FREE ESSAY ON PAUL THE GREAT

PAUL THE GREAT

Paul the Great
The exhibit I viewed was a very interesting exhibit. It had lots of great
information about Robeson and his accomplishments. When I walked in the
museum I saw that there were other exhibits. They were interesting also. Paul
Robeson was a famous African-American athlete, singer, actor, and advocate
for the civil rights of people around the world. He was perhaps the best
known and most widely respected black American of the 1930s and 1940s. 
As a young man, Robeson was virile, charismatic, eloquent, and powerful. He
learned to speak more than 20 languages in order to break down the barriers
of race and ignorance throughout the world, and yet, as pointed out in the
New York Times Book Review, for the last 25 years of his life his was a
great whisper and a greater silence in black America. Born in Princeton, New
Jersey, in 1898, Robeson was spared most of the daily brutalities suffered by
African Americans around the turn of the century. But his family was not
totally free from hardship. Robeson's mother died from a stove-fire accident
when he was six. His father, a runaway slave who became a pastor, was removed
from an early ministerial position. Nonetheless, from his father Robeson
learned diligence and an unshakable dignity and courage in spite of the
press of racism and poverty. These characteristics, The New York Times
noted, defined Robeson's approach in his beliefs and actions throughout his
life. Having excelled in both scholastics and athletics as a youth, Robeson
received a scholarship to Rutgers College (now University), where he was
elected to Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year and chosen valedictorian in his
senior. He earned varsity letters in four sports and was named Rutgers' first
All-American in football. Fueled by his class prophecy to be the leader of
the colored race in America, Robeson went on to earn a law degree from
Columbia University, supporting himself by playing professional football on
the weekends. After graduation he obtained a position with a New York law
firm only to have his career halted. While in law school, Robeson had married
fellow Columbia student Eslanda Cardozo Goode, who encouraged him to act in
amateur theatrical productions. Convinced by his wife and friends to return
to the theater after his departure from law, Robeson joined the Provincetown
Players, a group associated with playwright Eugene O'Neill. Two productions
in which he starred, The Emperor Jones and All God's Chillun Got Wings,
brought Robeson critical acclaim. Thus Robeson continued on the stage,
winning applause from critics and audiences, gaining an international
reputation for his performances on the London stage, and eventually extending
his acting repertoire to include films. In Show Boat he sang the immensely
popular Ol' Man River, displaying a powerful, warm, soothing voice. Robeson
had been giving solo vocal performances since 1925, but it wasn't until he
traveled to Britain that his singing became for him a moral cause. A critical
journey at that time, one that changed the course of his life, was to the
Soviet Union. Regardless of his ostensibly simple desire to believe in a
cultural genealogy, Robeson soon become a vocal advocate of Communism and
other left-wing causes. After World War II, when relations between the United
States and the Soviet Union froze into the Cold War, many former advocates of
communism backed away from it. When the crimes of Soviet leader Josef Stalin
became public--forced famine, genocide, and political purges--still more
advocates left the ranks of communism. After he urged black youths not to
fight if the United States went to war against the Soviet Union; a riot
prevented his appearing at a concert in Peekskill, New York. But his desire
was never to leave the United States, just to change, as he believed, the
racist attitude of its people. In 1950 the U.S. Department of State revoked
Robeson's passport, ensuring that he would remain in the United States. He
was black-listed by concert managers--his income, which had been Robeson's
passport was restored in 1958 after a Supreme Court ruling on a similar case,
but it was of little consequence. When Robeson's autobiography was published
that year, leading literary journals, including the New York Times and the
New York Herald-Tribune refused to review it. Robeson traveled again to the
Soviet Union, but his health began to fail. He tried twice to commit suicide.
He became depressed at the loss of contact with audiences and friends, and
suffered a series of breakdowns that left him withdrawn and dependent on
psychotropic drugs slowly deteriorating and virtually unheard from in the
1960s and 1970s, Robeson died after suffering a stroke in 1976. 
During his life Paul Robeson inspired thousands with his voice--raised in
speech and song. But because of his singular support for communism and
Stalin, Robeson disappeared in sadness and loneliness. His life, full of
desire and achievement, passion and conviction, the story of a man who did
so much to break down the barriers of a racist society, only to be brought
down by the controversies sparked by his own radical politics. After viewing
the exhibit, it inspired me to be just as good as Robeson.