M.D. Wright
2.1.10
***EDITOR'S NOTE: Every day this month, I will highlight a historical Black history figure of importance. They may or may not be famous or nationally known, but they are important to me. And although this month is appointed socially, I celebrate my blackness daily. But for the sake of semantics and conformity (ha) I will do this day. Enjoy!
Today's Figure:
Paul Robeson.
A biography borrowed from online:
Paul Leroy Robeson was born in Princeton, New Jersey, on April 9, 1898, the fifth and last child of Maria Louisa Bustill and William Drew Robeson. During these early years the Robeson's experienced both family and financial losses. At the age of six Paul and his siblings, William, Reeve, Ben and Marian suffered the death of their mother in a household fire. This was followed a few years later with their father's loss of his Princeton pastorate. After moving first to Westfield, the family finally settled in Somerville, New Jersey, in 1909, where William Robeson was appointed pastor of St. Thomas AME Zion Church.
Enrolling in Somerville High School, one of only two blacks, Paul Robeson excelled academically while successfully competing in debate, oratorical contests, and showing great promise as a football player. He also got his first taste of acting in the title role of Shakespeare's Othello. In his senior year he not only graduated with honors, but placed first in a competitive examination for scholarships to enter Rutgers University. Although his other male siblings chose all-black colleges, Robeson took the challenge of attending Rutgers, a majority white institution in 1915.
In college between 1915 to 1919, Robeson experienced both fame and racism. In trying out for the varsity football team, where blacks were not wanted, he encountered physical brutality. In spite of this resistance, Robeson not only earned a place on the team but was named first on the roster for the All-American college team. He graduated with 15 letters in sports. Academically he was equally successful, elected a member of the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa Society and the Cap and Skull Honor Society of Rutgers. Graduating in 1919 with the highest grade point average in his class, Robeson gave the class oration at the 153d Rutgers Commencement.
With college life behind him, Robeson moved to the Harlem section of New York City to attend law school, first at New York University, later transferring to Columbia University. He sang in the chorus of the musical Shuffle Along (1921) by Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, and made his acting debut in 1920 playing the lead role in Simon the Cyrenian by poet Ridgely Torrence. Robeson's performance was so well received that he was congratulated not only by the Harlem YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) audience but also by members of the Provincetown Players who were in the audience. While working odd jobs and taking part in professional football to earn his college fees, Robeson met Eslanda "Essie" Cardozo Goode. The granddaughter of Francis L. Cardozo, the secretary of state of South Carolina during Reconstruction, she was a graduate of Columbia University and employed as a histological chemist. She was the first black staff person at Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. The couple married on August 17, 1921, and their son Paul Jr. was born on November 2, 1927.
To support his family while studying at Columbia Law School, Robeson played professional football for the Akron Pros (1920--1921) and the Milwaukee Badgers (1921--1922), and during the summer of 1922 he went to England to appear in a production ofTaboo, which was renamed Voodoo. Once graduating from Columbia in 1923, Robeson sought work in his new profession, all the while singing at the famed Cotton Club in Harlem. Offered an acting role in 1923 in Eugene O'Neill's All God's Chillun Got Wings, Robeson quickly took this opportunity; he had recently quit a law firm because the secretary refused to take dictation from a black person.
Although All God's Chillun brought threats by the Ku Klux Klan because of the play's interracial subject matter and the fact that a white woman was to kiss Robeson's hand, it was an immediate success. It was followed in 1924 by his performances in a revival of The Emperor Jones, the play Rosanne, and the silent movie Body and Soul for Oscar Micheaux, an independent black film maker. In 1925 Robeson debuted in a formal concert at the Provincetown Playhouse. His performance which consisted of Negro spirituals and folk songs was so brilliant that he and his accompanist, Lawrence Brown, were offered a contract with the Victor Talking Machine Company. Encouraged by this success, Robeson and Brown embarked on a tour of their own, but were sorely disappointed. Even though they received good reviews, the crowds were small and they made very little money. What Robeson came to know was that his talents in acting and singing would serve as the combined focus of his career.
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Paul Robeson may very well be related to my family and I. We have not been able to confirm it for sure, but we have been able to trace back to the late 1800s on my father's side, and there has been talk for as long as I've been alive that he may be related to us (Robinson family). My parents bought us Black History books in a huge, brown volume that was released the year that I was born (1979). Being a nerdy bookworm growing up, I devoured those books in less than a year -- a 20 encyclopedia set.
I learned quite a bit more about historical Black figures from reading those books than any class that I've taken in grammar school or at the university level. This is a shame. We call this Black History Month, but outside of the same half dozen or so people whose respective biographies were ingrained into our brains in robotic fashion throughout school years, we rarely hear about the countless others who have contributed to Black society and culture as a whole.
Paul Robeson was a master of his craft in the arts. An accomplished actor, singer and thespian, he could do it all. HE WAS ALSO A LAWYER. How about that? Someone who strikes a chord with me in each of those ways -- and as a future ESQUIRE, that was the thing that took the cake. These "actors" nowadays could do a lot better than to strive for the heights Robeson reached in his career. I couldn't fathom it, even though I am moderately talented in many of the arts. It was sad that he was blacklisted as a communist just as he was approaching superstardom and had an opportunity to open doors for even more up-and-coming Black (and other) thespians and artists otherwise. He will always be remembered as a significant contributor to the arts and being a beacon of Black culture.
An icon. PAUL ROBESON (1898-1965).
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