Paul Robeson

Paul Robeson
Born	9. April, 1898
Died	23. January 1976 (Age 77)
Nationality	US
Alma mater	Rutgers College, Columbia University

Paul Leroy Robeson was an American bass baritone singer, athlete, lawyer, and stage and film actor who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his political activism. An active communist and the most famous black radical in the world, he was targeted by the FBI and CIA for decades.

Robeson was probably slipped a synthetic hallucinogen called BZ by U.S. intelligence operatives at a March 1961 party in Moscow, which crippled his mental health for the rest of his life. The party was hosted by anti-Soviet dissidents funded by the CIA. Since he long had been harassed by the FBI and CIA, and this probably was the final assault in a government operation with a drug from the MKULTRA program, his demise should be counted in the long string of assassinations of US opposition leaders in the 1960s through the 1980s.

Extremely Gifted

In 1915, Robeson won an academic scholarship to Rutgers College, where he was twice named a consensus All-American in football, and was the class valedictorian. Robeson entered New York University School of Law in fall 1919. However, Robeson felt uncomfortable at NYU and moved to Harlem and transferred to Columbia Law School in February 1920. Robeson was recruited by Pollard to play for the NFL's Akron Pros while he continued his law studies, while also receiveing main roles in several off-Broadway plays. He ended his football career after 1922,[73] and months later, he graduated from law school.

Robeson worked briefly as a lawyer at the Stotesbury and Milner law office in New York. The only African American in the company, Robeson was the victim of abuse from other members of staff, and he soon quit.

He got his acting breakthrough in The Emperor Jones, later made to a Hollywood movie. The role terrified and galvanized Robeson, as it was practically a 90-minute soliloquy. His acting career continued in New York and London.

Paul Robeson became increasingly concerned with the issue of civil rights. Two of his closest friends were Walter F. White and James Weldon Johnson, two leading figures in the NAACP. Interviewed by the New York Herald Tribune Robeson claimed that "if I do become a first-rate actor, it will do more toward giving people a slant on the so-called Negro problem than any amount of propaganda and argument.

In 1925 Robeson went to London to appear in Emperor Jones, and scored a major success in the London premiere of Show Boat in 1928, settling in London for several years with his wife. In England he became close friends with Emma Goldman, an anarchist who had been deported from the United States after the First World War.

Political Awakening

In early 1934 Robeson enrolled in the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), a constituent college of the University of London, where he studied phonetics and Swahili.

Robeson was a strong supporter of the Popular Front government in Spain. On 24th June, 1937, Robeson spoke at a mass rally at the Albert Hall in London in aid of those fighting against General Francisco Franco and his Nationalist Army.

In January 1938 Robeson, Eslanda Goode and Charlotte Haldane visited the International Brigades fighting in Spain. While there he heard about Oliver Law of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion who had been killed at Brunete in July 1937. During the offensive Law became the first African-American officer in history to lead an integrated military force. Robeson decided to make a film about Law and "all of the American Negro comrades who have come to fight and die for Spain." Over the next few years Robeson tried several times to raise the money to make the film. He later complained that "the same money interests that block every effort to help Spain, control the Motion Picture industry, and so refuse to allow such a story."

In 1941 Robeson joined Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Vito Marcantonio in the campaign to free Earl Browder, the leader of the American Communist Party, who had been sentenced to four years imprisonment for violating passport regulations.

His friends in the anti-imperialism movement and association with British socialists led him to visit the Soviet Union. Robeson traveled to the Soviet Union on an invitation from Sergei Eisenstein in December 1934. A stopover in Berlin enlightened Robeson to the racism in Nazi Germany and, on his arrival in Moscow, in the Soviet Union, Robeson said, "Here I am not a Negro but a human being for the first time in my life ... I walk in full human dignity.

Blacklisted and Denied Foreign Travel

A book reviewed in early 1950 as "the most complete record on college football" failed to list Robeson as ever having played on the Rutgers team and as ever having been an All-American. Months later, NBC canceled Robeson's appearance on Eleanor Roosevelt's television program. Subsequently, the State Department denied Robeson a passport and issued a "stop notice" at all ports because it believed that an isolated existence inside United States borders not only afforded him less freedom of expression but also avenge his "extreme advocacy on behalf of the independence of the colonial peoples of Africa." However, when Robeson met with State Department officials and asked why he was denied a passport, he was told that "his frequent criticism of the treatment of blacks in the United States should not be aired in foreign countries"

In 1950, Robeson co-founded, with W. E. B. Du Bois, a monthly newspaper, Freedom, showcasing his views and those of his circle. Most issues had a column by Robeson, on the front page. In the final issue, July–August 1955, an unsigned column on the front page of the newspaper described the struggle for the restoration of his passport. It called for support from the leading African-American organizations, and asserted that "Negroes, [and] all Americans who have breathed a sigh of relief at the easing of international tensions... have a stake in the Paul Robeson passport case." An article by Robeson appeared on the second page continuing the passport issue under the headline: "If Enough People Write Washington I'll Get My Passport in a Hurry."[225]

In 1951, an article titled "Paul Robeson – the Lost Shepherd" was published in The Crisis although Paul Jr. suspected it was written by Amsterdam News columnist Earl Brown. J. Edgar Hoover and the United States State Department arranged for the article to be printed and distributed in Africa in order to defame Robeson's reputation and reduce his and Communists' popularity in colonial countries.] Another article by Roy Wilkins (now thought to have been the real author of "Paul Robeson – the Lost Shepherd") denounced Robeson as well as the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in terms consistent with the anti-Communist FBI propaganda.

On December 17, 1951, Robeson presented to the United Nations an anti-lynching petition titled "We Charge Genocide". The document asserted that the United States federal government, by its failure to act against lynching in the United States, was "guilty of genocide" under Article II of the UN Genocide Convention.

In 1952, Robeson was awarded the International Stalin Prize by the Soviet Union. Unable to travel to Moscow, he accepted the award in New York. In April 1953, shortly after Stalin's death, Robeson penned To You My Beloved Comrade, praising Stalin as dedicated to peace and a guide to the world: "Through his deep humanity, by his wise understanding, he leaves us a rich and monumental heritage." Robeson's opinions about the Soviet Union kept his passport out of reach and stopped his return to the entertainment industry and the civil rights movement. In his opinion, the Soviet Union was the guarantor of political balance in the world.

In a symbolic act of defiance against the travel ban, in May 1952, labor unions in the United States and Canada organized a concert at the International Peace Arch on the border between Washington state and the Canadian province of British Columbia. Robeson returned to perform a second concert at the Peace Arch in 1953, and over the next two years, two further concerts took place. In this period, with the encouragement of his friend the Welsh politician Aneurin Bevan, Robeson recorded a number of radio concerts for supporters in Wales.

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