Paul RobesonCritiques

Paul Robeson was one of the most dynamic characters in the twentieth century, but is often forgotten today. A pastor’s son, he grew to be a unanimous All-American defensive end at Rutgers, an award-winning scholar, a law student, a stage actor, a musical artist, a polyglot, and a film actor – all in the first forty years of his life and all despite a strong culture of racism in his home country. The second half of his life was shackled in a brutal political fight against a racist American system. Civil rights leaders in the 1960s credited him with inspiring them in “the movement.” In this biography, his son provides us with an intimate look at the first half of his life.

Robeson’s early life and life at Rutgers are well-chronicled here, in a way only a family member can. The abject racism – even in New Jersey – is told through personal stories, presumably passed in family lore. Here, we can observe the elder Robeson’s courage and determination. With his father William’s encouragement, the elder Paul attempted to be the “model Negro.” His magnificent voice and acting skills took him to England for a decade. He was able to travel Europe and North Africa. Notably, he encountered a much less racist but more classist society in Britain along with fascism while traveling in 1930s Germany for the first time. To him, fascism was a cousin (if not closer) to racism and became a lifelong enemy.

The backstories of two life challenges are described here, too. First, the elder Robeson often sided with communism over fascism in his political stances, much to the chagrin of American conservatives. This tendency provided official trouble in America during the Red Scare after World War II. The younger Robeson explains this as fundamentally an anti-fascist attitude. Like MLK, he saw that communism contained a successful critique of the American racist structure. Alongside his father, his son maintains his family’s essential patriotism for America, including the criticisms. Second, the son describes early difficulties of his father’s marriage with Essie in detail. These accounts make an eminent figure like Paul Robeson to appear much more human, much more like us.

Paul Robeson is sadly a name often forgotten today. We acknowledge the Martin Luther Kings, the Rosa Parks, the Septima Clarks, and the John Lewises much, all with mettle made in the late 1950s and 1960s. The excellence of Paul Robeson taught these leaders, in prior years while younger, of the feasibility of American equality. If Paul could be a world-renowned figure, then American culture could learn to change. If Paul could maintain his faith and integrity while protesting against American racism, so could they. Future generations deserve to hear Paul Robeson’s story, told here with intimate access.

In the middle of the twentieth century, Paul Robeson was considered the most well-known American in the world. He was a famous singer, football player, and polymath/scholar who advocated for universal equal rights, especially at home in America. However, during the 1950s, he made a statement supportive of the USSR, and he was blacklisted by the US State Department in the Red Scare. Subsequently, he was denied a passport, essential for an international showman. Eventually, this practice was ruled unconstitutional, but Robeson lost key years in his professional life.

With his income slashed from around $100,000 per year to a few thousand dollars per year, Robeson wrote this autobiography to explain himself to the public. He talks about his upbringing as a Presbyterian pastor’s son of a freed enslaved father in Princeton, New Jersey. He shows the nature of his deep faith, its roots in education, and his desire for racial equality. He talks about how he bonded with the white working class in England and criticizes 1950s black civil rights leaders as being too self-interested. He portrays himself as a man of character and integrity.

Most interestingly, he explains his political leanings towards communism and socialism. Although many today object to these views, he reminds us that democratic American at the time tolerated Jim Crow laws. Indeed, the Soviet Union offered more racial equality than much of the United States at the time. He still laudably maintains his allegiance to America because his family helped build this country. Of course, in assessing the Soviet Union, he omits mentioning Stalin’s pogroms and other human rights abuses. This notable shortcoming might explain why he is not much remembered today.

Paul Robeson helped inspire the generation of civil rights leaders in the 1960s movement, people like John Lewis. We now have the perspective of the fall of communism, but it’s worth reading this autobiography to understand the diversity of opinions during this age interacting with race. Much like racial progress today, the struggle isn’t always linear and obvious. Characters like Robeson demonstrate that genius can occur in every skin tone, and so can noble suffering.

1-1 Swing Low, Sweet Chariot 2:45
1-2 Little Man, You've Had A Busy Day 3:11
1-3 Lazy Bones 3:16
1-4 Deep River 2:20
1-5 St. Louis Blues 3:25
1-6 Song Of The Volga Boatman 2:40
1-7 Carry Me Back To Green Pastures 2:50
1-8 The Lonesome Road 2:38
1-9 Got The South In My Soul 2:55
1-10 Mary Had A Little Baby, Yes Lord 2:30
1-11 River, Stay 'Way From My Door 3:21
1-12 Shortnin' Bread 1:06
1-13 Solitude 3:26
1-14 Shenandoah 3:09
1-15 High Water 2:29
1-16 Wagon Wheels 3:18
1-17 Hush-A-Bye Lullaby 3:11
1-18 Snowball 3:12
1-19 I Ain't Lazy, I'm Just Dreamin' 2:42
1-20 So Shy 3:15

Paul Robeson Speaks is a stirring, illustrated collection of speeches, writings, interviews, and press reports by a man whose thoughts and writings contributed greatly to African culture and Black pride.

Here I Stand, by Paul Robeson, was first published in 1958, and reissued in 1971 and 1988. It sets out his thoughts about the pressing issues of race in the 1950's, and about the accusations that had been made against him.

Robeson, one of the greatest intellects and talents of modern times, was not allowed to travel abroad; was hauled before Congress to testify to his “loyalty” to the United States; and was denied the opportunity to earn his own living as hundreds of white-owned venues denied him the right to perform. (His salary plummeted from over $100,000 a year to less than $6,000 a year and remained at that level for nearly a decade.) Robeson was never charged with any illegal activity, and never arrested. What, you may well ask, was his crime?

The crime Paul Robeson committed was to expose the hypocrisy of U.S. policies at home and abroad given the treatment of Negroes by its people and its government. He spoke out forthrightly and without apology about the persistence of Jim Crow in the 1950’s. How, he asked, can we insist on freedom abroad if we do not grant freedom in our own country? He also defended the vision of racial equality he saw in socialist societies. He opposed U.S. military forays as "imperialistic" and opined that it was "unthinkable" for American Negroes to "go to war on behalf of those who have oppressed us for generations." (my emphasis)

Robeson (and many others) were blackballed for their sentiments, and even the “newspaper of record” – The New York Times – refused to print Robeson’s side of the issue. Therefore, he decided to write a book outlining his positions and why he was now a persona non grata in the United States.

Here I Stand touches on many aspects of inequality still affecting blacks in 1958. For this review, I just want to highlight two of the points he makes in this slim volume that were most impressive to me.

He writes about the resistance by southerners in Congress to giving up Jim Crow (as evidenced by Mississippi Senator James Eastland who remarked ten days after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed school segregation: “Let me make this clear! The South will retain segregation!”). He notes that friends of Negroes, both black and white, urge “gradualism” – waiting “until the hearts of those who persecute us has softened – until Jim Crow dies of old age.” Robeson roars back at them:

". . . the idea itself is but another form of race discrimination: in no other area of our society are lawbreakers granted an indefinite time to comply with the provisions of law. There is nothing in the 14th and 15th Amendments, the legal guarantees of our full citizenship rights, which says that the Constitution is to be enforced “gradually” where Negroes are concerned.” “The viewpoint that progress must be slow is rooted in the idea that democratic rights, as far as Negroes are concerned, are not inalienable and self-evident as they are for white Americans. Any improvement of our status as second-class citizens is seen as a matter of charity and tolerance. The Negro must rely upon the good will of those in places of power and hope that friendly persuasion can somehow and some day make blind prejudice see the light.”

There’s another line of thought in Robeson’s book I found particularly noteworthy. Robeson spent time in Africa, studying culture and languages, the richness of which proved to be a great surprise to him. For example, he notes “It is astonishing and to me, fascinating to find a flexibility and subtlety in a language like Swahili, sufficient to convey the teachings of Confucius, for example … these qualities and attainments of Negro languages are entirely unknown to the general public of the Western world and, astonishingly enough, even to Negroes themselves.”

What he discovers is that Western colonizers of Africa had a vested interest in portraying Africans as uncultured savages – an image that persists even today! – to justify their rape and plunder of the rich natural resources of this great continent. (For a horrifying account of what the Belgians did in the Congo in their rubber-extraction mania, a great source is King Leopold’s Ghost). And in fact, after generations of exploitation, the great potential that Africa exhibited when seen by Robeson may not exist any longer. But it was there, and it was denied, and it was largely eradicated.

He ends this gem of a book with a poem by Chilean Pablo Neruda, a prayer for all people:

"Let us think of the entire earth
And pound the table with love.
I don’t want blood again
To saturate bread, beans, music:
I wish they would come with me:
The miner, the little girl,
The lawyer, the seaman,
The doll-maker,
To go to a movie and come out
To drink the reddest wine . . .
I came here to sing
And for you to sing with me."

From Pablo Neruda's "Let the Rail-Splitter Awake"

Robeson was taught by his father two important precepts on which he based his life: loyalty to ones convictions, and the pursuit of personal integrity (which was inseparable for him from the idea of maximum human fulfillment). He lived out these precepts to the best of his ability, and in fact is still admired long past his death in 1976. I love Paul Robeson.

An interesting read of the first half of Paul's life and career. There is the intent to write the second volume, which I look forward to reading.

It's hard to look back with a modern eye and realise just how institutionalised racism against black people was. Robeson lived through this period and it heavily influenced his politics.

I was particularly interested to realise how much he regarded negro spirituals as his people's greatest cultural contribution - he loved their harmony and their intensity.

I've one slight criticism, which is that the writer (Paul's son) has relied very heavily on family sources and not always looked for external material. (for instance, there are no quotes from any of the women that Robeson had affairs with)½