Paul Robeson stood out in multiple fields as an athlete, performer, vocalist, and advocate for social change, embodying the spirit of a modern polymath. His initial successes on the gridiron as a pro athlete, his law degree from Columbia, and his stage work in 1920s New York appeared merely as early markers of greater distinction ahead. Political engagement with leftist circles during the 1940s, though, sparked a direct clash with the House Un-American Activities Committee by the decade’s end. The ensuing blacklist stripped him of his passport and abruptly ended his professional momentum.
Born April 9, 1898, in Princeton, New Jersey, Robeson grew up with a father who had escaped slavery to become a Methodist preacher; his mother perished in a kitchen fire when he was only six. At seventeen he became the third Black enrollee at Rutgers College, now Rutgers University, where he earned All-American honors in football and earned letters across four sports. Racial barriers nonetheless clouded these feats, as teammates routinely targeted him and the glee club denied him entry. After college he sustained his legal studies at Columbia University by playing weekend professional football. Upon graduation he briefly joined a New York firm, only to resign after a stenographer declined to transcribe his work with the words, “I never take diction from a n*****.”
Already familiar with the stage, Robeson received encouragement from his wife, Eslanda Cardozo Goode, to commit to acting. He debuted on Broadway in 1922 as Jim in Jim H. Harris’ Taboo, then took the same role to England. Back in New York he performed with Eugene O’Neill’s Greenwich Village Provincetown Players in All God’s Chillun Got Wings and earned strong notices for the title role in The Emperor Jones in 1925. Over the following three years he sang Black spirituals across both countries and drew widespread attention as Joe in Showboat.
For roughly a decade Robeson resided overseas, sidestepping the racial tensions then rising in the United States. He played Othello and The Hairy Ape, performed throughout Europe, and visited Russia, where audiences welcomed him warmly. By the late 1930s he had begun questioning his earlier reluctance to engage politically; after performing for Republican forces in Spain, he adopted communist principles and chose to return home to confront racism directly. Once stateside he protested lynchings, demonstrated at the White House, and declined bookings before segregated crowds.
Despite his growing political involvement, Robeson sustained a full performance calendar in the early 1940s, delivering a radio rendition of Ballad for Americans and taking the lead in the first American Othello to feature a Black actor. His public stances, including the suggestion that Black citizens might refuse military service should the United States enter war with Russia, soon drew official scrutiny. Questioned by HUAC about why he had not moved to Russia, he answered: “Because my father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay right here and have a part of it just like you.”
In 1950 the State Department confiscated his passport, confining him to the United States where the blacklist persisted. Even the 1958 publication of his autobiography went unnoticed by The New York Times and The New York Herald-Tribune. Passport restoration that same year allowed renewed travel to Britain and Russia, where his popularity endured. After further stage engagements in Europe and Australia, declining health prompted his return to the United States in 1963.
Estranged from many earlier allies, Robeson twice attempted suicide and endured repeated breakdowns while relying on psychotropic medication. Observers found it striking that, during the very decades when African Americans mounted active campaigns for equality, this longtime proponent of those causes remained largely withdrawn. Recognition nevertheless continued: on April 15, 1973, admirers assembled at Carnegie Hall to mark his seventy-fifth birthday. Admitted to Philadelphia’s Presbyterian University Hospital on December 28, 1975, after a severe stroke, Robeson died on January 23, 1976.
