Paul Robeson

Paul Leroy Robeson was born on April 9, 1898, in Princeton, New Jersey, to Reverend William Drew Robeson and Maria Louisa Bustill. His father, of Igbo origin, had been born into slavery, escaped from a plantation in his teens, and eventually became minister of Princeton's Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church. His mother was a member of the Bustills, a prominent Quaker family of mixed ancestry. Robeson had three brothers — William Drew Jr., Reeve, and Ben — and one sister, Marian. When Robeson was six, his mother, who was nearly blind, died in a house fire. A disagreement with white financial supporters had earlier forced his father to resign from the church in 1901, leaving William to work menial jobs. The family eventually moved into the attic of a store in Westfield, New Jersey before William secured a stable parsonage at St. Thomas A.M.E. Zion in 1910.

Robeson attended Somerville High School beginning in 1912, where he performed in productions of Julius Caesar and Othello, sang in the chorus, and excelled in football, basketball, baseball, and track. Before graduating, he won a statewide academic contest that earned him a scholarship to Rutgers College. That summer he worked as a waiter in Narragansett Pier, Rhode Island, where he befriended Fritz Pollard, who would later become the first African-American coach in the NFL. In late 1915, Robeson became the third African-American student ever enrolled at Rutgers and the only one at the time. He endured deliberate physical abuse from teammates during football tryouts — suffering a broken nose and dislocated shoulder — before coach Foster Sanford confirmed his place on the squad. As a sophomore, he was benched when Washington and Lee University refused to take the field against a team that included a Black player. Despite these obstacles, Robeson earned first-team All-American recognition in both his junior and senior years, with Walter Camp calling him the greatest end ever to play the game. He was accepted into Phi Beta Kappa and Cap and Skull, and his classmates elected him valedictorian. In his valedictory address, he called on his classmates to work toward equality for all Americans.

Robeson entered New York University School of Law in the fall of 1919 before transferring to Columbia Law School in February 1920, having moved to Harlem. To support himself financially, he served as an assistant football coach at Lincoln University and joined the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. Already recognized in the Black community for his singing, he was selected to perform at the dedication of the Harlem YWCA. After encouragement from Eslanda Goode, whom he had begun dating, Robeson made his theatrical debut as Simon in Ridgely Torrence's Simon the Cyrenian. The two married in August 1921. Fritz Pollard recruited Robeson to play for the NFL's Akron Pros while he continued his law studies. In the spring of 1922, he postponed school to portray Jim in Mary Hoyt Wiborg's play Taboo, and he also sang in the chorus of an Off-Broadway production of Shuffle Along. He then joined Taboo on a British tour, performing in the melodrama — retitled Voodoo — in 1922. He earned his LL.B. from Columbia while continuing to play in the NFL.

Following graduation, Robeson became a figure in the Harlem Renaissance. His Broadway career spanned 1921 to 1945 and included performances in Eugene O'Neill's All God's Chillun Got Wings, the musical Show Boat, the play Black Boy, John Henry, and a celebrated run in Othello. He also appeared in O'Neill's The Emperor Jones. In 1925, he performed in Emperor Jones in Britain. Three years later, in 1928, he achieved major success in the London premiere of Show Boat. Living in London for several years with his wife Eslanda, Robeson starred in a London production of Othello — the first of three productions of the play across his career — and continued building his reputation as a concert artist. He also attracted attention through his film work, including Sanders of the River in 1935 and the film production of Show Boat in 1936.

As a recording artist, Robeson released recordings of approximately 276 songs between 1925 and 1961. The first of these was the spiritual "Steal Away," backed with "Were You There," in 1925. His recorded repertoire encompassed Americana, popular standards, classical music, European folk songs, political songs, poetry, and spoken excerpts from plays. Throughout his career he was classified as a bass-baritone, possessing a deep voice that some described as bass with a high range and others as baritone with low notes.

Robeson's political activities began during his years in Britain, where he became involved with unemployed workers and anti-imperialist students. He went on to support the Republican cause during the Spanish Civil War and became involved with the Council on African Affairs. He also expressed support for the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin. During the Second World War, Robeson initially opposed Allied war efforts and U.S. entry into the conflict during the period of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, but became a vocal supporter of the war after Germany invaded the Soviet Union. His history of supporting Soviet policies drew scrutiny from the FBI. After the war, the Council on African Affairs was placed on the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations, and Robeson was investigated during the McCarthy era. When he refused to recant his public advocacy for the Soviet Union, the U.S. State Department withdrew his passport and his income fell sharply. He moved to Harlem and from 1950 to 1955 published a periodical called Freedom, which was critical of United States policies. His right to travel was ultimately restored following the 1958 Supreme Court decision Kent v. Dulles. Paul Robeson died on January 23, 1976.