Paul Robeson

Paul LeRoy Bustill Robeson (April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American actor, athlete, singer, writer, and political and civil rights activist.

Communism and the McCarthy era

He was investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) that attempted to cite him for refusal to sign the non-communist declaration. In complicity with the HUAC the US State Department denied him a passport which effectively confined him to the United States. During a 1952 tour of the United States a concert was organized at the International Peace Arch on the border between Washington State and British Columbia. This was done as an act of defiance against the authorities who refused to allow him to cross the border. The concert took place on May 18, 1952. Paul Robeson stood on the back of a flat bed truck on the American side of the Canada-US border and performed a concert for a large crowd on the Canadian side, variously estimated at between 20,000 and 40,000 people.

Related Topics:
House Un-American Activities Committee - 1952 - Washington - British Columbia - May 18 - Canadian

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He was brought before the HUAC in 1956 after refusing to sign an affidavit affirming that he was not a communist. In the terse exchanges that followed, Robeson invoked the Fifth Amendment for several questions regarding his political affiliations, and lectured Committee members on civils rights issues concerning African-Americans. At one point he remarked: "you are the nonpatriots, and you are the un-Americans, and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves." Robeson?s passport was returned to him after a 1958 Supreme Court decision that a US citizen's right to travel abroad could not be encroached upon without due process.

Related Topics:
Fifth Amendment - Supreme Court

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Prior to his passport's return in 1958, Robeson wrote a book, Here I Stand, which made a case for concerted action to right the inequities of the Jim Crow system. After he got back his passport he moved to England. He spent five years touring the world, playing Othello again in 1959 in Tony Richardson's production at Stratford-upon-Avon, and singing throughout Europe and in Australia and New Zealand. It was on his visit to England that he befriended English actor Andrew Faulds and inspired him to take up a career in politics. His health broke down and he spent time in Russian and East German hospitals.

Related Topics:
Jim Crow - 1959 - Tony Richardson - Stratford-upon-Avon - Europe - Australia - New Zealand - Andrew Faulds

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Some critics have stated that Robeson?s status as a ?victim? of the HUAC?s investigation is unwarranted due to the extensive ties Robeson had with both the Soviet Union and the Communist Party of the United States of America, which was known to be actively involved in espionage against the United States.

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The story of Itzik Feffer is cited by some as an example of the lengths to which Paul Robeson would go to avoid criticism of the Soviet Union.

Related Topics:
Itzik Feffer - Soviet Union

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In 1948 Robeson was on one of his periodic visits to the Soviet Union when he asked to meet with Yiddish poet Itzik Feffer. Feffer, along with the actor Solomon Mikhoels and other prominent Jews were victims of the latest anti-Semitic purge by Stalin. They had been hosted by Robeson during a World War II visit to the U.S. as part of Stalin's Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee and Robeson had been urged to intervene on their behalf. Though he had been cleaned up and dressed in a suit, Feffer's fingernails had been torn out.

Related Topics:
Solomon Mikhoels - Stalin - World War II - Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee

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Though he couldn't speak openly, Robeson later told his son that the poet indicated by gestures and a few handwritten words that Mikhoels had been murdered on the orders of Stalin and that the other Jewish prisoners were being prepared for the same fate. After the two friends said goodbye, Feffer was taken back to the Lubyanka and would never be seen alive again.

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However, when Robeson returned home he condemned as anti-Soviet propaganda reports that Feffer and other Jews had been killed. Not once did Robeson denounce Feffer's murder. Later on Robeson confided in his son, Paul Robeson Jr., the details of his meeting with Feffer. He made his son vow not to make the story public until well after his death, "because he had promised himself that he would never publicly criticize the USSR."

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It was in appreciation of his support that in 1952 he was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize. Robeson?s actions at a concert broadcast live across the Soviet Union, is seen by some as a defiance of Stalin's campaign against Jewish "cosmopolitism" by ending his set with a song sung in Yiddish, Dos Partizanenlied (also known as Song of the Warsaw Ghetto Rebellion). The Yiddish song was cut from rebroadcasts of the concert. (This is recounted in Mary M. Leder's book My Life in Stalinist Russia). Robeson also wrote a tribute to Joseph Stalin in April, 1953 shortly after Stalin's death entitled To You Beloved Comrade.

Related Topics:
Stalin Peace Prize - Jewish "cosmopolitism" - Yiddish - Warsaw Ghetto

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At a Bill of Rights Conference in New York City in July 1949, a resolution was introduced calling for the freeing all 19 Trotskyists convicted in 1941 under the provisions of the Smith Act being used at that time against the leaders of the CPUSA. Robeson gave a speech denouncing this idea, equating "Trotskyites" with fascists and Ku Klux Klansmen. The resolution was defeated and Robeson's speech is credited with its defeat. Robeson biographer Martin Duberman wrote "It was not Robeson's finest hour." (p. 382)

Related Topics:
Bill of Rights - New York City - July - 1949 - Trotskyists - Smith Act - Ku Klux Klan

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In 1961, Robeson slashed his wrists with a razor blade in a Moscow hotel room. Paul Robeson, Jr., his son, claimed that this was perpetrated by CIA agent who placed some synthetic hallucinogens into his drink at a state sponsored party he was attending. Many thought that Robeson's disillusion with the Soviet Union is a more likely explanation.

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Paul Robeson returned to live in the United States in 1963. For the remainder of his life was plagued by ill health and depression, and his appearances were relatively few. His 75th birthday was celebrated in Carnegie Hall where a taped message from him was played.

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