The Volga () is the largest river in Europe in terms of length, discharge, and watershed. It flows through central Russia, and is widely viewed as the national river of Russia. Out of the twenty largest cities of Russia, eleven, including its capital Moscow, are situated in the Volga's drainage basin. Some of the largest reservoirs in the world can be found along the Volga.

Nomenclature

The Russian hydronym is akin to the old Mari name of the river - Volgydo, meaning "bright". The Mari people are considered as the first people in Volga. Presently the Mari call the river Юл (Jul), meaning "way" in Tatar. The name volgydo descends from Proto-Finno-Ugric *valkita, meaning "white" or "bright". Russians explain that Volga comes from the Slavic word for "wetness", "humidity" (влага, волога). The Russian name is transliterated as Volga in English and Wolga in German. Another possible origin of the name is from the name of the largest community that occupied large areas around it in the past - the Proto-Bulgarians.

The Turkic people living along the river formerly referred to it as Itil or Atil. In modern Turkic languages, the Volga is known as İdel (Идел) in Tatar, Idyll in ancient Bulgar, Атăл (Atăl) in Chuvash, Idhel in Bashkir, Edil in Kazakh, and İdil in Turkish. The Turkic peoples associated the Itil's origin with the Kama River. Thus, a left tributary to the Kama River was named the Aq Itil ("White Itil") which unites with the Kara Itil ("Black Itil") at the modern city of Ufa.

Under the Mongols, the river was known by its other Turkic name Sarı-su ("yellow water"), but Mongols used also their own language name: Shar mörön ("yellow river").

The ancient and modern Mordvin name for the Volga, Рав (Rav), apparently reflects the ancient Scythian hydronym *Rhā, supposedly cognate with the ancient Avestan and Sanskrit names Rañha and Rasah for a mythical river, which was said to flow around the Earth. It has been suggested that the name Russia may have been derived from Rasah/Rosah, the Iranic name of the Volga River (F.Knauer, Moscow 1901). These Iranic words are all connected in their primary meaning of "dew, liquid, moisture".

Description

The Volga is the longest river in Europe. It belongs to the closed basin of the Caspian Sea. Rising in the Valdai Hills above sea level north-west of Moscow and about south-east of Saint Petersburg, the Volga heads east past Lake Sterzh, Tver, Dubna, Rybinsk, Yaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod, and Kazan. From there it turns south, flows past Ulyanovsk, Tolyatti, Samara, Saratov and Volgograd, and discharges into the Caspian Sea below Astrakhan at below sea level. At its most strategic point, it bends toward the Don ("the big bend"). Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, is located there. , running across the Volga, used to be the longest in Europe.]]

The Volga has many tributaries, most importantly the Kama, the Oka, the Vetluga, and the Sura rivers. The Volga and its tributaries form the Volga river system, which drains an area of about 1.35 million square kilometres in the most heavily populated part of Russia. The Volga Delta has a length of about 160 kilometres and includes as many as 500 channels and smaller rivers. The largest estuary in Europe, it is the only place in Russia where pelicans, flamingos, and lotuses may be found. The Volga freezes for most of its length for three months each year.

The Volga drains most of Western Russia. Its many large reservoirs provide irrigation and hydroelectric power. The Moscow Canal, the Volga-Don Canal, and the Volga-Baltic Waterway form navigable waterways connecting Moscow to the White Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. High levels of chemical pollution have adversely affected the river and its habitats.

The fertile river valley provides large quantities of wheat, and also has many mineral riches. A substantial petroleum industry centres on the Volga valley. Other resources include natural gas, salt, and potash. The Volga Delta and the nearby Caspian Sea offer superb fishing grounds. Astrakhan, at the delta, is the centre of the caviar industry.

Confluents (downstream to upstream)

is the uppermost town situated on the Volga (photographed circa 1910).]] , 2010]]

Akhtuba (near Volzhsky), a distributary

Samara (in Samara)

Kama (south of Kazan)

Kazanka (in Kazan)

Sviyaga (west of Kazan)

Vetluga (near Kozmodemyansk)

Sura (in Vasilsursk)

Kerzhenets (near Lyskovo)

Oka (in Nizhny Novgorod)

Uzola (near Balakhna)

Unzha (near Yuryevets)

Kostroma (in Kostroma)

Kotorosl (in Yaroslavl)

Sheksna (in Cherepovets)

Mologa (near Vesyegonsk)

Kashinka (near Kalyazin)

Nerl (near Kalyazin)

Medveditsa (near Kimry)

Dubna (in Dubna)

Shosha (near Konakovo)

Tvertsa (in Tver)

Vazuza (in Zubtsov)

Selizharovka (in Selizharovo)

Reservoirs (downstream to upstream)

A number of large hydroelectric reservoirs were constructed on the Volga during the Soviet rule. They are:

Ivankovo Reservoir

Uglich Reservoir

Rybinsk Reservoir

Gorky Reservoir

Cheboksary Reservoir

Kuybyshev Reservoir the largest in Europe by surface

Saratov Reservoir

Volgograd Reservoir

Human history

shrines and monasteries are strewn along the banks of the Volga]] The downstream of the Volga, widely believed to have been a cradle of the Proto-Indo-European civilization, was settled by Huns and other Turkic peoples in the first millennium AD, replacing Scythians. The ancient scholar Ptolemy of Alexandria mentions the lower Volga in his Geography (Book 5, Chapter 8, 2nd Map of Asia). He calls it the Rha, which was the Scythian name for the river. Ptolemy believed the Don and the Volga shared the same upper branch, which flowed from the Hyperborean Mountains.

Subsequently, the river basin played an important role in the movements of peoples from Asia to Europe. A powerful polity of Volga Bulgaria once flourished where the Kama river joins the Volga, while Khazaria controlled the lower stretches of the river. Such Volga cities as Atil, Saqsin, or Sarai were among the largest in the medieval world. The river served as an important trade route connecting Scandinavia, Rus', and Volga Bulgaria with Khazaria and Persia.

Khazars were replaced by Kipchaks, Kimeks and Mongols, who founded the Golden Horde in the lower reaches of the Volga. Later their empire broke into the Khanate of Kazan and Khanate of Astrakhan both of which were conquered by the Russians in the course of the 16th century Russo-Kazan Wars. The Russian people's deep feeling for the Volga finds echoes in their culture and literature, starting from the 12th-century Lay of Igor's Campaign. The Volga Boatmen's Song is one of many songs devoted to the national river of Russia.

Construction of Soviet dams often involved enforced resettlement of huge numbers of people, as well as destruction of their historical heritage. For instance, the town of Mologa was flooded for the purpose of constructing the Rybinsk Reservoir (then the largest artificial lake in the world), and the construction of the Uglich Reservoir entailed the flooding of several monasteries with buildings dating from the 15th and 16th centuries. In such cases the ecological and cultural damage often outbalanced any economical advantage.

20th-century conflicts

Marines charge the Volga river bank.]]

During the Russian Civil War, both sides fielded warships on the Volga. In 1918, the Red Volga Flotilla participated in driving the Whites eastward, from the Middle Volga at Kazan to the Kama and eventually to Ufa on the Belaya River.

In modern times, the city on the big bend of the Volga, currently known as Volgograd, witnessed the Battle of Stalingrad, possibly the bloodiest battle in human history, in which the Soviet Union and the German forces were deadlocked in a stalemate battle for access to the river. The Volga was (and still is) a vital transport route between central Russia and the Caspian Sea, which provides access to the oil fields of Apsheron. Hitler planned to use access to the oil fields of Azerbaijan to fuel future German conquests. Apart from that, whoever held both sides of the river could move valuable troops and war machines, across the river, to defeat the enemy's fortifications beyond the river. By taking the river, Hitler's Germany would have been able to move supplies, guns, and men into the northern part of Russia.

For this reason, many amphibious assaults were brought about in an attempt to remove the other side from the banks of the river. In these battles, The Soviet Union was the main offensive side, while the German troops used a more defensive stance, though most of the fighting was close quarters combat, with no clear offensive or defensive side.

Jewish martyrs legend

According to Jewish historical accounts, in the summer of 1836 a group of around 1000 children who were to be cantonists were brought to the Volga River to be baptised by the priests of the Russian Army. Some as young as 9 where all marched into the river and according to the legend all the children held each other and waded deep into the river and drowned themselves so as to guard their faith and incur a Kiddush Hashem. To this day groups of Jews observe the event and regard the children as martyrs.

Ethnic groups

The first people along the upper Volga were the Mari (Мари) and their west ethnic group named Merya (Мäрӹ) that came to the area around 1-3rd century. In the 8th and 9th centuries Slavic colonization began from Kievan Rus'. The Slavs brought Christianity, and a part of local people took Christianity and gradually became East Slavs; the remainder of Mari people migrated to the west far inland. In the course of several centuries they assimilated the indigenous Finnic population which included Merya and Meshchera peoples. The surviving peoples of Volga Finnic ethnicity include the Maris and Mordvins of the middle Volga.

Apart from the Huns, the earliest Turkic tribes arrived in the 7th century and assimilated some Finnic and Indo-European population on the middle and lower Volga. The Christian Chuvash and Muslim Tatars are descendants of the population of medieval Volga Bulgaria. Another Turkic group, the Nogais, formerly inhabited the lower Volga steppes.

The Volga region is home to a German minority group, the Volga Germans. Catherine the Great had issued a Manifesto in 1763 inviting all foreigners to come and populate the region, offering them numerous incentives to do so. This was partly to develop the region but also to provide a buffer zone between the Russians and the Mongol hordes to the east. Because of conditions in German territories, the Germans responded in the largest numbers. Under the Soviet Union a slice of the region was turned into the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic to house many of the Volga Germans. Others were executed or dispersed throughout the Soviet Union prior to and after World War II.

Navigation

The Volga, widened for navigation purposes with construction of huge dams during the years of Joseph Stalin's industrialization, is of great importance to inland shipping and transport in Russia: all the dams in the river have been equipped with large (double) ship locks, so that vessels of considerable dimensions can actually travel from the Caspian Sea almost to the upstream end of the river.

Connections with the Don River and the Black Sea are possible through the Volga-Don Canal. Connections with the lakes of the north (Lake Ladoga, Lake Onega), Saint Petersburg and the Baltic Sea are possible through the Volga-Baltic Waterway; and a liaison with Moscow has been realised by the Moscow Canal connecting the Volga and the Moskva rivers.

This infrastructure has been designed for vessels of a relatively large scale (lock dimensions of 290 x 30 meters on the Volga, slightly smaller on some of the other rivers and canals) and it spans many thousands of kilometers. A number of formerly state-run, now mostly privatized, companies operate passenger and cargo vessels on the river; Volgotanker, with over 200 petroleum tankers, is one of them.

In the later Soviet era, up to the modern times, grain and oil have been among the largest cargo exports transported on the Volga. Until recently access to the Russian waterways was granted to foreign vessels on a only very limited scale. The increasing contacts between the European Union and Russia have led to new policies with regard to the access to the Russian inland waterways. It is expected that vessels of other nations will be allowed on the Russian rivers soon.

Satellite Imagery

Volga River in painting

See also

Settlements on the Volga

List of rivers of Russia

Volga River Steamers

Caspian Depression

References

External links

Information and a map of the Volga's watershed

Volga Delta from Space

Photos of the Volga coasts

"CABRI-Volga": EU-Russian project on environmental risk management in the Volga Basin

Category:Rivers of Kostroma Oblast Category:Rivers of Moscow Oblast Category:Rivers of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast Category:Rivers of Astrakhan Oblast Category:Rivers of the Chuvash Republic Category:Kalmykia Category:Rivers of Samara Oblast Category:Rivers of Saratov Oblast Category:Rivers of Tatarstan Category:Rivers of Tver Oblast Category:Rivers of Volgograd Oblast Category:Rivers of Yaroslavl Oblast Category:Tributaries of the Caspian Sea

Russian Red is the pseudonym of Lourdes Hernández (Madrid, 1986), indie and folk singer-songwriter.

Known by many as the Spanish Feist, in reference to the Canadian singer-songwriter who inspires her in many of her attitudes on the microphone, Hernández—who writes and sings all of her compositions in English—states that she sings in that language instinctively because she has always listened to music in English. Her voice and performing style are also reminiscent of the childlike and simple, poetic approach utilized by California singer-songwriter Joanna Newsom.

History

Russian Red's project began when Hernández met Brian Hunt, a musician with an English father and Spanish mother, with whom she recorded a demo (which included tracks that remain unpublished like "Reason", "The Night of the Paper", and "Sadie") that reached more than 70,000 visits on her MySpace page by 2008.

The name Russian Red comes from the colour of a lipstick that Hernández herself usually wears. When asked how she chose the name, Hernández stated: "I had a band without a name some time ago. Since then, I was haunted by an obsession: to find the ideal artistic name. One day, I fell in love with this colour that a girl was wearing. I pronounced its name, and now it is my pseudonym."

Little by little, Hernández has become well-known in the Spanish indie arena, performing more than 60 shows during 2007 and taking part in the prestigious Primavera Sound, among other festivals.

2008: I Love Your Glasses

The Spanish producer Fernando Vacas asked Hernández to record an album to be issued by his label Eureka. The album, her first, was called I Love Your Glasses and quickly became a success, leading El País columnist Alfonso Cardenal to deem Russian Red the "revelation of the year"".

References

External links

Category:1986 births Category:Living people Category:Spanish female singers Category:Spanish pop singers Category:Spanish singer-songwriters Category:Female rock singers Category:Spanish musicians

Name	Paul Robeson
Caption	photo by Yousuf Karsh, 1938, June 1942
Birth name	Paul Leroy Robeson
Born	April 09, 1898Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	January 23, 1976Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Instrument	Vocals
Genre	SpiritualsInternational folkMusicals
Voice type	Bass-Baritone
Occupation	Actor, concert singer, athlete, lawyer, social activist
Years active	1917–1963
Background	solo_singer

Name	Paul "Robey" Robeson
Position	End
Birthdate	April 9, 1898
Deathdate	January 23, 1976
Heightft	6
Heightin	3
Weight	219
Debutyear	1921
Debutteam	Akron Pros
Finalyear	1922
Finalteam	Milwaukee Badgers
College	Rutgers
Teams
Statseason	1922
Statlabel1	Games played
Statvalue1	15
Statlabel2	Games started
Statvalue2	13
Statlabel3	TD
Statvalue3	1
Nfl	ROB361120
Collegehof	10080

Paul Leroy Robeson (April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an African American bass-baritone concert singer, recording artist, athlete and actor who became noted for his political radicalism and activism in the civil rights movement. The son of an escaped slave, Robeson was the first major concert star to popularize the performance of Negro spirituals and was the first black actor of the 20th century to portray Shakespeare's Othello on Broadway.

A nationally renowned football player from 1917 to the early 1920s, Robeson was an All-American athlete, Phi Beta Kappa Society laureate during his years at Rutgers University. In 1923, Robeson drifted into amateur theater work and within a decade he had become an international star of stage, screen, radio and film. Robeson would go on to be a recipient of the NAACP's Spingarn Medal, the Stalin Peace Prize and of honorary memberships in over half a dozen trade unions. James Earl Jones, Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte have cited Robeson's lead film roles as being the first to display dignity for black actors and pride in African heritage. Though one of the most internationally famous people of the 20th century, blacklisting during the Cold War has largely kept Paul Robeson out of mainstream interpretations of history. Under heavy and daily surveillance by both the FBI and the CIA and publicly condemned for his beliefs, Robeson became very nearly a non-person. Robeson's right to travel was restored in 1958 and his already faltering health broke down under controversial circumstances in 1963. By 1965, he was forced into permanent retirement. He would spend his final years in seclusion, unapologetic about his political views and career. Present day advocates and historians of Paul Robeson's legacy have worked successfully to restore his name to numerous history books and sports records, while honoring his memory globally with posthumous recognitions.

Early life

Paul Robeson was born in Princeton, New Jersey in 1898. His father, William Drew Robeson I, was descended from the Igbo people of Nigeria, and had run away during the American Civil War from the Robeson plantation in North Carolina where he had been born a slave. He served in the Union Army in Pennsylvania, earned a degree from Lincoln University (Pennsylvania), and became a minister of the gospel.

From 1881 until 1901, William Robeson was minister of the Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church in Princeton. Robeson refused to bow to pressure from the "white residents of Princeton" to cease his tendency to "speak out against social injustice." Rev. Robeson's wife, Maria Louisa Bustill, belonged to a white abolitionist Quaker family. Nearly blind, she died in a house fire in 1904 when her son Paul was six years old.

The Robeson's had four other children: William Drew Robeson II, a physician who practiced in Washington, D.C.; Benjamin Robeson, also minister; Reeve Robeson (called Reed); and Marian Robeson, who lived in Philadelphia. William Drew Robeson was said to be a stern disciplinarian when it came to the children's studies and behavior. In 1910, when the family relocated to Somerville, New Jersey, he continued to impress upon Paul that he could achieve anything that white people could.

Scholarship

Robeson was only the third African-American student accepted at Rutgers, and the only black student during his time on campus. Robeson was also one of three classmates at Rutgers accepted into Phi Beta Kappa in his third year, and one of four students selected in 1919 to Cap and Skull, Rutgers' honor society.

Campus clubs and racism

Paul Robeson was also active on the Rutgers debate team and oratorical contests both on and off campus, winning the statewide prize four years in a row. He sang with the campus Glee club, but due to the racist climate at the time, he was not welcome to travel with the latter group out of town or to any social events following on campus performances. In the same capacity, he was elected to the Rutgers literary society, the Philoclean Society without being allowed to fully share in its festivities.

All-American and varsity sports

At Rutgers he also excelled as a sportsman. Robeson earned altogether 15 varsity letters in American football, baseball, basketball, and track and field. For his accomplishments as an end in football, he was named a first-team All-America in 1917 and 1918. He would be named Rutgers first All-American football player (of any race). During scrimmages while Robeson initially tried out for the football team, he faced both racism and harsh physical injury: for instance, when a senior member of the team injured Robeson's hand with a cleated foot, tearing off fingernails.

Though Robeson later said he gave thought to quitting, he went on to be considered by many critics the greatest football player of his era. The football coach, Walter Camp, later described him as "the greatest defensive end to ever trot the gridiron." Lou Little of Columbia University football said of Robeson, "...there has never been a greater player in the history of football than Robeson."

Graduation honors

Chosen to be the 1919 class valedictorian, during his commencement oration, he exhorted his classmates to "catch a new vision", while the "class prophecy" envisioned that he would become a governor of New Jersey by 1940 and "leader of the colored race in America." Robeson's senior thesis was entitled "The Fourteenth Amendment, the Sleeping Giant of the American Constitution", in which he displayed optimism about white intentions to end segregation. Regarding his prodigious record at Rutgers, sports historian Francis C. Harris would say of Paul Robeson that he, "...established a level of excellence as a scholar-athlete that few others, if any, have ever attained."

Columbia Law School

After graduation from Rutgers, Robeson moved to Harlem and entered Columbia Law School. Between 1920 and 1923, Robeson helped pay his way through law school by working both as an athlete and as a performer.

He played professional football in the American Professional Football Association (later called the National Football League) with the Akron Pros and Milwaukee Badgers. He served as assistant football coach at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he was initiated into the Nu Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha, the oldest intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity for African American college men.³² He also played for the St. Christopher Club traveling basketball team during their 1918–19 season, alongside future Basketball Hall of Fame members Clarence "Fats" Jenkins and James "Pappy" Ricks, and former Hampton Institute star center Charles Bradford.

While still a Columbia student, his first stage roles were in 1922 playing Simon in Simon the Cyrenian at the Harlem YMCA and Jim in Taboo (later renamed Vodoo) at the Sam Harris Theater in Harlem. Also in 1922, Eubie Blake heard Robeson sing casually and encouraged him to appear in Blake's production of Shuffle Along and Lew Leslie's "Plantation Revue." While pursuing his fledgling career in theater, including a tour of the British Isles with Taboo,

Robeson graduated from Columbia in 1923, in the same law school class as William O. Douglas — later a United States Supreme Court Justice. Ultimately Robeson's academic record was not as stellar as it had been at Rutgers, with a mostly C average and he openly showed little enthusiasm for the law after graduation. His broken tenure at the school due to his work in theater made him ineligible when considered as a possible candidate for the Columbia Law Review by editor-in-chief Charles Ascher who in later years remarked that the "Southerners on the board would have put up a fight..." In the 1930s, the couple began legal proceedings towards divorce when Robeson fell in love with Yolanda Jackson, a British woman, but the relationship ended abruptly, and Eslanda and Robeson stayed together, continuing an open marriage until Eslanda died on December 23, 1965. Eslanda would also author the first book on Robeson entitled, "Paul Robeson: Negro." Told in third person it was part fiction, part tell all memoir about the problems in their marriage and Robeson early life and career. It is in "Paul Robeson: Negro" that the incorrect usage of "Bustill" as Robeson's middle name originated, as Eslanda chose to add it as an embellishment.

The marriage produced one child, Paul Robeson, Jr., born November 2, 1927. Paul Robeson Jr., lives in New Jersey with Marilyn, his wife of 61 years, and has spent much of his life safeguarding his father's legacy by founding The Robeson Family Archives and The Paul Robeson Foundation. He also fathered two children, David Robeson (1951–1998) and Susan Robeson, a documentary filmmaker born in 1953. In 1980, Susan published a pictorial biography of her grandfather.

Religious views

Robeson would not follow in his father's footsteps as a deeply religious man who attended African Methodist Episcopal church services regularly, choosing instead to have a lifelong reverence for the black church. In tandem with secularism and personal spiritually. In 1998, close family friend, Bishop J. Clinton Hoggard (1916–2002) who eulogized Robeson at his 1976 funeral stated, "He was a Christian, he believed in God, which is why he is one who could sing the great hymns of the church, they come out of his soul." in a 1929 entry in his diary expressed the thought that his career and his marriage to be part of a "higher plan", writing: "God watches over me and guides me. He's with me and let's my fight my own battles and hopes I'll win." Later when his leftism became a subject of great controversy, accusations that he was a "'godless' Communist", did not resonate with his black churchgoing audience, who felt he "personified the spirituals in his music", and were not confirmed by Robeson himself, who never expressed "even the remotest allegiance to 'materialistic atheism'". In a 1958 BBC television interview, Robeson reminisced of his days growing up in his father's church, "every Sunday morning there would be a rolling up of a great sermon and 'bow down on bended knees, oh Lord and hail Mary' and it became very much like an opera."

Legal work

Needing to work, he was hired by the law firm of Stotesbury (a Rutger's alumnus) and Miner in New York City working on a litigation trial over Jay Gould's estate. Though his brief would be used in the Gould trail, Robeson was the only black in the law firm, and quit after a white secretary refused to take dictation from him because of his race, stating: "I never take dictation from a nigger."

Entertainment career (1920-1928)

In the 1920s, Robeson found fame as an actor and singing star of both stage and radio with his bass voice and commanding presence. His vocal instrument descended as low as C below the bass clef. Robeson and his accompanist and arranger Lawrence Brown were the first to bring spirituals to the concert stage and their association that would last through four decades.

Eugene O'Neill

Robeson was acclaimed for his 1924 Provincetown Theater performance in the title role of Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones—originally performed, also with great success, by Charles Gilpin in 1920. Robeson also gained fame in his early career for his performance in All God's Chillun Got Wings in which he portrayed the black husband of an abusive white woman who, resenting her husband's skin color, destroys his promising career as a lawyer. He next played Crown in the stage version of DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy, which provided the basis for George and Ira Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess.

Spirituals and concert singing

During his days at Columbia Law School during the Harlem Renaissance Paul Robeson sang professionally but with little thought of pursuing a career in song. In 1924 when Robeson was unable to whistle for a performance in Taboo, he sang a spiritual instead pleasing both the cast and audiences. After briefly meeting accompanist and arranger Lawrence Brown in England during 1922, the two reconnected in 1924 and rapidly established a successful musical partnership. Robeson would credit Brown guiding him "...to the beauty of my own folk music and to the music of all other Peoples so like our own."

Lawrence Brown, who had previously worked with the gospel singer Roland Hayes, had an extensive repertoire of African-American folk songs. Both he and Robeson helped bring these to much wider attention both inside the U.S. and abroad. With Robeson's wife Eslanda arranging concert venues, Paul Robeson became a hugely popular concert draw in New York City with Carl Sandburg drawing a distinction between his interpretations of spirituals and Roland Hayes' stating that "Hayes imitates white culture... Robeson is the real thing... ." Robeson could also be heard on New York radio, usually performing Negro Spirituals, as he did on June 7, 1927 when he was one of the featured performers on the Edison Hour over station WRNY (display ad, New York Times, June 7, 1927, p. 32). Robeson also became interested in the folk music of the world; his standard repertoire after the 1920s would include songs in many languages including languages as diverse as Chinese, Russian, Yiddish and German.

Body and Soul

Robeson's earliest film is 1925's Body and Soul, a silent American race film (made for all-black audiences) directed by Oscar Micheaux in which Robeson played a both a nefarious preacher, Sylvester, and his brother Isiah. The negative depiction of a preacher met with disapproval from the New York Motion Pictures Commission and the film was ordered cut down to what Micheaux felt was an inferior and disjointed edit.

Great Britain (1928-1939)

In the 1930s Robeson appeared in nine films, all but two of them British productions—after he and his wife moved to England in the late 1920s. For a total of nearly eleven years, he lived in the United Kingdom, with extended periods away on singing tours, until the outbreak of World War II. In 1928, at the invitation of a group of Labour MPs, he was the first actor of any race to have lunch at the House of Commons. During his many years abroad, Robeson became acquainted with conditions in different countries. Subsequently, his political thinking began to transcend racial divisions and encompass social and political issues and systems.

Show Boat

Robeson played the role of Joe, which was written for him, in the 1928 London production of the musical Show Boat. His rendition of Ol' Man River is widely considered the definitive version of the song. Robeson sang the song as written whenever he appeared in a production of Show Boat, but in later recitals he made alterations to the lyrics to transform it from a song of black lament to one of defiance and perseverance. While Show Boat was immensely popular with white audiences, black theater reviewers were less than impressed. J.A Rodgers of The Amsterdam News wrote in 1928 that he had spoken to "fully some thirty Negros of intelligence and self respect" who urged "their disapprobation of the play" and he had "heard many harsh things said against Robeson... if anyone had called him (Robeson) a 'nigger', he'd be the first to get offended and there he is singing 'nigger, nigger' before all these white people."

Robeson also played the role of Toussaint L'Ouverture in the 1936 play "Black Majesty" by C.L.R. James alongside the actor Robert Adams. To play the part had been a long time goal of Robeson's but the production closed after two weeks. Adams would go on to co-star in two of Robeson's films, Song of Freedom and King Solomon's Mines and found the Negro Repertory Arts Theater in Great Britain.

First portrayal of Othello

In 1930, Robeson starred in the title role in William Shakespeare's Othello in England. Peggy Ashcroft, with whom he had a brief affair, co-starred as Desdemona. When the play opened in on May 19, Robeson became the first black actor since Ira Aldridge to play Othello opposite a white cast in close to a century. The production met with mostly positive reviews with a few lukewarm notices pointing out Robeson's "highly civilized quality" and lack of the "grand style." Paul Robeson, Jr. told historian Scott Allen Nollen that, "In 1930, Paul had not yet jettisoned the 'don't upset white folks' dictum of his boyhood days, thus interfering with his ability to project the regal and commanding posture that Othello should deliver from the outset..."

Labour movement involvement

From 1927 to 1939, while continuing his professional singing and acting career, Robeson was increasingly involved with the struggles of British workers. He performed for them on numerous occasions, going down into the pits with the miners to see their working conditions and befriending them. Returning to England in 1949, he stated that his time there had a profound influence on his political development:

I learned my militancy and my politics, from your Labor Movement here in Britain.... That was how I realized that the fight of my Negro people in America and the fight of oppressed workers everywhere was the same struggle.

In 1928, while he was performing in Show Boat, Robeson met a group of unemployed miners who had taken part in a "hunger march" from South Wales to protest their poverty and harsh working conditions. After taking the men for their first meal in days he became determined to help their cause, visited the Rhondda Valley and the Talygarn Miners' Rest Home. Robeson made several visits to Welsh mining areas to perform in Cardiff, Neath and Aberdare.

In 1934, he performed in Caernarfon to benefit the victims of a major disaster at Gresford Colliery, near Wrexham, where 264 miners died. In 1938, he performed in front of an audience of 7,000 at the Welsh International Brigades National Memorial in Mountain Ash, to commemorate the 33 men from Wales killed while fighting on the side of the Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War. Because of his willingness to stand with the Welsh miners, he became a popular cultural figure in Wales. In 1940, Robeson appeared in The Proud Valley, playing a black laborer who arrives in the Rhondda and wins the hearts of the local people. Robeson would often stay in Tiger Bay with his uncle by marriage, Aaron Mossell, a black Communist active in Pan-Africanism.

In 1938, Robeson appeared in Plant in the Sun, a play dealing with sit-down strikes and union organizing in US, produced by Unity Theatre, under auspices of British Labour Party. An English Heritage Blue Plaque was unveiled in 2002 by Dame Cleo Laine and 24 Hour Museum Chairman Loyd Grossman, at 1-2 Branch Lane, Hampstead, London where Robeson primarily resided during the 1920s and 1930s. In 1998, Labour politician Tony Benn stated that Robeson's "experiences with racism as child gave him an authenticity that you would not have gotten from reading Karl Marx in the salons of the intellectuals."

Films

Robeson's second film was the experimental classic Borderline. Shot in Switzerland in 1930 by a trio of avant garde artists known as the Pool Group, and co-starring his wife, Eslanda, the film chronicles race relations in a small European village. In 1933, he returned briefly to the U.S. where he reprised his title role in Dudley Murphy's film version of Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones. The American version of The Emperor Jones was censored to leave out a dramatic scene featuring Robeson killing a white prison guard who had ordered his character to beat a fellow prisoner who had been caught escaping. The 1936 Universal Pictures film Show Boat was a box office hit for Robeson. It is the most frequently shown and highly acclaimed of all his films, and his performance of the main song Ol' Man River was particularly notable. At the height of his popularity in the 1930s, Robeson became an international box office attraction in British films such as Song of Freedom (1936) and Sanders of the River (1935). He was also King Umbopa in the 1937 version of King Solomon's Mines (1937). In films such as Jericho and Proud Valley, he portrayed strong black American male leading roles without subservience endemic to roles for blacks at the time. His growing political and racial consciousness saw him become one of the first actors of any race to demand (and receive) final cut approval on a film ('Song of Freedom'), making him the first black actor to act in roles that had both dignity and emphasized pride in African heritage.

"I want to be African"

Living in London, Robeson became aware of the large body of knowledge on African history and culture that was not available in the United States. n London during the 1930s he met with African students, who urged him to travel to the Soviet Union. Paul and Eslanda Robeson Eslanda were named honorary members of the West African Students' Union in London where they became acquainted with future national presidents Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta. In 1934 Robeson wrote of his desire to seek out and embrace his heritage in the essay "I want to be African" and continued to draw comparisons between oppressed peoples exploited in the colonial possessions of Western Europe and blacks in the United States abused by segregation and lynching. Robeson would eventually become a prolific anti-imperialist writer/advocate for leftist and progressive periodicals such as Freedomways Quarterly for whom Nkrumah, Kenyatta, W. E. B. Du Bois and Martin Luther King Jr. also contributed.

Language scholarship

Robeson later studied phonetics, Mandarin, Swahili and other African languages at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London in 1934. In the 1940s when Robeson would go on to study Chinese languages and characters, the FBI stole one of his notebooks and had it translated in an unsuccessful attempt to link him to Communist activities. Robeson's studying of different languages continued throughout his life. Historians vary on how many languages, he spoke fluently or was conversant in. According to Professor Sterling Stuckey, "Some claim twelve, others claim twenty; he certainly sang in a great many."

International activism and travels (1930s)

Though Robeson had been politically aware and active earlier, he strictly separated his artistic from his political views. In an interview with W. R. Titterton in 1930, Robeson had rejected "political activism, political advocacy and commitment to a 'cause' as suitable modes for an artist", believing that the artist must be "ultimately accountable only to himself and his art; the prophet and the warrior are by definition at odds with the artist." This attitude of Robeson directly contradicted that of his later colleague and close friend W. E. B. Du Bois, who considered art primarily a tool for advancing political causes. As Robeson's scholarly method and experiences broadened during the 1930s, his feelings on art being combined with activism would alter significantly. Moreover, the final cut of 1935's Sanders of the River, a stereotypical film deception of Africa under imperialist rule, had ended up disappointing him greatly and spurred him to become "more conscious politically."

Soviet constitution and anti-racist climate

Robeson journeyed to the Soviet Union in December 1934, via Germany, having been given an official invitation. While there, Robeson was welcomed by playwrights, artists and filmmakers, among them Sergei Eisenstein who became a close friend. Robeson also met with African Americans who had migrated to the USSR including his two brothers-in-law. He and Eslanda were nearly attacked by Nazi Sturmabteilung at the stopover in Berlin, and Robeson would later reference the incident in the years to follow. Robeson recounted how he found the USSR free of racism and racial segregation with Russians running up to greet him in the streets. He spoke of the "joy and happiness and friendliness, this utter absence of any embarrassment over a 'race question' is all the more keenly felt by me because of the day I spent in Berlin on the way here, and that was a day of horror-in an atmosphere of hatred, fear and suspicion." Robeson declared that African American spiritual music resonated to Russian folk traditions. He told the press:

Here, I am not a Negro but a human being for the first time in my life ... I walk in full human dignity. "

Robeson also took great interest in Article 123 of the 1936 Soviet Constitution, banning racial discrimination. The article stated: "Equality of rights of citizens of the USSR, irrespective of their nationality or race, in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life, is an indefeasible law." Commenting in 1935 to the Daily Worker, on the recent execution after court-martial of a number of counter-revolutionary terrorists, Robeson said: "From what I have already seen of the workings of the Soviet Government, I can only say that anybody who lifts his hand against it ought to be shot! Robeson is one of only three people to have been given honorary membership in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the volunteers from the United States who served in the Spanish Civil War for the International Brigades.

As fascism escalated in Europe, "Save Spain" rallies were organized. The first rally was at the Albert Hall in 1937 sponsored by W.H. Auden, Virginia Wolff and H.G. Wells among others as a benefit concert for the National Joint Committee for Spanish Refugees in Aid of the Basque Refugee Children’s Fund. The event was broadcast by radio throughout Europe and Robeson delivered a speech that night that would be among his most memorable and serve as his epitaph.

The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative. The history of the capitalist era is characterized by the degradation of my people:despoiled of their lands, their culture destroyed...denied equal protection under law, and deprived their rightful place in the respect of their fellows. Not through blind faith or coercion but conscious of my course, I take my place with you."

By December 1937 Robeson had addressed four rallies for the Republican cause. He had also denounced fascist attacks on Ethiopia by Italy and spoke out in favor of the emerging Communist revolution in China at other political events raising the concern of his British entertainment manager about becoming a political artist. Robeson decided to establish his political events as primary, explaining to the press that, "something inside me has turned"; no longer would he appear in "decadent Hollywood films", he stated, but instead would portray "the life, hopes and aspirations of the struggling people from which I come." At the Albert Hall rally, he changed the lyrics of "Old Man River"—personalizing the song into his own credo from, "I'm tired of livin and scared of dyin" to "I must keep fightin' until I'm dyin'." He also stated, "The liberation of Spain from the oppression of fascist reactionaries is not a private matter of the Spaniards, but the common cause of all advanced and progressive humanity." Robeson met with the American men and women of The Abraham Lincoln Brigade on the battlefields, including about ninety-five African Americans. Robeson left Spain but continued to speak on behalf of those who were resisting Hitler and Mussolini. He raised funds for the Spanish Republic, and to aid returning wounded Lincoln veterans in need of medical care.

The Council on African Affairs

Continuing his anti-colonialist activism, Paul Robeson co-founded the International Committee on African Affairs in 1937 (called the Council on African Affairs or CAA from 1941 onwards) with Max Yergan. The CAA was the first major U.S. organization to focus on providing pertinent, up-to-date information about Africa across the U.S., particularly to African-Americans. During World War II, the CAA functioned as a broad-based coalition that included a variety of activists from varying leftist backgrounds. Probably the most successful campaign of the Council was for South African famine relief in 1946.

Members of the CAA were hopeful that following World War II, when Western Powers adopted new resolutions on the issue of colonialism, there would be a move towards Third World independence under the trusteeship of the United Nations. To the CAA's dismay, the proposals introduced by the U.S. government to the conference in April/May 1945 set no clear limits on the duration of colonialism and no motions towards allowing territorial possessions to move towards self government. In an interview published in all the black weeklies and the July–August issue of TAC, magazine of the Theatre Arts Committee, Robeson was asked what prompted his decision to return to the US to live, he replied: "I've learned that my people are not the only ones oppressed. That it is the same for Jews or Chinese as for Negroes, and that such prejudice has no place in a democracy. I have sung my songs all over the world, and everywhere found that some common bond makes the people of all lands take to Negro songs, as to their own....{A]ll oppressed people cry out against their oppressors....[These experiences] have made me come home to sing my songs so that we will see that our democracy does not vanish. If I can contribute to this as an artist, I shall be happy."

Ballad for Americans

After his return from Europe in 1939, Robeson quickly became a national celebrity once again when he performed Ballad for Americans, an American patriotic cantata with lyrics by John La Touche and music by Earl Robinson. Originally titled The Ballad for Uncle Sam, it was written for a Works Progress Administration theatre project called Sing for Your Supper. Robeson performed "Ballad" on the CBS radio network in 1943, accompanied by chorus and orchestra. Bing Crosby would also record a commercially successful recording of the piece but the song is almost always associated with Robeson as it represents the pinnacle of his music and radio career prior to the Cold War. He sang Ballad for Americans at The Hollywood Bowl to the largest sold-out crowd in its history. The FBI labeled it "...obviously a Communist project."

The same year, in Hollywood, Robeson participated in the anthology film Tales of Manhattan. His segment depicted black people's living conditions under the sharecropping system. Robeson was dissatisfied, calling it "very offensive to my people. It makes the Negro childlike and innocent and is in the old plantation hallelujah shouter tradition". He attempted to remove the film from distribution but buying up all prints proved far too expensive. Robeson held a press conference, announcing that he would no longer act in Hollywood films because of the demeaning roles available to black actors and would gladly join others in picketing the film.During this period, Robeson also turned down major black roles in Moby Dick, Gone With The Wind, Song of the South and Porgy and Bess.

Japanese Americans

Despite his concern for Asian liberation, Robeson was largely silent during the 1930s about racial discrimination against people of Asian ancestry in the United States. His talent and his insistence on racial equality still made him widely admired among Japanese Americans. In February 1942, Robeson was approached by the sculptor Isamu Noguchi, who had founded a progressive group called Nisei Writers and Artists Mobilization for Democracy. Noguchi asked Robeson to join a panel of prominent non-Asians who would testify to the loyalty of Japanese Americans before Congress, in order to avert mass removal. Robeson volunteered but the panel idea was dropped once President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. Robeson remained attentive to Nisei concerns in the years that followed. In a 1943 speech, he praised “the workers from Mexico and from the east--Japan and the Philippines--whose labor has helped make the west and the southwest a fruitful land.” In 1946, he publicly opposed the Canadian government’s movement to deport thousands of Japanese Canadians. To demonstrate his solidarity, Robeson accepted an honorary life membership from the Japanese Canadian Committee for Democracy and gave a concert in Salt Lake City, then home to the Japanese American Citizens League.

Civil rights activism and post war politics (1945-1948)

In 1945, Robeson was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP for his "distinguished achievements in the theatre and concert stage as well as his active concern for the rights of the common man for every race, color, religion and nationality." During World War Two, Robeson's support for the Allied War effort had made him the world's most famous African-American and his previous statements and advocacy for socialism had been temporarily ignored by both the media and the white establishment. Following Winston Churchill's watershed, Iron Curtain Speech, burgeoning anti-Soviet sentiment led to a social climate where the majority of civil rights and anti-imperialist groups within the United States were considered "Communist affiliated."

American Crusade to End Lynching

On July 28, 1946, as Chairman of Council on African Affairs, Robeson telegramed President Truman on the lynching of four African Americans in Georgia (and a total of 41 nationwide), demanding "that the Federal Government take immediate effective steps to apprehend and punish the perpetrators of this shocking crime and to halt the rising tide of lynch law. Only when our government has taken such action toward protecting its own citizens can its role in aiding the progress of peoples of other countries be viewed with trust and hope." In September, Robeson spoke at large rally against lynching, at Madison Square Garden, saying, in part, that the recent upsurge of lynching in the South "represents the ultimate limit of bestial brutality to which the enemies of democracy, be they German Nazis or American Ku Kluxers, are ready to go in imposing their will. What about it, President Truman? Why have you failed to speak out against this evil? When will the federal government take effective action to uphold our constitutional guarantees? The leaders of this country can call out the Army and Navy to stop the railroad workers and the maritime workers----why can’t they stop the lynchers?"

Meeting with Truman

In September 1946, Robeson headed a protest of 3,000, at the Lincoln Memorial, for the American Crusade Against Lynching, a coalition of some fifty organizations from thirty-eight states and dozens of public figures, including Albert Einstein. Following the rally, he led a multi-racial delegation to the White House to present a legislative and educational program to President Truman aimed at ending mob violence; demanding that lynchers be prosecuted and calling on Congress to enact a federal anti-lynching law. Robeson then warned Truman that if the government did not do something to end lynching, "the Negroes will," and stated that the United States could not logically take the lead in prosecuting Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials while "permitting African Americans to be lynched at home." Truman rejected the program and refused Robeson's request for him to issue a formal public statement against lynching, stating that it was not "the right time." Robeson also gave an address on radio, calling on all Americans of all races to demand that Congress pass civil rights legislation.

Civil Rights Congress

The Civil Rights Congress (CRC) was a pioneering civil rights organization formed in 1946 by a merger of the International Labor Defense and the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties. The organization was cited as "subversive and communist" by the Truman administration. In 1947 Robeson met with 18 leaders of NAACP, to form coalition to coordinate anti-lynching efforts with the CRC. In 1948, under auspices of CIO United Public Workers, the Los Angeles Civil Rights Congress and Local 558 of the State, County & Municipal Employees, AFL, Robeson sang and spoke. The purpose of the large meeting and concert was to launch a community campaign against job discrimination, for passage of the federal Fair Employment Practices Act, anti-lynching and anti-poll tax legislation, and citizens’ action to defeat the county loyalty oath climate. Robeson again sought an appointment with President Truman to confer on anti-poll tax, anti-lynching and fair employment legislation, but repeated requests were rejected.

The Progressive Party

In 1948, Robeson was very active as co-chairman of the presidential campaign to elect Progressive Party candidate Henry A. Wallace, who had served as Vice-President under Franklin D. Roosevelt. Wallace was running on an anti-lynching, pro-civil rights platform and had attracted a diverse group of voters including Communists, liberals and trade unionists. On the campaign trail in June of that year, Robeson went to the deep south, including Georgia, where he sang before "overflow audiences... in Negro churches in Atlanta and Macon." At the party’s convention in Philadelphia, Robeson joined forces with the delegates from the Nisei for Wallace (AKA Nisei Progressives. The Progressive Party went on record in favor of evacuation claims for former camp residents, repeal of discriminatory laws against Japanese aliens, plus equal immigration and naturalization rights. During the campaign, Robeson organized a fund-raising concert tour in Hawaii under the auspices of the Longshoreman's Union. On election day, Wallace received just over a million votes and Truman was elected.

Trade union activism

Robeson's belief that the Labor Movement and trade unionism were crucial to the civil rights of oppressed people of all races became central to his political beliefs. Many unions during the1940's and 50's were still characterized by segregation. Robeson's close friend, the union activist Revels Cayton, would play a central role in pressing for "black caucuses" within in each union, with Robeson's encouragement and involvement throughout the 1940's and 50's. Domestically and internationally, Robeson would enjoy long friendships and honorary status with numerous unions for his devotion to their causes and his willingness to be on the picket lines showing support.Robeson also supported "Camp Wo-Chi-Ca" (Workers' Children's Camp) in New Jersey, an interracial summer camp for working class children established by the International Workers Order. Robeson would visit the camp every summer from 1940 to 1949, singing playing baseball with the children and developing an extensive musical program. In summer of 1949, Robeson also visited the largely Jewish Camp Kinderland in New York. Robeson had also become the target of conservative journalists Walter Winchell and Hedda Hopper. With the United States government and media pressuring the entertainment industry into blacklisting him, in 1949 Robeson had to go overseas to work. Robeson's 1949 tour of Europe, took him to France, Britain, Scandinavia, Czechoslovakia,Poland and the Soviet Union. There had been travel conditions put on him by the U.S. State Department upon the renewal of his passport and he signed a waiver to not make any "political or charitable appearances while on tour." Robeson was also under heavy surveilance by the CIA while abroad.

The Paris Peace Congress

As an authorized speaker for the Coordinating Committee of the Colonial Peoples of London, in April 1949, Robeson attended the Paris Peace Congress sponsored by the Soviet Union and by pro-Communist and Communist organizations. There he sang Joe Hill and spoke extemporaneously about why he thought the progressives in America did not want war. The widely publicized speech cased extreme controversy in the Unites States when it was misquoted by the Associated Press. Numerous biographers and historians concur that this one single event signaled the start of Robeson's status as an "enemy" of the United States government and the end of his popularity with mainstream America during the Cold War. A direct translation from the French transcripts of the live audio is as follows,

"We in America do not forget that it was the backs of white workers from Europe and on the backs of millions of Blacks that the wealth of America was built. And we are resolved to share it equally. We reject any hysterical raving that urges us to make war on anyone. Our will to fight for peace is strong. We shall not make war upon the Soviet Union. We oppose those who wish to support imperialism Germany and to establish fascism in Greece. We wish peace with Franco's Spain despite her fascism. We shall support peace and friendship among all nations, with Soviet Russia and the People's Republics. "

What came over the wires to news agencies via the AP in the United States was as follows,

"We colonial peoples have contributed to the building of the United States and are determined to share its wealth. We denounce the policy of the United States government which is similar to Hitler and Goebbels. We want peace and liberty and will combat for them along with the Soviet Union and the Democracies of Eastern Europe, China and Indonesia. It is unthinkable that American Negros would go to war on behalf of those who have oppressed us for generations against the Soviet Union which in one generation has lifted our people to full human dignity. "

Research by historians would later show through time records that the AP had put the dispatch on the wires as Robeson was starting his speech. The misquote was very similar in structure to previous Robeson speeches and his questioning at the Mundt-Nixon Bill hearings with the difference being that at the hearing Robeson had claimed to be only speaking for himself. The reaction by the press, both liberal and right wing, in the United States was nearly universal condemnation with radio commentator Walter Winchell broadcasting daily vitriolic attacks at Robeson approved by J Edgar Hoover. Jersey Home newspaper called for Robeson to be "executed in the electric chair"and Boston Sunday called him "an undesirable citizen," regretting that he had been "U.S. born." Without contacting Robeson and at the urging of the State Department to make a formal statement, the NAACP leaders Roy Wilkins and Walter White also dissociated themselves from him. The few papers willing to question accuracy of the AP bulletin was The black owned, Chicago Defender while the progressive National Guardian and the Communist Daily Worker printed quotes of Robeson's speech verbatim. The French transcript of the speech is available to scholars in the Paul Robeson Archives and was published in full in the bulletin of the Paris Peace Congress(PERC).

USSR and Itzik Feffer

In June, he arrived in the Soviet Union, where he participated in celebrating Alexander Pushkin's 150th anniversary, including performances at Bolshoi Theatre and Tchaikovsky Hall. According to his son, Robeson was disturbed as to why he could not find his many Jewish friends, most notably Itzik Feffer, a Yiddish poet, and Solomon Mikhoels, an actor and director. As Robeson persisted, the KGB brought Feffer to Robeson who told him that the room was bugged and that Solomon Mikhoels had been murdered by the NKVD. Feffer also communicated that his own life was in danger. As neither Robeson nor Feffer ever went public about the meeting, the event and its details remains a matter of both conjecture and controversy. During his concert in Tchaikovsky Hall on June 14 - which was broadcast across the entire country - Robeson publicly paid tribute to Feffer and the late Mikhoels, singing the Vilna Partisan song "Zog Nit Keynmol" in both Russian and Yiddish. Recordings of the concert survived but Robeson's spoken words are lost.

Back in the United States, Robeson stated that he did not encounter any persecution of Jews and other political prisoners, stating that he "met Jewish people all over the place.... I heard no word about it". Herbert Hill former labor director of the NACCP, commented on the reputed event fifty years later stating "just think what it would have meant if he had denounced this evil while in the Soviet Union and instead he comes back and he lies, he lies again and again and he knows better." Paul Robeson, Jr. said "he wasn't about to come to the United States and criticize the Soviet Union which in his mind was a barrier to world domination by the right wing of the United States."

Congressional statement by Jackie Robinson

This subsequent controversy over Robeson's remarks in Paris caused the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) to investigate Robeson.

HUAC sought Jackie Robinson's testimony on the subject. Robinson was reluctant to testify to HUAC on these matters, in part because of Robeson's prior advocacy on behalf of integration in professional baseball. In July 1949, Robinson eventually agreed to testify before HUAC, fearing that declining to do so might negatively and permanently damage his career. His testimony was a major media event, with Robinson's carefully-worded statement appearing on the front page of The New York Times the following day.While Robeson declined to comment on Robinson personally: "I am not going to permit the issue to boil down to a personal feud between me and Jackie. To do that, would be to do exactly what the other group wants us to do."

Civil Rights Congress and Trotskyists

In January 1949, Robeson led a conference of delegates to march on the White House, again demanding government action against lynching; President Truman refused to see them. Robeson spoke at the "Bill of Rights Conference", in New York, sponsored by CRC, again calling for an end to segregation and lynching. The 1,200 delegates issued a statement which said, in part, "We declare that Robeson does, indeed, speak for us, not only in his fight for full democratic rights, but also in his fight for peace." Robeson also spoke at a mass meeting of 1,500 sponsored by the Civil Rights Congress in support of the Trenton Six. At a Bill of Rights Conference in New York in July 1949, Robeson denounced a motion, which called for the freeing of nineteen members of the Socialist Workers Party convicted in 1941, calling the imprisoned Trotskyists- who were at odds with the Soviet leadership-"the allies of Fascism who want to destroy the new democracies of the world...let’s not get confused, they are the enemies of the working class. Would you give civil rights to the Ku Klux Klan?" Biographer Martin Duberman wrote, "it was not Robeson's finest hour." On August 4, 1949 Robeson also led a picket line in front of White House, called by United Public Workers of America to protest racist hiring practices at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, challenging President Truman to make good on his civil rights promises and enforce the Fair Employment Practices Act.

Peekskill Riots

In 1949, a popular concert by Robeson in Peekskill, New York, to benefit the Civil Rights Congress resulted in the Peekskill Riots caused by anti-Communist and anti-civil rights members of local Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion chapters and also by local residents. The concert, organized as a benefit for the Civil Rights Congress, was scheduled to take place on August 27 in Lakeland Acres, just north of Peekskill. Before Robeson arrived, a mob of locals attacked concert-goers with baseball bats and rocks. Thirteen people were seriously injured before the police intervened. The concert was postponed until September 4.

The rescheduled event, on September 4, 1949, was attended by 20,000 people and went off without incident but, after the concert, a violent mob, caught on film by the press, chanting "Go back to Russia you white Niggers" and "Dirty Kikes", threw rocks through the windshields of cars and buses. Standing off the angry mob of rioters, some of the concertgoers, and union members, along with writer Howard Fast and others assembled a non-violent line of resistance, locked arms, and sang the song "We Shall Not Be Moved." Some people were reportedly dragged from their vehicles and beaten. Over 140 people were injured and numerous vehicles were severely damaged as police stood by. Following the riots, more than 300 Robeson supporters went to Albany to voice their indignation to Governor Thomas Dewey, who refused to meet with them, blaming "Communists for provoking the violence." Twenty-seven plaintiffs filed a civil suit against Westchester County and two veterans groups. The charges were dismissed three years later. Paul Robeson called the actions of the New York state troopers, who were caught on film beating concert goers, including World War I veteran and first decorated Black aviator, Eugene Bullard, as "Fascist stormtroopers who will knock down and club anyone who disagrees with them" Photographs of Eugene Bullard being beaten by two policeman, a state trooper and concert-goer were later published in Susan Robeson's pictorial biography of her grandfather.

Passport ban and confinement (1950-1958)

In March 1950, NBC canceled Robeson’s scheduled appearance on former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s television program, Today with Mrs. Roosevelt. A spokesman for NBC declared that Robeson would "never appear on NBC." Press releases of the Civil Rights Congress objected that "censorship of Mr. Robeson's appearance on TV is a crude attempt to silence the outstanding spokesman for the Negro people in their fight for civil and human rights" and that our "basic democratic rights are under attack under the smoke-screen of anti-Communism." Protesters picketed NBC offices and protests arrived from numerous public figures, organizations and others. In 1976, following Robeson's death, NBC approached Paul Robeson, Jr. asking permission to create a three hour documentary on his father, an offer which was swiftly turned down. Robeson, Jr. felt that it was an offensive request given their previous treatment of his father during his lifetime.

Because of the controversy surrounding him, Paul Robeson's recordings and films lost mainstream distribution. During the height of the Cold War it became increasingly difficult in the United States to hear Robeson sing on commercial radio, buy his music or to see any of his films, including Show Boat. In the United States very little media footage of Robeson now exists, including in the library of congress, as the majority of U.S. newsreel footage has been either destroyed or has the sound erased. Martin Duberman wrote that "Robeson became an outcast, very nearly a nonperson."

Passport ban

In 1950, the State Department denied Robeson a passport and issued a "stop notice" at all ports, effectively confining him to the United States. Far from seeking to revoke his U.S. citizenship and deport, the FBI and state department records clearly advocate a blacklisted existence inside the United States borders would offer Robeson less freedom of expression than his presence internationally would. When Robeson and his lawyers met with officials at the State Department on August 23, 1950 and asked why it was "detrimental to the interests of the United States Government" for him to travel abroad, they were told that "his frequent criticism of the treatment of blacks in the United States should not be aired in foreign countries"—it was a "family affair." When Robeson inquired about being re-issued a passport, the State Department declined, citing Robeson’s refusal to sign a statement guaranteeing not to give any speeches while outside the U.S.

In a symbolic act of defiance against the travel ban, labor unions in the U.S. and Canada organized a concert at the International Peace Arch on the border between Washington state and the Canadian province of British Columbia on May 18, 1952. Paul Robeson stood on the back of a flat bed truck on the American side of the U.S.-Canada border and performed a concert for a crowd on the Canadian side, variously estimated at between 20,000 and 40,000 people. Robeson returned to perform a second concert at the Peace Arch in 1953, and over the next two years two further concerts were scheduled. (Officially, the travel ban did not prevent Robeson from entering Canada, as travel across the Canada-United States border did not require a passport, but the State Department directly intervened to block Robeson from traveling to Canada.) In 1956, Robeson left the United States for the first time since the travel ban was imposed, performing concerts in two Canadian cities, Sudbury and Toronto, in March of that year. The travel ban ended in 1958 when Robeson’s passport was returned to him after eight years.

"We Charge Genocide"

Though Robeson's passport was lifted in 1950, he continued to work for civil rights within the confines of the US despite being barred from traveling internationally, including the bringing to the United Nations on December 17, 1951 the document "We Charge Genocide". The document asserted that the U.S. 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. Hundreds of mob executions were documented in the petition in the section Evidence. (Although the petition states that there were at least 10,000 African Americans who had been executed, the real number will never be known because these incidents were never properly documented or recorded.) The petition also describes conspiracy against African Americans by inhibiting their ability to vote through poll taxes and literacy tests.

Paul Robeson "Lost Shepherd"

In 1951, J. Edgar Hoover and the state department, in collusion with the NAACP (and Roy Wilkins, editor of The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP), arranged for a ghost-written leaflet to be printed and distributed in Africa. Roger P. Ross a State Department public affairs officer working in Africa, issued three pages of detailed guidelines including the following instructions:

"USIE in the Gold Coast, and I suspect everywhere else in Africa, badly needs a through-going, sympathetic and regretful but straight talking treatment of the whole Robeson episode...there's no way the Communists score on us more easily and more effectively out here, than on the US. Negro problem in general, and on the Robeson case in particular. And, answering the latter, we go a long way toward answering the former. "

The finished article published by the NAACP was called Paul Robeson: Lost Shepherd, penned under the false name of "Robert Alan", whom the NAACP claimed was a "well known New York journalist." Another article by Roy Wilkins, called "Stalin's Greatest Defeat", denounced Robeson as well as the Communist Party of the USA in terms consistent with the FBI's information. declaration at The Paris Peace Conference in 1949, that African Americans would not support the United States in a war with the Soviet Union because of their continued lynchings and second-class citizen status under law following World War II, Roy Wilkins stated that regardless of the number of lynchings that were occurring or would occur, Black America would always serve in the armed forces. Wilkins also threatened to cancel a charter of an NAACP youth group in 1952 if they did not cancel their planned Robeson concert.

Stalin Peace Prize

In 1952, Robeson was awarded the International Stalin Prize by the Soviet Union. Being unable to travel to Moscow, Robeson received the award at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C.Robeson is often criticized for accepting the Stalin Peace Prize, eulogizing Stalin, and continuing to support the Soviet Union and not formally denouncing the regime, despite conflicting accounts that show his awareness of state-sponsored intimidation and murder. After Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalinism at the 1956 Party Congress, Robeson would neither publicly denounce nor praise Stalin personally, though he would continue to praise the Soviet Union. In 1956, Robeson, along with close friend W. E. B. Du Bois, compared the anti-Stalinist revolution in Hungary to the "same sort of people who overthrew the Spanish Republican Government" and supported the Soviet invasion and suppression of the revolt.

Robeson's defense of Socialism

Having experienced first hand during the 1930s a climate in Russia that he perceived as free from racial prejudice and then to see no western country or superpower actively attempt any comparable commitment to the rights of the working class, colonialist peoples or blacks, Robeson refused pressure to publicly censure the Soviet Union. Speaking out against Communism would have eased his passport restrictions and allowed him back into the mainstream of the entertainment world and the civil rights movement.Robeson refused, In his opinion, the existence of the USSR was the guarantee of political balance in the world.Virtually all of Robeson's biographers, including Martin Duberman, Philip S Foner, Scott Allen Nollen, Dr, Charles Wright, Marie Seton, Paul Robeson Jr and Lloyd Brown argue that he felt that criticism of the Soviet Union by someone of his international standing would only serve to shore up reactionary elements in the U.S. Paul Robeson's experiences in the USSR continue to cause controversy among historians and scholars as well as fans and journalists.

Testimony to House Committee on Un-American Activities

In 1956, Robeson was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities after he refused to sign an affidavit affirming that he was not a Communist. In response to questions concerning his alleged party membership, Robeson insisted that the Communist Party was a legal party and invited its members to join him in the voting booth before he invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to respond. Robeson refused to discuss Joseph Stalin, calling it "a question for the Soviet Union", instead lambasting committee members on civil rights issues and the enslavement and exploitation of blacks throughout American history. Asked why he hadn't remained in the Soviet Union, he replied that "because my father was a slave and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay here, and have a part of it just like you and no fascist minded people will drive me from it! Is that clear?"

International response

"Let Paul Robeson Sing"

Campaigns were simultaneously launched in US and England to protest the passport ban. In England, The National Paul Robeson Committee was formed, sponsored by Members of Parliament and other notables—writers, scholars, actors, lawyers, trade union leaders and titled persons. The Committee began a "Let Paul Robeson Sing" mass petition campaign, which gathered signatures from tens of thousands of supporters. Over the next four years, many prominent figures in Britain spoke out, as individuals and through their organizations, for the restoration Robeson’s right to travel. The group held a conference and concert at St Pancras Town Hall, London headed by Cedric Belfrage, on 26 May 1957 with Robeson singing direct from New York over the phone.

Trans-Atlantic phone concert for the Welsh Miners

In 1957, Robeson was invited by Welsh miners to be the honored guest at the annual Eisteddfod Music Festival. His passport confiscated since 1950, an appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected. Yet via the newly completed trans-Atlantic telephone hook-up between New York and Porthcawl, Wales, Robeson was able to sing to the 5,000 gathered there as he had earlier in the year to London. Journalist Gil Noble called the concert "perhaps the most emotional and moving in Robeson's long concert career."

Omission from history books

Due to Robeson's lengthy and extensive blacklisting during the 1950s, his long career and achievements are difficult to find in most mainstream interpretations of history, including in-depth books on sports history, entertainment, civil rights and black history. Despite Robeson's lengthy theater career, Brooks Atkinson, New York Times theater critic from 1925 to 1960, included just a one-sentence reference to Robeson in his book Broadway, advertised as "an in-depth history of American theater.Atkinson chronicles African-American performers, Show Boat and Eugene O'Neill but only mentions Robeson briefly in context with Othelllo. In the early 1970s, The New York Times and The New York Daily News would both run extensive pieces on black actors who played Othello with no mention of Robeson. Robeson's name was also not listed in the American edition of Marquis Who's Who, appearing in only the international editions. In the early 1970s, then Rutgers professor Eugene H. Robinson found that Robeson was not mentioned in nine different American encyclopedias. Professor Harold Weaver estimated that 75% of black students at Rutgers did not know who Robeson was.

Robeson's name was also retroactively struck from the roster of the 1917 and 1918 college All-America football team. Robeson's name would not be fully restored to the Rutgers University sports records until 45 years later in 1995. The 1950 volume, College Football Hall of Fame, labeled "the most complete record on college football," also omits Robeson, identifying only a ten-man team.In November 2010, BBC Two premiered a documentary on American social movements entitled American Dream: Plenty and Paranoid, with interviewee and Robeson family friend Pete Seeger, alongside extensive footage of the Peekskill Riots, but included no mention of Robeson.

Comeback (1958-1963)

Robeson's autobiography, Here I Stand, was published by a British publishing company in 1958. As part of his "comeback", he gave two sold-out recitals that month in Carnegie Hall, which were released on LP and later on CD. They would be his only stereo recordings. Also that year, Robeson's 60th birthday was celebrated in several US cities and twenty-seven countries across Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa, as well as in the Soviet Union. Later, in May 1958, his passport was finally restored and he was able to travel again, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Kent vs. Dulles, that the Secretary of State had no right to deny a passport or require any citizen to sign an affidavit because of his political beliefs. Robeson and Eslanda moved to the United Kingdom landing there on July, 11th 1958 and traveled extensively, using London as their base of operations. During this period Robeson was under constant surveillance by the CIA, MI6 and the State Department.

England and the U.S.S.R

In the United Kingdom, Robeson quickly found himself deluged with professional offers. His numerous appearances included a formal concert Albert Hall and a book autographing party and Selfridges. In August, 1959 he left for Moscow where he received a tumultuous reception and needed a police escort at the airport. A crowd of eighteen thousand people filled the Lenin Stadium (Khabarovsk) to capacity on August 17, 1959 where Robeson sang classic Russian songs along with his standards. Robeson and Eslanda then flew to Uzbekistan to spend time at Yalta resting, working with a documentary film crew and spending time with Khrushchev. Robeson also visited Young Pioneer camp Artek before heading back to the UK for a tour of the isles. On October 11, 1950 Robeson took part in a historic service at St.Paul's Cathedral , being both the first black and secular performer to sing there. Four thousand people attended the evensong performance with hundreds overflowing onto the streets. Robeson had then planned to leave for India as guest of Nehru but was thwarted due to weather. Prior to his purported arrival, the state department began circulating negative literature about him throughout the media in India. One censored CIA memo even mentioned how Robeson's upcoming appearance could be used to thwart the desegregation of a swimming pool. On a trip to Moscow, Robeson started to develop bouts of dizziness and the beginning of heart problems. His trip India was canceled and he was hospitalized for two months along with his wife Eslanda who diagnosed with operable cancer.

Wales and final performance of Othello

Robeson recovered and returned to the U.K. to fulfill his engagements.In 1958, he visited the National Eisteddfod in Ebbw Vale as the guest of the local MP Aneurin Bevan, revisited his ties to the black community in Cardiff’s Butetown and gave performances throughout Europe. During his run at the Royal Shakespeare Company playing Othello in Tony Richardson's 1959 production at Stratford-upon-Avon, he befriended actor Andrew Faulds who's family he was staying with in the nearby village of Shottery while performing. Robeson inspired him to take up a career in politics after admonishing him for being apolitical. The production of Othello was geared towards Robeson's health concerns but gave him a lucrative seven month run and chance to participate in an updated version of the play directed by Tony Richardson. In 1960, in what would prove to be Paul Robeson's final concert performance in Great Britain, he sang with the Welsh Male Voice Choir, Côr Meibion Cwmbach, to raise money for the Movement for Colonial Freedom at the Royal Festival Hall.

Final concert tour

Though starting to show the beginning of heart problems and fatigue, Robeson accepted a lucrative tour of Australia, and New Zealand. Apart from his public concerts, he spoke about unionism and the indigenous peoples of both countries then sang several numbers. The most notable of Robeson’s appearances was his performance at the Sydney Opera House: still under construction at the time, Robeson stood on the foundations and sang 'Ol Man River' and 'Joe Hill'. Many of the workers had him autograph their hard hats following the performance. Robeson also sang to striking waterside workers in Wellington and accepted membership in their Union. The nine week tour would prove to be the final concert tour of his forty year career.

Anger at the press

Paul Robeson's 1960 tour of Australia and New Zealand became the first time news-sources of diverse political views reported that he was responding to questions at press conferences with "anger and bitterness." Some headlines included The Herald printing, "Would Back Russia in a War" and "Robeson Bitterly Critical of the U.S.," with the Telegraph stating "I Wish He Was Still Bosambo." In Auckland he reputedly told the press he was only "here to sing" and then declared himself a "rigid Marxist.". While expressing concern about the mistreatment of the Maoris Robeson said, "I want to learn Maori songs and as much as I can of the Maori language." and "...the people of the lands of Socialism want peace dearly,"

Support for the Australian Aborigines

Visiting rural community centers and presented with indigenous art including a painting by Australian artist Albert Namatjira, Davis recalled Robeson's arrival in Perth on the last leg of his tour,

"...when he spotted a group of local aborigines shyly hanging back, he instantly headed for them, moving through the crowd like a full back. When he reached them, he literally gathered the nearest half dozen in his great arms, and when he moved toward his waiting transport, the aborigines moved with him. Davies heard one of the little girls say, almost in wonder, 'Mum, he likes us.'"

Lloyd Davis felt that Robeson's words and gestures during his tour "gave a tremendous boost to the aboriginal cause"

Robeson was never to return to Australia and New Zealand, due to poor health. Back in London, he began to plan his return to the U.S. to participate in the Civil Rights Movement, stopping off in Africa, China and Cuba along the way. His wife Eslanda argued to stay in London, fearing that he'd be "killed" if he returned to the US and "unable to make any money" due to harassment by the US government. Robeson disagreed and made his own travel arrangements stopping off in Moscow in March 1961.It was there that he cut his wrists and was hospitalized a few weeks after arriving. His severe health problems began and would not fully abate for the next five years.

Health breakdown(1963-1965)

In spring of 1961, Robeson again traveled to the Soviet Union, in what would be his last visit. During a party in his Moscow hotel room, he locked himself in his bedroom and attempted suicide by cutting his wrists. Paul Robeson stayed at the Barvikha Sanatorium until September 1961, when he left Moscow for London. There his depression re-emerged, as he suffered a panic attack while passing the Soviet Embassy, and was admitted to The Priory hospital, where he underwent electroconvulsive therapy. Disturbed over such treatment, friends of Robeson had him eventually transferred to Buch Clinic in East Berlin. The physicians found him "completely without initiative" and they expressed "doubt and anger" about the "high level of barbiturates and ECT" that had been administered in London. He rapidly improved though, his doctor stressed that "what little is left of Paul's health must be quietly conserved."

During his treatment at the Priory, Robeson was being monitored by the British MI5. Both U.S. and British intelligence services were well aware of Robeson's suicidal state of mind. An FBI memo described Robeson's debilitated condition, remarking that his "death would be much publicized" and would be used for Communist propaganda, making continued surveillance imperative. Numerous memos also advised that Robeson should be denied a passport renewal which would ostensibly jeopardize his fragile health and the recovery process he was engaged in overseas. He remembered that his father had such fears prior to his prostrate operation, and documented that three doctors treating Robeson in London and New York had been CIA contractors. Martin Duberman posits that given the most available evidence, Paul Robeson's health breakdown was brought on most by a combination of factors including extreme emotional and physical stress, bipolar depression, exhaustion and the beginning of circulatory and heart problems. Duberman added that "even without an organic predisposition and accumulated pressures of government harassment he might have been susceptible to a breakdown

Later years (1966-1976)

, Philadelphia]] In 1963, Robeson eventually returned to the United States but for the remainder of his life he would be plagued by ill health. He had intended to assume a role in the civil rights movement, He first lived in Harlem with his wife. After Eslanda died of cancer December 23, 1965, Robeson in 1966 moved in with his son's family in a large Upper West Side apartment in New York City and in 1968, he finally settled at his sister's home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Robeson sang the spiritual "We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder" in what would turn out to be his last major public appearance.

Death and funeral service

On January 23, 1976, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the age of 77, Paul Robeson died of a stroke following "complications from a 'severe cerebral vascular disorder.'" He lay in state for a viewing at Benta's Funeral Home in Harlem for two days. His granddaughter, Susan Robeson, recalled "...watching this parade of humanity who came to pay their respects...from the numbers runner on the corner to Gustaf VI Adolf, King of Sweden."

Condolences came from around the world, including Coretta Scott King, who deplored "America's inexcusable treatment" of a man who had had "the courage to point out her injustices." According to Robeson biographer, Martin Duberman:

"The white press, after decades of harassing Robeson, now tipped its hat to a 'great American,' paid its gingerly respect in editorials that ascribed the vituperation leveled at Robeson in his lifetime to the Bad Old Days of the Cold War, implied those days were forever gone, downplayed the racist component central to his persecution, and ignored the continuing inability of white America to tolerate a black maverick who refused to bend. The black press made no such mistakes. It had never, overall, been as hostile to Robeson as the white press, (though at some points in his career, nearly so)." Thousands more, mostly African Americans, stood outside in the rain throughout the service, listening on the public address system as speakers, including Harry Belafonte, paid tribute. The archives were founded by Victor Grossman, a journalist for GDR radio and are now located at the John F. Kennedy School in Berlin. Due to meticulous collecting by Eslanda Robeson, over 55,000 pieces of Robeson related memorabilia, film, books, photos and ephemera were archived and cataloged into "The Paul and Eslanda Robeson Archives." Formally established in 1973, the archives are closed to the public but open to select scholars. The collection is housed at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University.

Posthumous honors

1970s

The first memorial following Robeson's 1976 funeral was a tribute held in US House of Representatives January 28, 1976. Throughout 1976 memorials were held at Rutgers; The World Peace Council in Athens, Greece; Columbia University, New York City; Toronto; Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.; and by Actor's Equity in Los Angeles. and art gallery after him. and Rutgers University New Brunswick Campus named one of their cultural centers, The Paul Robeson Cultural Center. In addition, the Rutgers-Camden campus also named their library, the Paul Robeson Library.

During the centenary of Paul Robeson's birth in 1998, around the world, over four hundred celebrations took place with over twenty Robeson centennial events held in the San Francisco Bay area alone. These included film showings, musical and educational programs, art exhibitions, a two-hour PBS documentary, as well as the presentation of the Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award. President Bill Clinton sent a greeting to celebration of the Robeson Centennial in Westchester County, New York, stating: “A century after Paul Robeson’s birth, we live in a nation that is stronger because of his vision and eloquent voice.”

In 1998 the San Francisco Bay Area Post of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade presented "Paul Robeson: The Artist Must Take Sides" in tribute. The program consisted of a dramatic performance by the San Francisco Mime Troupe, with slides and commentary, and keynote speaker Professor Sterling Stuckey. Paul Robeson's image is also featured prominently in a historical monument dedicated to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade which was unveiled on The Embarcadero, San Francisco in 2008 by actor Peter Coyote.

2000s

Robeson has remained a celebrated cultural figure in Wales. The exhibition Let Paul Robeson Sing! was unveiled in Cardiff in 2001, then toured several Welsh towns and cities. A number of Welsh artists have celebrated Robeson's life: the Manic Street Preachers' song "Let Robeson Sing" appears on the album Know Your Enemy. The band also covered "Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel?"— the spiritual sung by Robeson as part of his 1957 telephone performance. The play Paul Robeson Knew My Father by Greg Cullen, set in the Rhondda during the 1950s, features a character with a childhood obsession for Robeson's music and films. Martyn Joseph's song "Proud Valley Boy" on his 2005 album Deep Blue is also based on Robeson's Welsh connections. In 2010 Susan Robeson, as an honorary fellow of Swansea University, visited Ebbw Vale and at the 2010 Eisteddfod launched a project by the university, in conjunction with the Paul Robeson Wales Trust and the Welsh Assembly, to create an online learning resource in her grandfather's memory.

In 2004 Paul Robeson was featured on a US postage stamp. The Paul Robeson Commemorative Postage Stamp is the 27th stamp in the Black Heritage Series.The national Stamp Unveiling Ceremony was held on January 20, 2004 at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, Robeson’s birthplace, with Paul Robeson, Jr. participating. On September 26, 2009, Edgecombe Avenue and 160th Street in Washington Heights, Manhattan, were renamed as Paul Robeson Boulevard and Count Basie Place. The corner is the location of 555 Edgecombe Avenue, also known as the Paul Robeson Home, a National Historic Landmarked building where Paul Robeson and Count Basie lived.

An "heirloom tomato" has been named after Paul Robeson.

Filmography

Body and Soul (1924)

Camille (1926)

Borderline (1930)

The Emperor Jones (1933)

Sanders of the River (1935)

Show Boat (1936)

Song of Freedom (1936)

Big Fella (1937)

My Song Goes Forth (1937)

King Solomon's Mines (1937)

Jericho/Dark Sands (1937)

The Proud Valley (1940)

Native Land (1942)

Tales of Manhattan (1942)

The Song of the Rivers (1954)

Works

Robeson, Paul. Here I Stand. Beacon Press (1958), (1971 edition with Preface by Lloyd L. Brown), (January 1, 1998). 160 pages. ISBN 0-8070-6445-9.

Paul Robeson Speaks: Writings, Speeches, Interviews, 1918–1974, edited with an introduction by Philip S. Foner, Brunner, 1978.

Edited collections of writings

Paul Robeson: Tributes, Selected Writings, compiled and edited by Roberta Yancy Dent with the assistance of Marilyn Robeson and Paul Robeson, Jr., The Archives, 1976.

(Contributor) "The Great Forerunner", Freedomways, 1971, new edition, Dodd, 1978, enlarged, 1985.

See also

Paul Robeson High School, a four year (9th–12th grades) business and technology high school in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood

Notes

References

Balaji, Murali. The Professor and the Pupil: The Politics and Friendship of W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson (Nation Books, 2007) ISBN 1-56858-355-9

Bogle, Donald (2001). Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films, Fourth Edition

Boyle, Sheila Tully, and Andrew Bunie (2001). Paul Robeson: The Years of Promise and Achievement. University of Massachusetts Press ISBN 1-55849-149-X

Brown, Lloyd (1998) On My Journey Now: The Young Paul Robeson Basic Books ISBN 0813331773

Du Bois, Shirley Graham. Paul Robeson, Citizen of the World. (Julian Messner, June 1, 1971) ISBN 0-671-32464-0; (Greenwood Pub Group, January 1, 1972) ISBN 0-86543-468-9; (Africa World Pr, January 1, 1998), ISBN 0-86543-469-7; (Africa World Pr, April 1, 1998), ISBN 0-8371-6055-3

Duberman, Martin Bauml (1988). Paul Robeson Alfred A. Knopf, 1988. Also Reissue edition (1995) New Press. ISBN 1-56584-288-X.

Dorinson, Joseph and William Pencak with foreword by Henry Foner. Paul Robeson: Essays on His Life and Legacy (Oct 15, 2004) ISBN 0-7864-1153-8;

Foner, Philip S. Paul Robeson Speaks: Writings, Speeches, and Interviews, a Centennial Celebration. Citadel Press; Reprint edition (September 1, 1982). 644 pages. ISBN 0-8065-0815-9.

Ford, Carin T (2001). Paul Robeson: "I Want to make Freedom Ring". Enslow Publishers

Holmes, Burnham. ''Paul Robeson: A Voice of Struggle (Heinemann Library, September 1, 1994) ISBN 0-8114-2381-6

Larsen, Rebecca. Paul Robeson: Hero Before His Time (Franklin Watts, September 1, 1989), ISBN 0-531-10779-5

McKissack, Pat, Fredrick McKissack and Michael David Biegel (illustrator). Paul Robeson: A Voice to Remember. Library (Enslow Pub Inc, May 1, 2001), ISBN 0-89490-310-1

Nash, Elizabeth. "Autobiographical Reminiscences of African-American Classical Singers, 1853-Present".(Edwin Mellen Press, 2007). ISBN 0-7734-5250-8.(192-194, 438-445)

Nollen, Scott Allen (2010). Paul Robeson: Film Pioneer.. McFarland. ISBN 0786435208

Nash, Elizabeth. "Autobiographical Reminiscences of African-American Classical Singers, 1853-Present".(Edwin Mellen Press, 2007). ISBN 0-7734-5250-8.(192-194, 438-445)

Robeson, Eslanda. Paul Robeson, Negro, V. Gollancz; 1st edition (1930) ASIN: B0006E8ML4

Robeson Jr., Paul. (1971) "Paul Robeson: Black Warrior", in Freedomways The Great Forerunner, pages 3–16

Robeson Jr., Paul. The Undiscovered Paul Robeson , An Artist's Journey, 1898-1939.(Wiley; 1St edition (March 2, 2001) ISBN 0471242659

Robeson Jr., Paul. The Undiscovered Paul Robeson, Quest for Freedom, 1940-1976(Wiley; 1St Edition edition (January 26, 2010) ISBN 0471409731

Robeson, Susan (1981). The Whole World in His Hands: A Pictorial Biography of Paul Robeson Citadel Press; 1st edition ISBN 0806507543

Reiner, Carl. How Paul Robeson Saved My Life and Other Mostly Happy Stories (Cliff Street Books, October 1, 1999), Cassette/Spoken Word (Dove Entertainment Inc, October 1, 1999). ISBN 0-06-019451-0

Seton, Marie (1958). Paul Robeson. D. Dobson.

Stewart, Jeffrey C. (editor); Paul Robeson Cultural Center; Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum (corporate author). Paul Robeson: Artist and Citizen. Hardcover (Rutgers Univ Pr, April 1, 1998) ISBN 0-8135-2510-1, Paperback (Rutgers Univ Pr, April 1, 1998) ISBN 0-8135-2511-X

Stuckey, Sterling. I Want to Be African: Paul Robeson and the Ends of Nationalist Theory and Practice, 1919–1945 (Univ of California Center for Afro, June 1, 1976) ISBN 0-934934-15-0

Wright, Charles. Paul Robeson: Labor's Forgotten Champion (Balamp Pub Co; First Printing edition (June 1975)) ISBN 0913642061

Wright, David K. Paul Robeson: Actor, Singer, Political Activist (Univ of California Center for Afro, June 1, 1976) ISBN 0-934934-15-0

Rappaport, Louis. Stalin's War Against the Jews: The Doctors Plot & The Soviet Solution, Free Press (October 1, 1990) ISBN 0-02-925821-9

Turner, Charlotte (1986). Paul Robeson's Last Days in Philadelphia

Further reading

Film documentaries concerning Paul Robeson

The Tallest Tree in Our Forest (1977)

(1979)

(1998)

directed by St. Clair Bourne. PBS American Masters (1999), Winstar Home Entertainment.

External links

The Paul Robeson Foundation, Inc.

Paul Robeson digital archive at Rutgers University

The Bay Area Paul Robeson Centennial Committee

The Robeson Centennial Celebration

Rutgers Celebrates the Paul Robeson Stamp

Paul Robeson Awards

The Paul Robeson Collection

Testimony of Paul Robeson before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, June 12, 1956

The Freedom Archives

American Masters: Paul Robeson

Paul Robeson Cultural Center

The FBI Files of Paul Robeson

Discography

Paul Robeson singing the English version of the U.S.S.R. anthem

Tony Benn">BBC site celebrating Robeson with contributions by Tony Benn

Paul Robeson sings "Just a-Wearyin' for You" w. Frank Lebby Stanton m. Carrie Jacobs-Bond

Paul Robeson sings "A Perfect Day" by Carrie Jacobs-Bond

Paul Robeson in Berlin with Aubrey Pankey Photographed in 1960

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Kari Tapio (born Kari Tapani Jalkanen, November 22, 1945 – December 7, 2010) was a Finnish schlager singer. He was one of the most popular singers in Finland for decades.

Tapio was born in Suonenjoki, Finland. In the 1960s Tapio performed in his home town Pieksämäki with the local bands ER-Quartet and Jami & The Noisemakers. In 1966 he took singing lessons from Ture Ara.

After his first single "Tuuli kääntyköön"/"Niskavuoren nuorimmainen" in 1972 Kari Tapio performed in Ilkka "Danny" Lipsanen's show. In the beginning his role was to take care of the snake that was used in the show. Before music became a job for him Kari Tapio worked as a typesetter in a printing house.

In 1976 Tapio finally broke through with his single "Laula kanssain" ("Sing With Me") which was followed by "Viisitoista kesää" (a Finnish cover of Living Next Door to Alice) and "Kaipuu" ("Desire"). In later years "Olen suomalainen" ("I am Finnish", a finnish cover of Toto Cutugno's "L'Italiano"), "Myrskyn jälkeen" ("After the Storm"), "En pyydä paljon" ("I Don't Ask For Much") and the newest "Paalupaikka" ("Pole Position"), among others, have been his most popular songs. In 2003 the Iskelmä-Finlandia award was given to him.

Many of Tapio's songs have influences from country music. He has done lots of Finnish versions of the songs of Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristoffersson.

Tapio was one of the candidates to represent Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 with the song "Valaise yö". In the finals, he was placed second, and Teräsbetoni was chosen to represent Finland.

Tapio died of a heart attack in Espoo, Finland.

Discography

Albums

Aikapommi (1974) (with Erkki Liikanen)

Nostalgiaa (1976)

Klabbi (1976)

Kaipuu (1977)

Kari Tapio (1979)

Jää vierellein (1981)

Olen suomalainen (1983)

Ovi elämään (1984)

Osa minusta (1986)

Elämän viulut (1987)

Tää kaipuu (1988)

Aikaan täysikuun (1990)

Yön tuuli vain (1992)

Sinitaikaa (1993)

Laulaja (1994)

Myrskyn jälkeen (1995) #23

Meren kuisketta (1997) #9

Sinut tulen aina muistamaan (1998) #7

Valoon päin (1999) #5

Bella Capri (2000) #6

Kari Tapio konserttilavalla (2001) #30

Joulun tarina (2001)

Juna kulkee (2003) #4

Toiset on luotuja kulkemaan (2004) #5

Paalupaikka (2005) #5

Kuin taivaisiin (2007) #1

Kaksi maailmaa (March 26, 2008)

Compilations

28 suosituinta levytystä (1987)

Toivotut (1992)

Viisitoista kesää (1995)

20 suosikkia – Olen suomalainen (1995)

20 suosikkia – Luoksesi Tukholmaan (1997)

Parhaat (1997)

Kaikki parhaat (1999) #2

20 suosikkia – Kulkurin kyyneleet (2001)

20 suosikkia – Sanoit liian paljon (2001)

Kaikkien aikojen parhaat – 40 klassikkoa (2002) #17

Nostalgia (2005)

Lauluja rakkaudesta (2006) #13

References

External links

MySpace

Facebook

Last.FM

Category:1945 births Category:2010 deaths Category:People from Suonenjoki Category:Finnish singers Category:Finnish-language singers Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction