the Catalog for Records relating to Paul Robeson          Social Networks and Archival Context - Paul Robeson

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Paul Robeson - Actor, Artist, Athlete by Charles Alston ( NAID 535624 )

Educator Resources: The Many Faces of Paul Robeson

Remembering Paul Robeson, Actor, Sportsman and Leader

Among other things, Robeson transformed one of history’s most famous showtunes into a protest song

Kat Eschner

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Paul Robeson had a big life.

Robeson, who died on this day in 1976 at the age of 77, got a lot done, but he’s not widely remembered today.

“Paul Robeson was one of the greatest black internationalists of the twentieth century,” writes historian Peter Cole. “A gifted actor and singer, he was also an unabashed leftist and union supporter. This resulted in his bitter persecution, destroying his career and causing, to a surprising degree, his disappearance from popular — if not academic — memory.”

Before he was an actor and singer, Robeson was a gifted athlete, writes History.com. He played college football for Rutgers University, and graduated that university as valedictorian, according to author Martin Duberman. Over the next twenty years, he got a law degree from Columbia Law School and he gained international fame as an actor and a singer both onstage and on screen. Possibly his most famous role was Joe in the beloved musical  Show Boat.  The role and the song " Ol' Man River " were written for his bass voice, according to History.com.

But that fame came at a price. “While working within mainstream cinema, like many black actors of the period, he found himself having to make compromises and play roles that presented stereotypes and caricatures,” writes Paul Risker of the Aesthetica Short Film Festival, which recently did a Robeson retrospective. The actor even famously disowned one of the films, Sanders of the River , when he discovered that the film’s message had changed during editing and it presented a deeply racist interpretation of African history.

It also presented Robeson with opportunities to change the narrative, like “Ol’ Man River.” In that song,  a black stevedore sings about how his life is like the Mississippi River: it can’t change. Its original lyrics painted an extremely negative picture of African-Americans and used pejorative words. Robeson, whose deep voice and iconic performances made his renditions of the song famous, changed the lyrics over time until it became a protest song, writes historian Shana L. Redmond.

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By 1940, Duberman writes, “he was beginning to emerge as a passionate defender of the underclasses.” That meant unionists, people of color, and other oppressed persons. Robeson visited the Soviet Union, which at that time was a relatively common thing for leftists to do, and spoke out for workers around the world as well as black people.

Although many had admired Robeson, he writes, it wasn’t a good time or place to be black, high-profile and outside the status quo. By 1960, Robeson had been “branded a Soviet apologist.” He was kept under close watch by the FBI, not allowed to travel and perform abroad and barely allowed to perform in the United States. “Robeson became an outcast, very nearly a nonperson,” he writes. McCarthyism irrevocably damaged his career. That’s why we don’t remember his films as well today, writes Risker.

About 2,500 people came to Paul Robeson’s funeral, which was held at the Harlem church where his brother, Ben, was pastor, writes Yussuf J. Simmonds of the Los Angeles Sentinel .

“Some of the indignities that befell Robeson, his name and his reputation, began to be restored posthumously,” Simmonds writes. “His name, which had been retroactively removed from the roster of the 1918 college All-America football team, was fully restored to the Rutgers University sports records, and in 1995, Robeson was officially inducted into The College Football Hall of Fame.”

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Kat Eschner is a freelance science and culture journalist based in Toronto.

Paul Robeson

Paul Robeson

(1898-1976)

Who Was Paul Robeson?

Paul Robeson was a stellar athlete and performing artist. He starred in both stage and film versions of The Emperor Jones and Show Boat and established an immensely popular screen and singing career of international proportions. Robeson spoke out against racism and became a world activist, and was blacklisted during the paranoia of McCarthyism in the 1950s.

Early Years

Paul Leroy Robeson was born on April 9, 1898, in Princeton, New Jersey, to Anna Louisa and William Drew Robeson, an escaped enslaved person. Robeson's mother died from a fire when he was six and his clergyman father moved the family to Somerville, where the youngster excelled in academics and sang in church.

Star Athlete and Academic

When he was 17, Robeson earned a scholarship to attend Rutgers University, the third African American to do so, and became one of the institution's most decorated students. He received top honors for his debate and oratory skills, won 15 letters in four varsity sports, was elected Phi Beta Kappa and became his class valedictorian.

From 1920 to 1923, Robeson attended Columbia University's Law School, teaching Latin and playing pro football on the weekends to pay tuition. In 1921, he wed fellow Columbia student, journalist Eslanda Goode. The two would be married for more than 40 years and have a son together in 1927, Paul Robeson Jr.

Robeson briefly worked as a lawyer in 1923 but left after encountering severe racism at his firm. With the encouragement of Eslanda, who would become his manager, he turned fully to the stage.

Early Roles: 'All God's Chillun' and 'Emperor Jones'

'show boat' and 'ol' man river'.

Although he was not a cast member of the original Broadway production of Show Boat , an adaptation of an Edna Furber novel, Robeson was prominently involved in the 1928 London production. It was there that he first earned renown for singing "Ol' Man River," a song destined to become his signature tune.

'Borderline,' 'Othello' and 'Tales of Manhattan'

In the late 1920s, Robeson and his family relocated to Europe, where he continued to establish himself as an international star through big-screen features such as Borderline (1930).

He starred in the 1933 movie remake of The Emperor Jones and would be featured in six British films over the next few years, including the desert drama Jericho and musical Big Fella , both released in 1937. During this period, Robeson also starred in the second big-screen adaptation of Show Boat (1936), with Hattie McDaniel and Irene Dunne.

Robeson's last movie would be the Hollywood production of Tales of Manhattan (1942). He criticized the film, which also featured legends like Henry Fonda, Ethel Waters and Rita Hayworth , for its demeaning portrayal of African Americans.

Having first played the title character of Shakespeare 's Othello in 1930, Robeson again took on the famed role in the Theatre Guild's 1943-44 production in New York City. Also starring Uta Hagen, as Desdemona, and José Ferrer, as the villainous Iago, the production ran for 296 performances, the longest-running Shakespeare play in Broadway history.

Activism and Blacklisting

A beloved international figure with a huge following in Europe, Robeson regularly spoke out against racial injustice and was involved in world politics. He supported Pan-Africanism, sang for Loyalist soldiers during Spain's civil war, took part in anti-Nazi demonstrations and performed for Allied forces during World War II. He also visited the Soviet Union several times during the mid-1930s, where he developed a fondness for Russian folk culture. He studied Russian, as did his son, who came to reside in the capital city of Moscow with his grandmother.

Yet Robeson's relationship with the U.S.S.R. became a highly controversial one, his humanitarian beliefs seemingly contrasting with the state-sanctioned terror and mass killings imposed by Joseph Stalin . In the United States, with McCarthyism and Cold War paranoia looming large, Robeson found himself contending with government officials looking to silence a voice who spoke out eloquently against racism and had political ties that could be vilified.

Fueled by the misrepresentation of a speech the actor made at the U.S.S.R-backed Paris Peace Conference in the late 1940s, Robeson was labeled a communist and was staunchly criticized by government officials as well as some African American leaders. He was ultimately barred by the State Department from renewing his passport in 1950 to travel abroad for engagements. Despite his immense popularity, he was blacklisted from domestic concert venues, recording labels and film studios and suffered financially.

Later Years, Book & Death

Robeson published his autobiography, Here I Stand , in 1958, the same year that he won the right to have his passport reinstated. He again traveled internationally and received a number of accolades for his work, but damage had been done, as he experienced debilitating depression and related health problems.

Robeson and his family returned to the United States in 1963. After Eslanda's death in 1965, the artist lived with his sister. He died from a stroke on January 23, 1976, at the age of 77, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Paul Robeson's Legacy

In recent years, efforts have been made by various industries to recognize Robeson's legacy after a period of silence. Several biographies have been written on the artist, including Martin Duberman's well-received Paul Robeson: A Biograph y, and he was inducted posthumously into the College Football Hall of Fame. In 2007, Criterion released Paul Robeson: Portraits of the Artist , a box set containing several of his films, as well as a documentary and booklet on his life.

QUICK FACTS

  • Name: Paul Leroy Robeson
  • Birth Year: 1898
  • Birth date: April 9, 1898
  • Birth State: New Jersey
  • Birth City: Princeton
  • Birth Country: United States
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Known For: Paul Robeson was an acclaimed 20th-century performer known for productions like 'The Emperor Jones' and 'Othello.' He was also an international activist.
  • Civil Rights
  • Theater and Dance
  • Astrological Sign: Aries
  • Rutgers University
  • Columbia University Law School
  • Nacionalities
  • Interesting Facts
  • Paul Robeson was once considered for a U.S. vice presidential spot on Henry A. Wallace's 1948 Progressive Party ticket.
  • An heirloom tomato variety originating in Russia is named after Paul Robeson.
  • Paul Robeson performed songs in at least 25 different languages.
  • Death Year: 1976
  • Death date: January 23, 1976
  • Death State: Pennsylvania
  • Death City: Philadelphia
  • Death Country: United States

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CITATION INFORMATION

  • Article Title: Paul Robeson Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/actors/paul-robeson
  • Access Date:
  • Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
  • Last Updated: May 5, 2021
  • Original Published Date: April 2, 2014
  • My father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay right here and have a part of it just like you. And no fascist-minded people will drive me from it.
  • The essential character of a nation is determined not by the upper classes, but by the common people, and that the common people of all nations are truly brothers in the great family of mankind.
  • Whether I am or not a communist is irrelevant. The question is whether American citizens, regardless of their political beliefs or sympathies, may enjoy their constitutional rights.
  • The artist must elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice.

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Moscow Metro

The Moscow Metro Tour is included in most guided tours’ itineraries. Opened in 1935, under Stalin’s regime, the metro was not only meant to solve transport problems, but also was hailed as “a people’s palace”. Every station you will see during your Moscow metro tour looks like a palace room. There are bright paintings, mosaics, stained glass, bronze statues… Our Moscow metro tour includes the most impressive stations best architects and designers worked at - Ploshchad Revolutsii, Mayakovskaya, Komsomolskaya, Kievskaya, Novoslobodskaya and some others.

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The guide will not only help you navigate the metro, but will also provide you with fascinating background tales for the images you see and a history of each station.

And there some stories to be told during the Moscow metro tour! The deepest station - Park Pobedy - is 84 metres under the ground with the world longest escalator of 140 meters. Parts of the so-called Metro-2, a secret strategic system of underground tunnels, was used for its construction.

During the Second World War the metro itself became a strategic asset: it was turned into the city's biggest bomb-shelter and one of the stations even became a library. 217 children were born here in 1941-1942! The metro is the most effective means of transport in the capital.

There are almost 200 stations 196 at the moment and trains run every 90 seconds! The guide of your Moscow metro tour can explain to you how to buy tickets and find your way if you plan to get around by yourself.

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‘Ballad of an American’: The Illustrious Life of Paul Robeson, Newly Illustrated

Cover of 'Ballad of an American-A Graphic Biography of Paul Robeson'

Cover of Ballad of an American: A Graphic Biography of Paul Robeson , edited by Paul Buhle and Lawrence Ware.

One of my favorite Paul Robeson songs is “Jacob’s Ladder.” It originated as a slave spiritual, based upon the Biblical story of a dream that Jacob, the patriarch and leader of the Israelites, once had. A ladder went from Earth to heaven, with angels traversing up and down it. For enslaved people, it signified the hope that they could climb out of slavery and into freedom. When Robeson sings, the listener can feel this climbing, heading toward freedom, giving the song not just a spiritual meaning but one hoping for the end of all oppression, not least that of the working masses to which Robeson devoted much of his life. The verses and the melody are simple, but their power is undeniable. It is a song of hope, and it encourages, even demands, a dedication to realize that hope.

The book, Ballad of An American , is a beautifully rendered graphic biography that takes readers, especially those not familiar with Robeson, on an exciting journey through his remarkable life. He rose like a shooting star, from humble beginnings to the height of worldwide acclaim—and he fell nearly as rapidly as he shot to stardom, destroyed by the U.S. government and powerful right-wing elements after the Second World War. He was deemed a danger to the white and imperialist ruling class, and with good reason. As we shall see, what Robeson stood for and acted upon threatened to incite an uprising by the working class, especially the Black superexploited part of it.

Robeson was born in 1898, the youngest of five children, in Princeton, New Jersey. His father, William, born enslaved, was a Presbyterian minister, and his mother, Maria, was a schoolteacher. Maria, who was nearly blind, died tragically in a house fire when Robeson was 6 years old. His father lost his job at an all-Black church in Princeton, probably for race-related reasons, forcing the family to move. They took up residence in Somerville, New Jersey, a town much more working-class than Princeton and with a larger Black population. William obtained employment, again as a minister, and this time more secure than in Princeton. Even before he was a teenager, Robeson showed great promise as a student, and his voice drew attention, so much so that he sometimes gave sermons in his father’s church. He excelled in all of his academic subjects.

His elementary school was all Black, but Somerville High was not, and Robeson felt the slings and arrows of racism. Still, his overall excellence in everything could not be ignored, and his music teacher made him soloist of the Glee Club. He starred as Othello in a school play, a role he would famously reprise many times as an adult, in venues around the world. He was also a gifted athlete, lettering in baseball, basketball, track and field, and most notably in football where his size, skill, grace, and power overshadowed that of everyone else.

Despite the high school not informing him of the statewide, two-part (the first taken as a high school junior and the second as a senior) examination that Rutgers University had initiated, with the winner receiving a full scholarship, Robeson took both parts on one day in his senior year. He got the highest score in New Jersey and thus entered the university, with its campus in New Brunswick, in 1915. It was then an all-male, private college with about five hundred students. There he once again excelled in everything he did: in his studies, in acting, in singing, and in sports, where he earned fifteen varsity letters, in track and field, baseball, basketball, and football. Rutgers excelled in football during Robeson’s tenure there, and he was selected an All-American in 1917 and 1918. He was one of four Rutgers students to be inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and he was valedictorian of his class.

After graduation, Robeson attended and graduated from, with some delays to earn a living, Columbia Law School. He played professional football for three years in the American Professional League, forerunner to the National Football League. He lived in Harlem just as the Harlem Renaissance was beginning. With his athletic fame, his outgoing personality, and his good looks, he was a popular sight on Harlem’s streets and at parties.

He had a passing acquaintance with a young woman from a prominent family, Eslanda Goode, a college graduate with a degree in chemistry. Goode was working as a lab technician when Robeson suffered a football injury and spent a few days in the hospital where she was employed. She spent time with him, making sure he was well taken care of, even making notes for the law school classes he missed. They began to see each other, and a year later, in August 1921, they were married. He was 23 years old, and she was 25. They stayed together, through many ups and downs until Goode’s death in 1965. To say that their relationship was tumultuous might be an understatement.

Goode continued her work as a chemist for several years after her marriage to Robeson, but she was keenly interested in promoting his burgeoning talents, as a singer and then as an actor. She soon began to devote all her time to his career. The book’s illustrations and text show what happened. He took roles in theater productions in New York City and was invited to perform in one of these. Robeson went to London, where he not only acted but also met the singer, pianist, and composer Lawrence Benjamin Brown, who became his accompanist and close friend over the following forty years. Through Brown, Robeson began to sing the spirituals so important to the Black experience in the United States from slavery onward.

After London, Robeson returned to the United States, where Goode had undergone surgery but kept it from him so that he could begin to lay the foundations for his subsequent career, then to the rest of Europe, acting and singing. His politics deepened, and he moved steadily to the left. He took the world by storm, stunning audiences with his fine acting and heart-stopping singing. He became a global force for the liberation of Black people in the United States and workers around the world. He studied African history and languages. He sang in multiple foreign tongues, everywhere captivating those who met him or watched him sing and act. He was, in a word, a phenomenon. He visited the Soviet Union and became a lifelong ally of the world’s first socialist society. He wanted nothing less than the liberation of all those exploited, alienated, and robbed of their humanity by capitalism. To see him among Welsh coal miners, with whom he had a special affinity, is to witness something very special. The white miners, blackened by coal dust, showing deep love and affection for a Black man from the United States, fill us with both wonder and feelings of the solidarity that should be at the foundations of human existence.

As the editors of this book, Paul Buhle and Lawrence Ware, tell us in their afterword, Robeson arose to great prominence during the time of the Popular Front. This was a period stretching roughly from the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as U.S. president in 1932 until the candidacy of the progressive politician and former Vice President Henry Wallace in 1948. Many radicals, including those in the Communist Party of the United States, made alliances with liberal Democrats in support of the New Deal, the mass union organization of industrial workers, and a united front against fascism in the Second World War, including support for the Soviet Union after the Nazi invasion of that country in 1941. The proponents of the Front believed that it would greatly increase the popularity of socialism, and its achievements would pave the way toward a radical transformation of society. A person like Robeson, who had great “crossover appeal,” was an icon of the Popular Front, with fans both white and Black and from every corner of the Earth. He was a symbol of multiracial and multiethnic solidarity.

However, under the surface of potential working-class harmony was a darker reality. While it appeared that right-wing and fascist forces had been vanquished by the Popular Front and the victory against fascism in the War, they remained alive and active. Already during the war, the dominant economic and imperial powers, Great Britain and the United States (the latter now headed by the reactionary and racist Harry Truman), were plotting against their ally, the Soviet Union. No sooner had the war ended than a new, Cold War, began. The Soviet Union was now public enemy number one, and the nefarious machinations against it by the dominant capitalist nations hardly need to be recapitulated. The allies, minus the USSR, quelled Communist political advances in France, Greece, and Italy.

The newly formed Central Intelligence Agency began to undermine radical movements all over the world. Domestically, a Republican Congress enacted, in 1947, the antilabor Taft-Hartley amendments to the National Labor Relations Act. This law contained a provision demanding that union officers sign an oath stating that they were not communists. The two dominant labor federations, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), capitulated to this statute, and not long after, the CIO expelled ten unions, among which were the most militant, with the best collective bargaining agreements, and with the greatest commitment to racial and gender equality, as well as the most principled opposition to growing U.S. imperialism. The CIO also abandoned its Southern union organizing campaign. Radical labor leaders were also expelled or marginalized in individual unions, including the United Auto Workers. They were also hounded by the FBI and federal and state Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).

After the Second World War, there were massive strikes in the United States, and a burgeoning civil rights movement was coming to life. Despite the forces of reaction, there were possibilities for a labor-civil rights alliance. Robeson would certainly have been an important catalyst for such an alliance. He had a superlative speaking ability; his knowledge and connections were enormous; and he was still popular. What is more, he was a fervent anticolonialist, right when tens of millions of people living in the colonies of the rich imperial powers were demanding freedom. No doubt, he could have helped galvanize support among U.S. workers and the civil rights movement for the anticolonial movement.

The U.S. government was quick to neutralize Robeson. He met with Truman in July 1946, urging the president to support anti-lynching legislation. The racist bomber of Hiroshima and Nagasaki gave him short shrift. Robeson’s friends in the Communist Party were being prosecuted—persecuted—for their thoughts, as anticommunist hysteria hit full stride. Robeson supported Wallace’s presidential run, and after that politician’s landslide defeat, he and those who supported him were suspect, much like those who fought on the side of the loyalists in Spain a decade before were now declared to be “premature antifascists.” When Robeson spoke and sang at progressive venues in Europe, U.S. newspapers denounced him as anti-American. His friendship with the Soviet Union was now seen as a betrayal of his country. Racist mobs began to harass him, most notably at a concert in Peekskill, New York, where racists and antisemites attacked his followers in August 1949. Even Jackie Robinson, who should have known better, denounced Robeson before HUAC. Theaters refused to book him during a U.S. tour. Then, when he prepared to travel to Europe to perform, he discovered that his passport had been revoked. The U.S. government declared that “Robeson’s travel abroad would be contrary to the interests of the United States.” He was even denied the right to travel to Canada, which did not then require a passport. So, in 1952, he gave the first of his famous open-air concerts in Blaine, Washington, at the Peace Arch on the border between the two countries.

Goode was compelled to testify before HUAC in 1953, soon after becoming ill with breast cancer. She had a mastectomy and recovered rapidly. Robeson also became sick, and for him, this was the beginning of two decades of mental and physical decline. He underwent various treatments, including heavy doses of drugs and multiple electric shocks, as well as psychotherapy (the authors of the book argue that recent studies of the brains of deceased modern football players suggest that Robeson may have suffered from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, the result of concussions suffered while playing football). Still, he continued to perform, even using telecommunications to reach audiences abroad. He kept speaking out against injustices, including at a compelled appearance before HUAC. His passport was restored by the Supreme Court in 1958, and he was able to travel overseas. He sang once again in support of the cause of liberation. However, his health was not good. He could not remember the lines of Othello, a part he had acted so many times. At home, his films and recordings disappeared from the marketplace, and though the McCarthy period ended, anticommunism remained in full force. Robeson was further castigated for his friendship with the Soviet Union, for his failure to condemn the persecutions and executions enacted under Joseph Stalin. Ultimately, he faded from public view, and he was even marginalized by the more militant wings of the Black freedom struggle. His film and stage roles were dismissed as stereotypically subservient Black men.

Goode’s cancer returned, and she died in 1965. Robeson was too distraught to attend her funeral. He hung on for ten more years, cared for in Philadelphia by his sister Marian. Already toward the end of his life, he received honors, including in 1967 the opening of the Paul Robeson Cultural Center on the Rutgers campus. After his death, many other honors were bestowed upon him; the U.S. Postal Service even issued a Robeson stamp.

This review began with a Robeson song, so it is fitting to end with one. In 1945, a short film, The House I Live In , was made to counter post-Second World War antisemitism in the United States. Written by Communist Party member Albert Maltz, sent to prison in 1950 as one of the “Hollywood Ten,” persecuted for their refusal to testify before HUAC in 1947, the movie featured Frank Sinatra singing the title song. The song was written by Abe Meeropol, who used the assumed name Lewis Allan. He was the adoptive father of the children of the executed radicals, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, as well as the writer of “Strange Fruit,” the gut-wrenching song about the lynching of Black people. To people of a certain age, the lyrics of “The House I Live In”—especially when sung by Robeson, the man who made it famous—strike an emotional chord. They reflect more hopeful times: the period of the Popular Front.

The afterword, perhaps unwittingly, gives the impression that, since Robeson was a product of the Front, a modern version of the Popular Front is needed now. Perhaps such a development would provide the political conditions in which Robeson could regain the prominence he once had. Because despite all the accolades he has received, he is not well-known among those who have turned to the left in the past few decades. However, it is unlikely that a new Popular Front will arise. What we need now is an openly radical movement, one aimed at substantive equality in all spheres of life, a planned degrowth in terms of production, a frontal assault on structural racism and patriarchy, and a refusal to participate in any way in the imperial machinations of the United States. Alliances of those dismissed today as on the far left with liberals and social democrats will be of limited values, given that these political entities are the very ones dismissing those of us who have stayed the course and demanded the complete annihilation of capitalism.

Such a radical movement, of the world’s workers and peasants, is what Robeson embraced. It is in such a movement that he will once again stand out as perhaps the greatest radical artist in history. For it is not just his astonishing, multidimensional talent that made him great and worthy of our admiration, but his unyielding commitment to a world in which freedom thrives because necessity has been conquered. If this book helps readers see this, that despite his all-too-human flaws, his life is a light toward which we should all travel, then it will have more than done its job.

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On the Paul Robeson Strasse

Eiliyas mixtape menage investigates the relationship between u.s. entertainer and activist paul robeson and the gdr….

“You may well ask why Paul Robeson means so much to our people. Why do we have a Paul Robeson committee or a Paul Robeson Archive? Why do our school children learn about him and why is he an inspiration to us on our road to communism? I am not sure that I have the whole answer to these questions. But surely one reason is what we learned from the terrible experiences under fascism. “

— Frank Loeser, President of East Germany’s Paul Robeson Committee, Ansprache zur Veranstaltung “What Is America To Me,” August 2, 1973, 19:30, Kosmos Theater

I can distinctly remember the two times that I encountered Pankow’s Paul Robeson Strasse. The first time was on my third day in Berlin, when I had found a potential artist studio. Determined to make Berlin my own I ventured out somewhere I didn’t know in the city (it might have been the Kreativstadt Weissensee , ECC, but I don’t remember exactly). The studio turned out to be too far away from where I lived in Mitte at the time, but on my way back, bearing in mind I was very new to the city, I got lost.

In the midst of my wandering around, I stumbled across Paul Robeson Strasse. I had to double take, of course. Why was there a street named after Paul Robeson here in Berlin? I wondered if it maybe commemorated a different Paul Robeson to the one I thinking of, the singer, dancer and activist from back home in the USA.

Then it clicked. I remembered a documentary I had watched on Paul Robeson, which mentioned him being revered in East Berlin, and how he had said that it was in Russia he felt appreciated as a human being for the first time. Obviously I was in the eastern part of Berlin, and the street must therefore be a nod to Robeson’s communist sympathies.

The second time I found myself on the same street was more than a year later and also accidentally. I had signed my young son up for piano lessons in this particular part of Pankow, and remember sticking around for the first lesson to make sure he was comfortable with the new teacher. Partway through though, I ventured out for a coffee to give him some space, more focus and perhaps a sense of independence. I picked up a coffee and a snack, and wandered about the neighbourhood; before I knew it, I was back on Paul Robeson Strasse again.

Who was Paul Robeson?

Paul Leroy Robeson was born on April 9th 1898 in Princeton, New Jersey, to Reverend William Drew Robeson and Maria Louisa Bustill. His father was a runaway slave who escaped to become minister of Princeton’s Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church. His mother came from a prominent family of Quaker origin. He was the youngest of five children, and grew up to be a lot of things; athlete, lawyer, singer, thespian, left-wing activist. It was that last one that got him into trouble and turned him into a target of the U.S. government.  

A part of his enthusiasm for communism stemmed from the case of the Scottsboro Boys case in Alabama, in which nine Black teenagers were accused, tried and convicted of raping two white women. With the help of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the case was appealed. They were defended by CPUSA’s International Labor Defense (ILD), was was led by Robeson’s good friend William L. Patterson , and launched a global campaign, catching the attention of Moscow in particular, and catapulted Jim Crow into an international concern.

At the time, Robeson was performing the title role in Shakespeare’s Othello in London, which was breaking box office records, and was fully aware of the hostility that he would be facing if it were to be performed back home in the States. Speaking of the ‘tempestuous’ scenes (kissing and embracing) with Desdemona, Robeson said, “I wouldn’t care to play those scenes in some parts of the United States. The audience would get rough; in fact, might become very dangerous, with outraged audience members charging the stage with mayhem in mind, possible if not likely…”

Just before Christmas in 1934, Robeson and his wife Eslanda , along with Marie Seton, were on their way to Moscow to meet with Russian Film Director Sergei Eisenstein ; the plan was to collaborate on a film about the hero of the Haitian Revolution Toussaint L’Ouverture, whom Sergei deeply admired. During their layover in Berlin, they were stopped by storm troopers at a train station.

It was a “nightmare” according to Eslanda; “Paul said he felt the atmosphere and the uniforms” reminded him of a “pack of wolves, waiting and hoping to be unleashed and released…” Later, she confided to her diary: “I suddenly understand for the first time what the feeling must be of a black in Mississippi…terror, fear, horror, tension, nerves strained to breaking point.”

“I encountered trouble that might have well have meant my life,” Robeson added later of his tense time in Berlin. But he made it to the Soviet Union and returned to London afterwards feeling politically invigorated. “I saw the suffering about me with different eyes,” he declared. “I realised that the suffering of my own people was related to the sufferings of equally oppressed minorities. Later I saw Austria in the dark days, Norway and Denmark on the edge of destruction”.

These enervating experiences led to the political thrust that would define him to his dying days: opposition to fascism at all costs.

Robeson & The GDR

Arbeits kräfte wurden gerufen

Unsere deutsche freunde

Aber menschen sind gekommen

Nicht maschinen sonder menschen

Freunde, freunde sie haben am leben freude

Deutsche Freunde – Ozon Ata Canini

Although there were obvious anti-fascist parallels between Robeson’s humanitarian activism and his communist sympathies and the GDR, conditions in East Germany were not always favourable for non-Germans. In fact, they could be outright racist. Despite importing contract workers from other communist countries such as Vietnam, Mozambique and Angola, these imported workers were often given jobs that no one else in Germany wanted to do, and were kept separate from German society, often in marginalised housing areas.

The worker contract made with Mozambique was perhaps the most sketchy, since the government received part of the wages from their ‘loaned’ workers, with workers accepting reduced pay based on the promise that the remainder of their salary would be paid upon their return; they are still waiting 25 years later.

Right up until 1988, if a female migrant worker woman was pregnant, she could be deported due to her inability to work, with abortion the only other alternative. Fathers were deported too most of the time, or else contact was forbidden since some mothers cut off contact personally, meaning children grew up not knowing their fathers.

In 1989, migrant workers were sent back to their home countries en masse as they were no longer needed for cheap labour. Those who stayed often experienced attacks and riots by anti-immigrant groups throughout the East. As Vietnamese contract worker Huong Trute has said : One person asked me: “What are you still doing here?” I said “I live here.” He replied: “But we don’t need you, there’s no GDR anymore”

Robeson visited the GDR again in 1960, having been invited to perform from the balcony of the Humboldt University—from which he had received an Honorary Doctorate from the Philosophy Department of Humboldt University—during a two-day press event sponsored by Neues Deutschland , the official newspaper of the Communist Party. One of the songs Robeson sang was “John Brown’s Body”—Brown being an abolitionist whose activism, many believe, lit the touch-paper for the Civil War that ultimately ended slavery.

Robeson returned once more to Berlin in 1963, this time to check into the Berlin-Buch Klinik in East Berlin. Years of being scrutinised and put under constant surveillance by the U.S. government—his son Paul Robeson Jr. has claimed he was a victim of the CIA’s MK Ultra brainwashing program , which targeted ‚perceived threats’ to national security—took their toll, as did his strenuous schedule of worldwide touring and speaking engagements.

Believing his treatment in Britain was being deliberately neglected, Robeson took up an offer to visit East Germany to get better care, where he was ultimately told to take more rest. In any case, he was no longer physically capable of being as active as in previous years.

Robeson’s Legacy & the Berlin Archive

The 1950s were a stressful time for Robeson. He had his U.S. passport revoked in response to his public disapproval of American policies. Internal memos within the East German government reported that ”reactionary imperialist forces” were threatening Robeson’s legacy, which resulted in the development of an archive, established in 1965 in East Berlin’s Academy of the Arts (ADK).

Despite the fact his ties to the socialist German state were nowhere near as strong as his ties to Britain or the Soviet Union, his celebrity and political stance proved a supportive image for the burgeoning state, leading to a curious fandom which was no doubt assisted by his German friends and associates.

The archive—one several around the world, the most notable being in Philadelphia where he died—was headed up by The Paul Robeson Committee, which included a few exiled Germans in London, as well as Eslanda , a renowned anthropologist, photographer, actress, author and civil rights activist in her own right.

Indeed, without Eslanda, Paul Robeson would have never become an actor, and technically the Berlin archive is considered the Paul and Eslanda Robeson archive as it also contains her work. Its director between 1965-1968, Victor Grossman —who co-founded the city’s Babylon Kino and whose son, Timothy, still runs it—later recounted it was meant as a rejoinder to Robeson being targeted by cold war hatred and racism in the United States.

It’s a somewhat unique archive given it was created mostly as a propaganda tool, but is regardless an impressive and important collection of cultural artefacts, featuring approximately 1,000 photos, newspaper articles, correspondences, manuscripts, theatre costumes for Othello, and more. The propagandistic aspect of the archive died with the GDR, and in 1993, when the Akademie Der Kunst was unified, it was moved to the new Music Archives.

The re-naming of Stolpische Strasse as Paul Robeson Strasse in East Berlin in 1978 was a direct consequence of the archive, as one of several ways—including naming a high school and the production of various events—to promote Robeson and his communist leanings throughout the GDR. As such it’s also distinctive in the area: the neighbouring streets, Seelower Strasse and Schönflieser Strasse, are named after towns in Brandenburg, while nearby Arminplatz is named after German poet Achim von Armin .

Nowadays, it’s just another street in Prenzlauer Berg, with a few nondescript small shops and a pleasant playground around the corner at Arminplatz. I was told by a friend that a Kiezmarkt on or near the square still smells the way markets did in the GDR, but otherwise there’s not much to remind of former East Germany. I now know, of course, that the street is less connected with Robeson’s broader interest in basic human and civil rights than his support of communism per se —but I’m still somewhat appreciative of it.

Links & References

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48273570

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/brown-history-john-browns-body/

https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/150bde08-bbe5-4eb3-a1f8-d2d668134b14/650017.pdf

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/573dbe931d07c0e136e7551e/t/5d1a1d9111a9570001f919f0/1561992595436/Carmody+Cultural+Critique.pdf

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/black-lives-matter-germany-karamba-diaby/2020/06/18/a9ad114e-acba-11ea-a43b-be9f6494a87d_story.html

Special thanks to the Music Archive at ADK

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Nighttime color photo of Royal Albert Hall shown in floodlights. A freestanding domed building of iron and glass, designed in an Italianate style, the building’s interior amphitheater is a world-famous concert hall. Red brick dominates the building’s façade.

The restoration of Paul Robeson’s passport enabled him to travel to Europe and the Asian outposts of the Soviet Union. In summer 1958, he gave a sold-out concert at Royal Albert Hall—shown here in its contemporary version as viewed from Kensington Gardens, London—accompanied by Larry Brown at the piano. (The concert hall’s exterior has been fundamentally unchanged since its opening by Queen Victoria in 1871.) Robeson had first performed here to critical acclaim in 1929. Royal Albert Hall, Carnegie Hall, and the Hollywood Bowl were among the prestigious venues graced by Robeson during his illustrious singing career—and there were the countless halls and parks where he sang to working class audiences following his turn to social activism in the 1930s.

Diliff, via “Royal Albert Hall,” Wikimedia

Paul Robeson, Part IV: Erasure from Historical Memory

Part IV focuses on the final chapter of Paul Robeson’s eventful life when his myriad leftist political activities and stated views resulted in a deliberate and largely successful campaign by federal agencies, mainstream media, and other hostile critics to erase him from historical memory. Robeson was compelled to live out his remaining days in relative obscurity and declining health.

Robeson’s publicly avowed alliance with the U.S. Communist Party, his stalwart advocacy for socialism and labor justice, his relentless campaigns to end European colonialism, his continuing ties to the Soviet Union, and his refusal to defer to Jim Crow in any form resulted in a deliberate and largely successful campaign by federal agencies, mainstream media, and spiteful critics to efface the public’s memory of his exploits. Embittered and in declining health, he spent the last decade of his life (1966–1976) largely in the care of his sister Marian Robinson Forsythe at 4951 Walnut St. in West Philadelphia—an unjust ending to one of the twentieth century’s most remarkable lives.

Condemned by the media and the federal government, Paul Robeson was banned during the 1950s from the venues essential to his career and income: concert halls, stages, movie screens, radio, and television. Only union halls and Black churches remained open to him. Dire poverty, however, was not Essie and Paul Robeson’s fate; their previous investments and Paul’s royalties kept them afloat, even as his films and recordings were withdrawn from circulation in the U.S.

The loss of his passport made it impossible for Robeson to continue his career abroad. The nation’s leading newspapers and periodicals refused to review his memoir, Here I Stand , a brief account of his youth and beliefs. It was published in 1958 by Othello Associates, which was run by his son Paul Jr. The book was little noted and was soon out of print until thirty years later, when Beacon Press released a new edition during a revival of interest in Robeson. In a speech to a Harlem audience, W.E.B. Du Bois, himself no stranger to anticommunist witch hunts (he was stripped of his passport in 1956), underscored the irony of Robeson’s ostracism in the U.S. “He is without doubt today, as a person, the best known American on earth, to the largest number of human beings. Only in his native land is he without honor and rights.” 1

The labor historian Mark Naison remarked on Robeson’s “virtual erasure from historical memory”:

What does it say about America that the most talented African-American of the century, a scholar, athlete, artist and human rights activist, a man whose singing voice sent chills through those who heard it and who mastered thirteen languages could be turned into a non-person by the hysterical manipulation of public opinion? Paul Robeson broke no laws. His crime, to those who attacked him, was that he refused to denounce the Soviet Union as the major source of evil in the world and to sever ties to American communists he worked with in civil rights organizations, labor organizations, and campaigns to end European colonialism. The political and cultural leaders of the United States were so threatened by Robeson’s political outlook and his utter lack of deference to the leaders of white America, that they decided to make an example of him that would redound through the ages. 2

As the legal historian and Robeson biographer Paul Von Blum puts it:

The timidity (and sometimes the complicity) of thousands of intellectuals, including academics, in the face of anti-leftist hysteria, Congressional investigations, blacklisting, and FBI surveillance of tens of thousands of law-abiding citizens remains an egregious blight on American intellectual and political history. Paul Robeson, in contrast, remained courageous and outspoken, at enormous personal cost. History’s judgment on which stance is superior should be unambiguous: it is better to be active and occasionally mistaken than to acquiesce in evil. 3

The late spring of 1958 marked the end of Paul’s harrowing eight-year passport ordeal. In a 5-4 ruling in a case that did not involve him directly, the Supreme Court declared as unconstitutional the State Department’s denial of a passport because of a citizen’s political beliefs. The Court also negated the Passport Division’s policy of requiring a signed affidavit regarding Communist Party membership. Nonetheless, the FBI continued its wiretaps. At last Paul Robeson could travel to Britain, where he and Essie hoped to reboot his career. Though there were grumblings in the British press and Parliament, Robeson was allowed to return to London that summer, where he sang at London’s Royal Albert Hall. In August he traveled to Moscow, where he gave a concert in the Lenin Sports Stadium prior to traveling by train to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where he collapsed from heat exhaustion and needed a month to recuperate. The Robesons returned to London in the fall, where Paul gave a historic recital at St. Paul’s Cathedral during Evensong, the storied church’s first such break with a centuries-old tradition. Back in Moscow on New Year’s Eve, he joined W.E.B. Du Bois at a formal New Year’s Eve celebration in the Kremlin hosted by the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev led the applause for the two great civil rights activists. But suffering from exhaustion, Paul Robeson spent the next two months, first at a Moscow hospital, then at the Barvikha Sanitorium for government officials and notable foreign diplomats.

Robeson reappeared in England in the spring of 1959 as the lead in a new production of Othello at Stratford-on-Avon, which included, among other rising stars, Albert Finney, and in crowd-scene roles Diana Rigg and Vanessa Redgrave; the production would run periodically through the fall. Robeson was hardly his robust self of earlier decades, and director Tony Richardson cut his weekly schedule from four performances to two.

1959 was the year of South Africa’s Sharpsville Massacre, and Robeson, despite some bad days, continued to advocate for social justice for that apartheid country’s oppressed Black population; he traveled on the Continent to attend socialist and peace conferences; and he undertook a 32-city concert tour across Britain.

A dozen African nations declared their independence in 1960. There was a growing militancy in the Black struggle for social justice in the U.S., with the spread of student sit-ins, the formation of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and growing support from Northern white liberals. Robeson was skeptical that the newly elected Kennedy-Johnson administration would improve conditions for southern Blacks. Preparatory to what Essie called Paul’s “rat race” of commitments, he shed 40 pounds in 40 days after his weight had ballooned to 285 pounds. Then he embarked on a grueling schedule of concerts starting in East Germany.

Paul arrived in East Berlin on October 4, 1960, together with his pianist Bruno Raikin. German authorities had organized a tightly packed itinerary of meetings, concerts, and official ceremonies for the first nationally celebrated Black activist to visit their country. Robeson received an honorary doctorate from the Humboldt University and a prize from the East German Peace Council, performed for the members of the Free German Youth (FDJ), attended a reception with high-ranking politicians, visited a state-owned enterprise, and held a press conference. Judging by Robeson’s public statements, the trip exceeded his expectations. For instance, at the concert for the Free German Youth, Robeson said: “This has been without question [. . .] one of the most moving days of a long 62 year old life. And I want to thank you here in the German Democratic Republic for your warm welcome to me, not only to me, but to the people from whom I spring, from the Negro people of America.” 4

Australia and New Zealand were next on his itinerary. Provoked by unfriendly Australian reporters, Robeson furiously vented his pent-up rage over his decades-long harassment by the U.S. government, vowing that in a war with Russia, he would support the Russians. This was an early harbinger of his mental unraveling.

While in Moscow, on March 27, 1961, a week before his 63rd birthday, Robeson slashed his wrists, although not with deep cuts. He was hospitalized and diagnosed as suffering from paranoia and extreme anxiety. Robeson’s son Paul Jr. speculated, though without hard evidence, that his father was drugged by the CIA, which he alleged conspired to prevent his father from making a planned trip to Cuba. The failed Bay of Pigs invasion by Cuban exiles to topple Castro’s communist regime, which was backed by the Kennedy administration, took place on April 17. After a three-month convalescence at the Barvikha Sanitorium, he returned to London, where he underwent a course of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT); the treatment offered some relief. But in the spring of 1963, Essie, dissatisfied with the progress of Paul’s recovery, had him flown to a clinic in East Berlin where the preferred mode of treatment was psychotherapy. Paul remained there through the late fall before returning with Essie to the U.S.

Robeson’s health was now irreparably broken. He and Essie returned to a house they had purchased years before at Jumel Terrace in Harlem, and Paul spent the early months of 1964 there and at his sister Marian Robeson Forsythe’s house at 4951 Walnut Street, in West Philadelphia. In his first public statement to the press, he applauded the militant Black activists of the civil rights movement and their white allies, hailing the integrative quality of the turn toward militancy.

For the first time, in January 1965, his path almost crossed with Malcolm X, whom Paul admired for the internationalist stance that Malcom adopted after his visit to Mecca. Malcolm in turn admired Robeson for his 1949 stand against Blacks rallying to the defense of a country that “treated them with such open contempt and bestial brutality.” 5 The occasion was the Harlem funeral of the Black playwright Lorraine Hansberry. Paul Jr. arranged for the two men to delay their first meeting until after tensions eased between Malcolm and Elijah Muhammad and the separatist Nation of Islam (NOI). The meeting never happened. A month after Hansberry’s funeral, Malcolm was assassinated by NOI operatives.

Suffering a severe psychiatric relapse, Robeson made a second unsuccessful attempt at suicide. On June 11, 1965, he was admitted to Gracie Square psychiatric hospital. He was deeply angered at being ignored by the current generation of civil rights activists and the lack of recognition accorded his role as a pioneer of the civil rights movement from the 1920s–1940s. Perhaps compounding his depression was the loss of his audience and the human contact and adulation he had enjoyed with so-called ordinary people through his singing, stage performances, and political speeches.

By now Essie Robeson, Paul’s beleaguered mainstay support for 43 years, was hospitalized. She died of metastatic breast cancer on December 12, 1965 at Beth Israel Hospital on the eve of her 70th birthday. 6 Paul was too distraught to attend her funeral.

Paul Robeson’s final decade (1966–1976) was spent in the care of his older sister, Marian Forsythe, at her home at 4951 Walnut Street in West Philadelphia. Marian had been educated at the Scotia Seminary for young Black women, founded in 1867 in Concord, North Carolina (now Barbara Scotia College). Widowed since 1959, she was a retired Philadelphia school teacher who lived with her daughter Paulina. Marian was overly optimistic that she could nurse Paul to recovery. Paul Jr. would later write that the drugs Paul Sr. received at Gracie Square had a toxic effect that contributed to his decline.

As for the underlying cause of Paul’s mental disorders—one that may have underlain other bouts of depression and anxiety—"insecurity in early childhood, [the] burden of representing an entire race, more than a decade of government persecution, heartbreak at the failures of communism”:

In Robeson’s time people were secretive about mental disorders. Only his close friends knew how impaired he became. But early in the twenty-first century retired athletes came out about memory loss, depression, anxiety. Too many took their own lives. Dozens donated their brains for study after death. A 2017 study of the brains of 111 National Football League players had the damage now diagnosed as CTE—chronic traumatic encephalopathy [as reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association .] Paul Robeson played fierce tackle football from boyhood. Maybe there is no mystery. Maybe like many a Black man before him and since, he simply took too many blows to this head. 7

In 1967, Who’s Who in American History included his biography. Rutgers University founded the Paul Robeson Cultural Center, the first Black cultural center on a U.S. campus. Paul’s 70th birthday was celebrated in New York and Moscow via a radio hookup. As part of its elaborate celebration, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) established a Paul Robeson Archive. 7 Distinguished British artists, including Peter O’Toole, Michael Redgrave, and Peggy Ashcroft, paid tribute to Paul in an evening of music, poetry, and drama at an annex of London’s Royal Festival Hall; artists who could not attend, such as John Gielgud and Yehudi Menuhin, sent glowing messages.

Though Robeson was no longer a household name, he was honored in select circles and, in the 1970s, presented with some major awards. Although his weak health precluded his father’s attendance, Paul Jr. and Harry Belafonte organized a gala celebration for Robeson’s 75th birthday at Carnegie Hall; the multi-media program was attended by luminaries such as Odetta, Leon Bibb, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte (the program’s producer), James Earle Jones, Roscoe Lee Brown, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee; Pete Seeger sang honoring Paul’s courageous performances for Republican soldiers during the Spanish Civil War; Delores Huerta of the Farm Workers Union gave a rousing speech honoring Paul’s legacy for migrant farm workers; Coretta Scott King spoke of the common ground Paul shared with her husband as warriors of the civil rights movement.

Paul Robeson died at West Philadelphia’s Presbyterian Hospital (today’s Penn–Presbyterian Medical Center), from complications of a stroke, on January 23, 1976. His funeral service at Mother A.M.E. Zion Church in Harlem, where Paul’s brother Ben had pastored for 27 years, drew thousands to the rain-drenched streets outside the historic church. Inside the church, writes Martin Duberman, were:

Old Left and New, theater people and trade-unionists, white and black, Communists and conservatives, dear friends, old adversaries, complete strangers. A Phillip Randolph and Bayard Rustin showed up; so did Harry Belafonte; Uta Hagen; Malcolm X’s widow, Betty Shabazz; and Paul’s Rutgers sweetheart, Maimie Neale Bledsoe; do did Steve Nelson of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and Harry Winston, national chairman of the CPUSA . . . and hundreds of Harlem’s so-called ordinary people. 8

1. Quoted in Gerald Horne, Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary (London, UK: Pluto Press, 2016), 3–4.

2. Mark Naison, “Americans Through Their Labor: Paul Robeson’s Vision of Cultural and Economic Democracy,” Ominira 1, no. 1 (1999), accessed from http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/paulrobeson.htm , 6 February 2022.

3. Paul Von Blum, “Paul Robeson: The Quintessential Public Intellectual,” lecture at the Lafayette College (Easton, PA), Paul Robeson Conference, 7 April 2005, as a part of the three-day Paul Robeson Conference on the history and culture of civil rights and civil liberties.

4. Maria Schubert, “Allies Across Cold War Boundaries?” Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte 33, no. 1 (2020): 61.

5. Martin Duberman, Paul Robeson: A Biography (New York: New Press, 1989), 527–28.

6. In Eslanda: The Large and Remarkable Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 2013), Essie’s biographer, Barbara Ransby, summarizes this remarkable woman’s achievements outside of her marriage to Paul:

College educated when most Black women were working as domestics, Essie in the 1920s became the first Black women [sic] chemist to work in a pathology laboratory at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City and the first Black woman to head such a unit. In the 1930s, she studied with renowned anthropologist Branislaw Malinowski at the London School of Economics and later pursued a Ph.D. in anthropology. She published three books, one of which was co-authored with the Nobel Prize-winning author Pearl Buck. For nearly twenty years, she worked as a freelance journalist, a U.N. correspondent, and a writer, analyzing international affairs and domestic politics. She wrote hundreds of essays and articles and delivered hundreds of lectures throughout the United States and around the world in which she spoke out against racism and injustice. By the 1940s, she had become an uncompromising voice for a range of progressive and left-wing causes, most notably independence for African nations still suffering under colonial rule. She publicly allied herself with militant anti-colonial campaigns, and with the world communist movement, at a time when such stances were both controversial and dangerous. (p. 2)

7. Sharon Rudahl, illustrator; Paul Buhle & Lawrence Ware, eds., Ballad of an American: A Graphic Biography of Paul Robeson (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2020), 117.

8. Duberman, Robeson , 549–50.

A Note on Sources: Martin Duberman’s 800-page Paul Robeson: A Biography expertly charts the course of Robeson’s remarkable life and career and remains the single best and most cited Robeson biography. With Duberman’s careful attention to detail, his book is close to being a definitive biography, notwithstanding the 35-year time lag between its date of publication, 1988, and 21st-century medical advances and the contemporary Black Lives Movement. For my story collection, I have condensed and freely drawn from Duberman what I regard as the essentials of his narrative. Though limited as a historical study that adds to what Duberman describes as the turning points in Paul Sr.’s life, Paul Robeson Jr.’s two-volume biography, The Undiscovered Paul Robeson: An Artist’s Journey, 1898–1939 and Quest for Freedom, 1939–1976 , provides new, unvarnished details of Eslanda Goode Robeson’s tribulations as Paul’s lifelong business partner and financial manager, and her stressful marriage to Paul amidst his many extramarital affairs. Both Duberman and Paul Jr. are useful guides to Paul Robeson’s 1958 statement of beliefs, Here I Stand , from which I have quoted directly. A biography notable for its succinct identification of the dominant themes in Robeson’s melding of his artistry and radical political activity is Gerald Horne’s The Artist as Revolutionary . The most recent biography, at this writing (fall 2022) is 2020’s Ballad of an American: A Graphic Biography of Paul Robeson , skillfully illustrated by Sharon Rudahl and edited by Paul Buhle & Lawrence Ware. This imaginative book interprets Robeson for 21st century audiences.

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Black and white photo of Essie and Paul Robeson in formal attire. Essie wears glasses in this photo.

Both Essie and Paul Robeson were in declining health in their later years.

Claudia Jones Memorial Collection, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Prints & Photographs Division, New York Public Library Digital Collections

Black and white photo of Nikita Khrushchev in 1963. Khrushchev is distinguished by his bald head and bulbous face. He wears a dark suit and dark tie; a row of medals appears chest-high on the right side of his jacket. He holds assorted papers in his hands.

Paul Robeson and W.E.B. Du Bois were toasted by Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, at a 1958 New Year’s Eve gala they attended in the Kremlin. Robeson’s public support for the Soviet Union was unwavering.

Heinz Junge, Bundesarchiv Bild 183-B0628-0015-035, Germany

Contemporary color satellite photo of Barvikha Sanitorium. Shown here are an assortment of red- and gray-roofed buildings, with manicured lawns and footpaths enveloped by evergreen trees.

In 1961 following his mental collapse, Robeson convalesced for three months in the Barvikha Sanitorium, shown here in its contemporary design, in a leafy Moscow suburb. Access to this idyllic facility for rest and leisure was reserved for Communist Party elites and officials, scientists, writers, and artists.

Imagery @2022 CNES, Airbus/Maxar Technologies, Map Data @2022 Google

Black and white photo of Malcolm X in 1964. He is standing, wearing a light corduroy jacket, a white shirt, and a dark tie. His head is tilted to his left side. Emblematic of his break with the Nation of Islam, he now has a trimmed moustache connected to a small goatee, forming a circle.

In January 1965, Paul Robeson Jr. mediated what would have been the first meeting between Paul Sr. and Malcolm X. The Robeson–Malcolm exchange never happened, as Malcolm was assassinated a month later in Harlem. As noted by contemporary historical markers, both left their imprint on West Philadelphia.

World Telegram & Sun photo by Herman Hiller, Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division

Color photo. Tall, muscular, gray-haired Ossie Davis stands next to petite, radiant Ruby Dee. Davis wears a light gray suit and colorful African Kente tie. Dee wears an elegant red dress with interwoven figures, gold earrings, and a wide African style necklace.

Ossie Davis & his wife of 56 years Ruby Dee, distinguished screen actors and civil rights activists. They were members of the generation of Black actors/civil rights activists who were inspired by Paul Robeson. Other performers of activist ilk who credited Roberson’s inspiration were Sidney Poitier & Harry Belafonte. Unfortunately, the mainstream Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s spurned Robeson, fearing the Cold War taint of Communism.

Kingkongphoto & www.celebrity-photos.com; via “Ossie Davis,” Wikipedia

Color photo of a section of the Berlin Wall in the winter of 1986. This image shows the colorful murals of the outer wall, painted by West Germans on their side of the border. The infamous Death Strip appears below and beyond the outer wall. The Death Strip meets an interior wall that provides a barrier to potential fugitives. Bleak, gray, shuttered apartment buildings hover over the interior wall.

From 1961–1989, this remnant wall and strip of once-patrolled land represents a section of the border that existed between East and West Berlin from 1961–1989. East Berlin belonged to the German Democratic Republic (GDR), a Soviet Union satellite. On Paul Robeson’s 70th birthday, April 9, 1968, the GDR established a Paul Robeson Archive.

Thierry Noir, via “Berlin Wall,” Wikipedia

Color photo of the two-story, restored row house at 4951 Walnut Street. The house flanks 49th Street, shown here with several parked cars and a background of row houses.

Paul Robeson lived the final decade of his remarkable life in this house at 4951 Walnut Street, where he was tended by his older sister, Marian Robeson Forsythe.

John L. Puckett

A color photo of a historical marker plaque, yellow letters against dark blue, in front of the Paul Robeson House and Museum, near the intersection of 49TH and WALNUT ST. The plaque reads: PAUL ROBESON (1898-1976)/A Rutgers athlete and Columbia law graduate, Robeson won renown as a singer and actor. He was a noted interpreter of Negro spirituals. His career suffered because of his political activism, and he lived his last years here in retirement. - Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission 1991.

Paul Robeson’s historical marker, #991, at 4951 Walnut Street, was dedicated in 1991. The Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission approves and installs short, concisely worded historical markers following a careful review of documents.

Color photo of Paul Robeson’s bedroom as it was during his final years. The floor is varnished hardwood. The bed, in the background, has dual bedposts above headboard and footboard, with a white coverlet and a single pillow. A white-painted radiator is under the window. A light brown rocking chair with an embroidered throw pillow is between radiator and bed. On the right wall is a dark-brown chest of drawers. A green lounge chair and two small tables are between the bed and three curtained rear windows.

Paul Robeson’s bedroom on the second floor of Marian Robeson Forsythe’s home at 4951 Walnut St.

Photo by John L. Puckett; permission to photograph in Paul Robeson House & Museum courtesy of West Philadelphia Cultural Alliance

A candid black and white photo of a smiling Paul Robeson in his final years. Robeson’s pearly white teeth are prominent in the image, as are his large glasses. He is dressed in a dark wool winter coat and fedora.

Paul Robeson a few years before his death.

Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, George D. McDowell Collection, Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries (TUL), Center, Philadelphia, PA, courtesy of TUL

Continue reading Heroic Civil Rights Icons in West Philadelphia

Black and white photo portrait of adult Paul Robeson, wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and white-speckled dark tie.

Paul Robeson was the best known African American of the first half of the 20th century. He was famous as an All-American football player, the world’s finest bass-baritone singer of his time, a pioneering black theatrical and screen actor, and a tireless political activist. He advocated throughout the world for socialism, anticolonialism, and human rights for all oppressed peoples, irrespective of race, religion, or ethnicity. He spent the final decade of his remarkable life in West Philadelphia at 4949 Walnut Street.

Black and white photo of Paul Robeson, shown in the foreground standing beneath a palm tree beside a young African American man who is a volunteer with the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. Robeson wears a light-colored suit with vest, striped tie, and English cap. The volunteer wears a dark, buttoned jacket. In the background is a Spanish colonial-style building with a white-wood balcony railing.

Paul Robeson, Part II, focuses on the artist as a revolutionary. In the decade before World War II, he stood against racism, fascism, and colonialism, and campaigned relentlessly for social justice and human rights for all oppressed peoples. He paid particular attention to African independence movements, the struggle against U.S. Jim Crowism, and what Robeson perceived as a racially tolerant Soviet Union.

Black and white photo. Paul Robeson stands at microphones that are positioned on a podium on a raised stage. A banner that reads PROGESSIVE PARTY NATIONAL CONVENTION hangs from a wire. People below the stage are moving about doing various things. A policeman wearing sunglasses stands near the stage.

Part III focuses on Paul Robeson’s campaigns on many humanitarian fronts in the face of sustained persecution by the federal government (not to mention white supremacists) and suspension of his U.S. passport in the 1950s. His true Achilles heel, for which he was reviled as a traitor by mainstream media, was his publicly expressed loyalty to the U.S. Communist Party, his sustained admiration for Russia, and his silence on the murderous actions of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

Nighttime color photo of Royal Albert Hall shown in floodlights. A freestanding domed building of iron and glass, designed in an Italianate style, the building’s interior amphitheater is a world-famous concert hall. Red brick dominates the building’s façade.

In the 1950s, Malcolm X was the national representative of Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam (NOI). In the 1960s, he became a harsh critic of Elijah’s personal failures and NOI’s rigidly separatist and starkly apolitical theology. In the last years of his life, he converted to orthodox Islam and advocated for pan-Africanism. He is remembered in West Philadelphia as minister of Muhammad Temple of Islam #12.

Color photo highlights the wall-enclosed prison facility, shown in the left-to-right center of the image, in its woodland location, with a river flowing just beyond the rear wall. The rest of the photo shows some unidentifiable low buildings enclosed by woods.

Malcolm X is the second iconic civil rights activist with an imprint in West Philadelphia. He belongs to a radical civil rights tradition that links him with Paul Robeson and Martin Luther King Jr. Part II looks at Malcolm Little’s prison conversion to the version of Islam practiced by the Nation of Islam and his decision to become Malcolm X.

Black and white photo from 1965, a massive indoor venue with thousands of Nation of Islam followers. The foreground to center of the photo shows several hundred women wearing white abayas, seated in folding chairs. A banner hung in the far-left balcony reads THERE IS NO GOD BUT ALLAH AND MUHAMMAD IS HIS PROPHET.

Malcolm X is the second iconic civil rights activist with an imprint on West Philadelphia. He belongs to a radical civil rights tradition that links him with Paul Robeson and Martin Luther King Jr. Part III looks at Malcolm’s meteoric rise in the Nation of Islam in the mid-1950s, his role for a time as Elijah Muhammad’s presumptive heir, and his 1960s drift to militant political activism in violation of Nation of Islam dogma.

Contemporary color photo of the colorful Broadway façade of what was once home to the Audubon Ballroom.

Malcolm X is the second iconic civil rights activist with an imprint on West Philadelphia. He belongs to a radical civil rights tradition that links him with Paul Robeson and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Part IV looks at Malcolm’s break with Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam, his turn to Pan-Africanism, and the events leading to his assassination at Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom.

paul robson travel

Paul Robeson, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. were militant activists who shared common ground as heroic civil rights icons and left their marks on West Philadelphia.

Stories in this Collection

Roni The Travel Guru

Moscow Metro – Part 2

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Have you been to Moscow ? In all seriousness, they have the prettiest metro stations I have ever seen and I still can’t believe how immaculate and lovely every station was. There are several different stations pictured below and this is the second of several posts where I will show you the beauty of the Moscow Metro. Did you see part 1 ?  There really isn’t much to say because I think the pictures speak for themselves. I have so many more pictures to share with you!

moscow metro

Have you ever been to Moscow? Is it someplace you have thought about visiting?

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She speaks fluent English, French and Spanish, and works for a major airline. And guess what? She’s also a licensed elementary teacher and has an MBA.

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This is the train STATION?? Oh my god… So gorgeous. Moscow has never even crossed my mind as a possible travel destination but this is gorgeous…Hmmm… LOL

I know, right? We spent several hours in the metro, just marveling at the beauty of each one. Thanks for stopping by!

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Daily Mail

Putin taunts the West with 'first ever' visit to remote ice-covered 'frontier region' just 55 miles from the US - as Zelensky tries to drum up war support in Lithuania

  • Chukotka is Russia's easternmost region, sharing a maritime border with Alaska

President Vladimir Putin  has arrived for his first-ever presidential visit to Chukotka in Russia 's Far East - just 55 miles from the US state of Alaska . 

Putin arrived in Anadyr, the local capital of the Chukotka region this morning after flying from Moscow some nine time zones away. 

Chukotka is the easternmost region of Russia, with a maritime border on the Bering Strait with Alaska.

The Russian president was met in Anadyr by a motorcade and was whisked away in a limousine amid frigid temperatures of -28C. 

It's the closest he has come to US soil since he met with President  Barack Obama in New York City in 2015.

Chukotka is so close to Alaska that Roman Abramovich - the ex-Chelsea FC owner - was reported to fly to Anchorage in Alaska for lunch when he was the governor of the region from 2001 - 2008.

Putin's visit comes at a time when US-Russian relations are at their lowest ebb in decades amid the war in Ukraine and a growing East-West divide. 

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky today landed in Lithuania as part of an unannounced trip to the Baltic states to drum up more support for the conflict. 

Global war for control of the ARCTIC: Climate change is unlocking untapped natural resources, new trade routes... and a new international conflict that RUSSIA is already winning  

The three Baltic states - all former Soviet republics which are now EU and NATO members - are among Ukraine's staunchest allies.

'Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are our reliable friends and principled partners. Today, I arrived in Vilnius before going to Tallinn and Riga,' Zelensky said on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

'Security, EU and NATO integration, cooperation on electronic warfare and drones, and further coordination of European support are all on the agenda,' he said.

The Baltic tour marks Zelensky's first official trip abroad this year.

In Lithuania, a key donor to Ukraine, Zelensky said he will hold talks with the president, prime minister and the speaker of parliament, and meet with the Ukrainian community.

The visit comes as other Kyiv allies waver on fresh aid, nearly two years into Russia's invasion.

Ukraine has come under intense Russian shelling in recent weeks, retaliating with strikes on Russia's border city of Belgorod.

Zelensky has urged allies to keep military support flowing and held in-person talks with officials from the United States, Germany and Norway last month.

But an EU aid package worth 50 billion euros ($55 billion) has been stuck in Brussels following a veto by Hungary, while the US Congress remains divided on sending additional aid to Ukraine.

Following his trip to Chukotka, Putin is expected to visit several regions in the Russian Far East to boost his re-election campaign amid the war with Ukraine, which has seen more than 300,000 Russians killed or maimed.

He is due to stand in March, seeking another six years in the Kremlin.

The only Kremlin leader ever to travel to Chukotka previously was Dmitry Medvedev in 2008.

Putin's trip sees him escape a wave of ugly protests in western Russia over hundreds of thousands of people scraping by in freezing conditions due to breakdowns in communal heating supplies.

In Elektrostal, Moscow region, desperate residents say they have had no communal heating - which Russians routinely expect the state to supply usually through piped hot water - for the entire winter so far.

'We have been without heating since [9 October],' one resident said in a video circulating on Telegram.

'It is impossible to be in our homes… We are freezing! We are freezing! We are freezing!' they said. 

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  1. Holiday Elite Travel Agent Paul Robson

    Travel Agent Paul Robson. Contact Me. Email: [email protected] Phone: 01268 442 749 Mobile: 07511 924 997 Facebook: Paul Robson. What kickstarted or influenced your career in Travel? Since I was a child I have always loved the Travel industry. When I went on work experience I completed it in my local independent travel agency and ...

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    Welcome to PR Travel, formerly Paul Robson Holiday Elite. We are Travel Specialists with over 20 years in the Travel Industry. We have access to hundreds of specialist suppliers in order to help find that perfect getaway, bucket list trip, wedding, honeymoon, cruise etc for you. Stop searching tireless websites and tour operators and leave the ...

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    Paul Robson Holiday Elite when selling travel arrangements is a trading name of The Midcounties Co-operative Ltd. Paul Robson Holiday Elite is a Member of Midcounties Co-operative Travel Consortium. (ABTA P7541) Your Financial Protection . Book with Confidence. We are a Member of ABTA which means you have the benefit of ABTA's assistance and ...

  4. "You Are the Un-Americans, and You Ought to be Ashamed of Yourselves

    Testimony of Paul Robeson before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, June 12, 1956. THE CHAIRMAN: The Committee will be in order. This morning the Committee resumes its series of hearings on the vital issue of the use of American passports as travel documents in furtherance of the objectives of the Communist conspiracy. . . .

  5. Paul Robeson

    Paul Leroy Robeson (/ ˈ r oʊ b s ən / ROHB-sən; April 9, 1898 - January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, stage and film actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his political stances.. In 1915, Robeson won an academic scholarship to Rutgers College in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he was ...

  6. The Many Faces of Paul Robeson

    Negative public response and the ban on his travel led to the demise of his career. Before the 1950s, Robeson was one of the world's most famous entertainers and beloved American heroes--once being named "Man of the Year" by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. ... Photograph of Paul Robeson Leading Moore Shipyard ...

  7. Home

    Request a Quote. Tel: 01268 442749. Email: [email protected]. Please ensure you add Departure Airports, Dates you can travel and include the child ages on return date in your quote request. I opt-in to receive marketing and promotional materials.

  8. Paul Robeson (April 9, 1898

    Paul Leroy Robeson was born in Princeton, NJ, on April 9, 1898. His mother was a schoolteacher, and his father was a runaway slave who became a Presbyterian minister. Robeson graduated from Rutgers University, where he excelled in athletics and held a Phi Beta Kappa key. Afterwards, he played professional football and graduated from Columbia University School of Law. Although he worked briefly ...

  9. Paul Robeson

    Robeson then left the United States to live in Europe and travel in countries of the Soviet bloc, but he returned to the United States in 1963 because of ill health. Paul Robeson in Show Boat . Robeson appeared in a number of films, including Sanders of the River (1935), Show Boat (1936), Song of Freedom (1936), and The Proud Valley (1940).

  10. Remembering Paul Robeson, Actor, Sportsman and Leader

    Robeson, who died on this day in 1976 at the age of 77, got a lot done, but he's not widely remembered today. "Paul Robeson was one of the greatest black internationalists of the twentieth ...

  11. Paul Robeson sings at the International Peace Arch on the border

    On May 18, 1952, singer, actor, athlete, scholar, and political activist Paul Robeson (1898-1976) performs an outdoor concert for more than 25,000 people (estimates range as high as 45,000) gathered ... Unable to travel outside of the United States to perform abroad, and selling ever-fewer tickets within the country, Robeson's earnings plunged. ...

  12. Paul Robeson

    Paul Robeson was the epitome of the 20th-century Renaissance man. He was an exceptional athlete, actor, singer, cultural scholar, author, and political activist. ... He could no longer travel ...

  13. Singer Robeson's granddaughter recalls fight against racism

    Singer and civil rights campaigner Paul Robeson, who gave a famous comeback concert at New York's Carnegie Hall on 9 May 56 years ago, is remembered by his granddaughter.

  14. Paul Robeson

    He was ultimately barred by the State Department from renewing his passport in 1950 to travel abroad for engagements. ... Paul Robeson was once considered for a U.S. vice presidential spot on ...

  15. Moscow metro tour

    The Moscow Metro Tour is included in most guided tours' itineraries. Opened in 1935, under Stalin's regime, the metro was not only meant to solve transport problems, but also was hailed as "a people's palace". Every station you will see during your Moscow metro tour looks like a palace room. There are bright paintings, mosaics ...

  16. 'Ballad of an American': The Illustrious Life of Paul Robeson, Newly

    Sharon Rudahl, Ballad of an American: A Graphic Biography of Paul Robeson, edited by Paul Buhle and Lawrence Ware (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2020), 142 pages, $23.95, paperback. One of my favorite Paul Robeson songs is "Jacob's Ladder.". It originated as a slave spiritual, based upon the Biblical story of a ...

  17. Paul Robeson's Othello: How stage passion spilled into real life

    Paul Robeson was one of the most famous African Americans of his time, known for his acting and his talent as a singer. ... Travel. Destinations. World's Table. Culture & Experiences. Adventures ...

  18. Surprising Facts About Paul Robeson, The Radical Star With ...

    These concealed facts about lawyer, singer, actor, and dissident Paul Robeson may just help set the record straight. 1. He Was The Son Of A Slave. Paul Robeson was the youngest of four children born to a minister and his wife in 1898. Dad was William Drew Robeson, and had been a slave until he was a teenager.

  19. On the Paul Robeson Strasse

    Paul Leroy Robeson was born on April 9th 1898 in Princeton, New Jersey, to Reverend William Drew Robeson and Maria Louisa Bustill. His father was a runaway slave who escaped to become minister of Princeton's Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church. His mother came from a prominent family of Quaker origin.

  20. Elektrostal to Moscow

    Rome2Rio is a door-to-door travel information and booking engine, helping you get to and from any location in the world. Find all the transport options for your trip from Elektrostal to Moscow right here. Rome2Rio displays up to date schedules, route maps, journey times and estimated fares from relevant transport operators, ensuring you can ...

  21. Paul Robeson, Part IV: Erasure from Historical Memory

    The restoration of Paul Robeson's passport enabled him to travel to Europe and the Asian outposts of the Soviet Union. In summer 1958, he gave a sold-out concert at Royal Albert Hall—shown here in its contemporary version as viewed from Kensington Gardens, London—accompanied by Larry Brown at the piano.

  22. Moscow Metro

    Ihere is something special about seeing art and beauty while hundreds of feet underground. The metro in Moscow is breathtakingly beautiful, don't you think?

  23. Putin taunts the West with 'first ever' visit to remote ice ...

    Daily Mail. Putin taunts the West with 'first ever' visit to remote ice-covered 'frontier region' just 55 miles from the US - as Zelensky tries to drum up war support in Lithuania

  24. Forest Green Rovers 1-1 Wrexham: Mullin late show earns Wrexham a point

    Paul Mullin rescues a point for Wrexham deep into stoppage time after winning and converting a penalty to earn a 1-1 draw at Forest Green Rovers on a foggy night in Gloucestershire.