The festivities in India threatened for a time to produce serious political repercussions. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru himself issued a proclamation hailing the planned celebration of Robeson’s sixtieth birthday as a fitting tribute, “not only because Paul Robeson is one of the greatest artists of our generation, but also because he has represented and suffered for a cause which should be dear to all of us—the cause of human dignity.” The American press, which ignored all other birthday tributes to Robeson, did publicize Nehru’s comment—disturbing U.S. Embassy officials in New Delhi, especially Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, and briefly threatening to damage diplomatic relations between the two countries.35
Attempting to exert pressure on the Indian government to cancel plans for the celebration, Ambassador Bunker found a sympathetic ear in Secretary General Pillai, who purportedly told him that he, too, was “very concerned” about the Robeson affair: he was himself “continually having difficulty with ‘woolly headed Nationalists’ who were easy dupes of Communists.” American Chargé d’Affaires Turner in Bombay called on M. C. Chagla, Chief Justice of the High Court, to express “puzzlement” at the decision to honor an American “who is currently engaged [in a] lawsuit with [the] U.S. government, who is critical of his own country and has compared it unfavorably with [the] USSR.” Turner warned that “Americans would certainly interpret [the] celebration as Communist-inspired and even anti-American and that many would regard” it “as evidence that India was going Communist.” Unintimidated, Chagla “stoutly defended” the purpose of the celebration, and added with dignity that his own presence on the committee “was guarantee against political flavor or Communist inspiration.” In Washington, India’s Ambassador Mehta stood up just as strongly. Called in by the State Department, he pointed out that Robeson was not a “convicted Communist” and that Prime Minister Nehru, Judge Chagla, and others involved in the birthday event were not Communists—“he didn’t understand why anyone was concerned about this celebration in India.”36
Nehru slightly modified his tribute to Robeson in a subsequent statement but refused to withdraw it. He did, however, leave additional planning and comment to his daughter, Indira Gandhi, who actively promoted the birthday celebration. Unable to budge the Indian government, Secretary of State Dulles and Ambassador Bunker, as a fallback protest, instructed all U.S. officials to refuse invitations. The elaborate festivities climaxed in simultaneous events in Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta, and Luck-now, with Chief Justice Chagla presiding in Bombay—and with no U.S. officials present. Essie sent thanks to both father and daughter: “There are just no words,” she wrote Nehru, “to express how deeply grateful we are for your statement.… It was beautifully said, and at exactly the right time for maximum effectiveness.”37
The following month Robeson logged another milestone on the road to restoration. After more than a decade’s absence from the New York City concert stage, he reappeared at Carnegie Hall for what turned into a jubilant occasion. Fifteen policemen were stationed at the hall for the sold-out concert, but not even the whisper of a disturbance occurred. The crowd cheered Robeson on his arrival, rose to its feet three times during the concert to cheer him again, and at the conclusion shouted and whistled its approval. The critics were almost as kind. Those who felt his voice had “lost much of its old glow” (in the words of one reviewer) charitably focused instead on his undiluted power over an audience—his “incomparable vigor of presentation and limitless charm.” Sonorous and playful, Robeson treated his listeners to a recital that mixed song with comments, laughter, reminiscence, even a bit of dancing. He was delighted to be performing again and gratified by his reception; the success of the concert, he told Ben Davis, opened up “entirely new vistas.” His only disappointment was that the hall had mostly been filled with whites. To remedy that, he scheduled a second concert and saw to it that hundreds of tickets were distributed through Micheaux Bookstore and other Harlem outlets. That one, too, sold out. (Still, when Edith Tiger, who had known him well during Progressive Party days, went backstage, she found him feeling “awful.” He told her his kidneys were causing him trouble. Then he said that it was his “nerve endings,” that he had shingles and couldn’t wear clothes comfortably. Edith thought something else was wrong: “His eyes were terrible.”) Two weeks later, Robeson gave a memorable concert at Mother A.M.E. Zion, his brother Ben’s church. Alan Booth had been accompanying him for most of his few concerts of recent years, but for the A.M.E. Zion event Robeson was reunited with Larry Brown. “I want the folks of Mother Zion to know,” Robeson told the overflow crowd, “that a lot of the hard struggle is over and that my concert career has practically been reestablished all over this land.… I’ve been waiting for this afternoon just to come back to give my thanks here.…”38
The best news of all finally—incredibly, when measured against the years of deflating delays—came in June. The Supreme Court, in a 5–4 split decision (William O. Douglas writing for the majority) on the related Rockwell Kent and Walter Briehl cases, announced that the Secretary of State had no right to deny a passport to any citizen because of his political beliefs. The court added that the Passport Division had no right to demand that an applicant sign an affidavit concerning membership in the Communist Party. Suddenly it was all over.
The State Department (in Leonard Boudin’s words) “immediately capitulated,” acknowledging that the Kent-Briehl ruling encompassed the Robeson case as well. Two weeks later Robeson was in Boudin’s office, smiling broadly, holding up his passport so photographers could get a good shot of it, telling them he would soon be traveling, that the victory was not just a personal one but, rather, “a victory for the ‘other America,’” and illustrative of the “change of climate in the United States.” In private, Robeson expressed some trepidation, concerned that, at a time when his people were at last in motion, he would be leaving the struggle behind if he traveled abroad—and concerned, oppositely, that if he did not go he would disappoint those all over the world who had worked for his release and had been waiting to see and hear him. His friends, anyway, were jubilant. An FBI tap of a phone call between Ben Davis and Lloyd Brown memorialized Davis’s high-spirited remark that as a result of the court’s decision he, Davis, should now be able to “go to New Jersey”; in a second call a few weeks later the two men exulted that “the Negro from the chain gang made it.” “We keep pinching ourselves,” Essie wrote, “wondering if we’ll wake up and find it all a dream.”39
It must have seemed that way, after eight years of stalemate and confinement, as congratulations poured in from around the world and as a stack of glamorous offers began to accumulate. Glen Byam Shaw instantly telegraphed asking Robeson to open Stratford’s 1959 season—its historic hundredth anniversary—in the role of Othello. The Observer wanted to publish a “Profile”; Pablo Neruda asked him “to sing for the Chilean people”; others invited him to Berlin, to Paris, to Tokyo, to Sydney, to New Delhi. Dream or no dream, the Robesons started packing their bags, sorting out music, getting medical and dental checkups. “It will be good to hear applause again,” Paul told Freda Diamond, “but it won’t mean anything.” The Robesons decided to plan no further than London; once there, they would sit down and leisurely sort through the pile of offers. Essie was very much back in the role of coordinator for Paul’s schedule. “I want him to take his time,” she wrote Indira Gandhi, “and not rush headlong into a back-breaking schedule of work.”40
On July 10 Paul and Essie drove out to Idlewild Airport along with his brother Ben (who accompanied them to London), Lloyd Brown, Paul, Jr., and Marilyn, and their two grandchildren, David and Susan. Television, radio, and the press were all out in force. To avoid them, Paul lingered in the parking lot until the last moment. He had already told the press that he expected to be overseas for a considerable time but intended to return to the States at intervals. He would not, he said, discuss politics; he was going to Europe “as an artist.” No, he added, he harbored no bitterness. But James Aronson (coedit
or of the National Guardian) recalls a small farewell dinner party at the Rosens’ a few nights before the Robesons left the country at which Paul expressed such a depth of anger that Aronson was “shocked and touched”; as he remembers it, Paul said he “owed this country—or at least its leaders—nothing.” He insisted on a BOAC plane, rather than an American carrier. When friends chided that the U.S. government was not about to sabotage a commercial plane in order to “get” him, Robeson grinned sheepishly and said he just didn’t trust them.41
The plane took off for London at 5:30 p.m. As Paul settled in the seat beside her, Essie jotted down a few quick notes: “It has been an 8 yr pull, struggle all the way, for this trip. Paul is … quiet, happy, relaxed, ‘on his way’ at long last. He is humming, singing softly, trying out his voice. It’s there, alright.…”42
In a send-off column, Robert Ruark, Robeson’s old antagonist, wrote that he was “willing to bet” the British would meet him in the same spirit of hooting derision with which they had greeted that other “anti-American,” Charlie Chaplin, the year before.43
The British had something quite different in mind.
CHAPTER 23
Return to Europe
(1958–1960)
Two hundred friends and fans gathered behind police barricades at the London airport. The exultant group included Cedric Belfrage; Tom Driberg, chairman of the Labour Party National Executive; the agent Harold Davison; the eighty-one-year-old Labour peer, Viscount Stansgate; Dr. Cheddi Jagan, Minister of Trade in British Guiana; the deported American Communist leader Claudia Jones; Glen Byam Shaw; London County Councillor Peggy Middleton; and Harry Francis, assistant secretary of the musicians’ union (who would become a good friend). When Robeson’s plane touched down at 11:00 a.m. on July 11, they burst into “Hip, hip, hooray” and “For he’s a jolly good fellow.” Crowding around the Robesons after they cleared customs, the well-wishers, some of them weeping, pressed in with bouquets and hugs.1
Reporters from all the major British papers, and many foreign ones, were waiting, too. Robeson paused only for brief remarks—and a few spontaneous bursts of song—and then in the afternoon held a full-scale press conference at the Empress Club in the West End. The hostile Lord Beaverbrook, who had never forgiven Robeson for his anti-British remarks during World War II, boycotted the event, but the turnout was nonetheless full. A reporter from the News Chronicle called the press conference “the most remarkable I have ever attended,” describing Robeson as “full of gaiety and excitement about his future.” Yet not all the reporters were charmed. Twice asked whether he was a Communist, Robeson twice refused to reply—the second time Essie chimed in to say, “It is not a friendly question”—and referred the press to his statement in Here I Stand, insisting that he had come to England as an artist. “He behaved like a royal personage,” an angry reporter wrote in the Daily Sketch. “I pointed out I hadn’t time to read his book. ‘Then you’ll have to wait,’ he announced autocratically.” Tom Driberg, disgusted at the “ignorant questions,” turned away to keep his temper. (When asked the same question under less trying circumstances a few months later, Robeson responded, “My politics are to free my people.”) Generally, though, the press coverage was sympathetic and extensive; nearly every paper splashed the story of Robeson’s arrival, with pictures, over the front page. Back in America, news of his welcome was either ignored or distorted (“Robeson, in Britain, Balks at Red Query,” headlined the New York Herald Tribune).2
The British public received Robeson with an uninflected enthusiasm. James Aronson was in London at the time and described for the National Guardian how the welcome translated into heartwarming daily gestures: “A charwoman greets him on an early morning walk; people on their way to work rush up to shake his hand; a cab driver refuses with indignation to accept payment.…” Robeson was “euphoric,” Aronson recalls, “at the reception he was getting, seeing old friends, realizing that he hadn’t lost his power and, just the simple joy of living in a society where he was respected, loved, and where he could be as free as he wanted to be, without qualms.” You had to be there, Aronson added, to understand the full symbolic weight of the reception—“to understand how Europe feels about Robeson … how through him they express their love of good culture and contempt for the philistinism of American policy.”3
Overnight Robeson became a “hot” show-business property once again. Within twenty-four hours of his arrival, Harold Davison had arranged three half-hour TV appearances at a thousand pounds each, had begun putting together a British tour for the fall, and was helping him sift through concert offers from around the globe. Robeson signed with Glen Byam Shaw to open the hundredth-anniversary season at Stratford in Othello, took tea at the House of Lords with Lord Stansgate and his son, Anthony Wedgwood Benn, lunched at the House of Commons with Manchester MP Will Griffiths and Aneurin Bevan and his wife, Jennie Lee, and dined with Philip Noel Baker and Peggy Ashcroft. Over the following few weeks, he held a book-autographing party for Here I Stand at Selfridges and was guest of honor at a variety of celebrations at embassies and private homes—including, notably, an affair at the Café Royal hosted by Indian journalists and a dinner given by the Nigerian Minister of Internal Affairs.4
The exhilarating—and exhausting—round was topped off by several formal concerts. The first, on July 26, marked Robeson’s initial appearance on television: “Paul Robeson Sings”—a half-hour program for ATV. He was so nervous prior to the filming that arrangements were made to clear the studio during his performance (“I’ve never seen such a quiet neat perfect job done,” Essie wrote Lloyd Brown), and as a result Paul was relaxed and in excellent voice. Bruno Raikin, who accompanied him, felt that in general Robeson was “not the same man any more,” but that the TV broadcast stood out as an exception—“He sang beautifully,” and toward the end spontaneously discussed with the TV audience, without any prior preparation and with enormous charm, his pentatonic-music theories. “We find with relief,” wrote the London Times, “that he is one of those whom age shows no signs of withering.… He still talks to us quietly and good-naturedly, and breaks into a smile that is the quintessence of friendliness; he still sings with a huge delight in his songs.” “Paul is very heartened,” Essie wrote Freda Diamond, “and I realize he has a whole new career open to him.” Paul added a note at the end of the letter: “Just a little too much excitement. In spite of all this miss the home fires.”5
Larry Brown arrived from America by ship in time to accompany Robeson in a formal concert at the Albert Hall two weeks later. Robeson could do no wrong with the sold-out audience. Several of the critics rejoiced that his “magnificent” voice remained intact, but others complained about his narrow range and said that his use of a microphone had made it impossible to assess the real condition of his voice. Through the medium of Tom Driberg’s sympathetic column in Reynolds News, Robeson explained that he had used a mike for many years, usually concealed in the footlights, and that had he not he wouldn’t be singing well at age sixty. The young American sensation Harry Belafonte was making his English debut on the same night as Robeson’s concert, performing three miles away at the Gaumont State Theatre, and the tabloids tried to turn a coincidence into a competition: the young contender bidding for Robeson’s crown. Robeson put a stop to that particular nonsense: he showed up for one of Belafonte’s performances at the Gaumont, warmly applauded him, and later chatted amiably backstage. When a reporter commented to Belafonte that his singing was more lighthearted than Robeson’s, Belafonte responded, “It is because Robeson made his protest bitterly that we can be more light-hearted now.”6
On August 15, after a month’s stay in London, Paul and Essie flew to Moscow. If his British reception had been cordial, his Russian one was tumultuous. At Vnukovo Airport, a jostling, eager crowd gave them a rapturous welcome, sweeping Paul away from Essie, burying him in bunches of gladioli, preventing Soviet Minister of Culture Mikhailov and the official delegation of artists and dignitaries from making a
ny formal presentation. When the Robesons finally reached the Metropole Hotel, another crowd awaited them in the street, yelling “Droog” (“Friend”) and “Preevyet, Pol Robeson” (“Welcome, Paul Robeson”), applauding wildly, pressing forward still more bouquets. The pushing and shoving at one point proved too much for him—he “was actually in a state,” Essie reported to the family, and needed a police escort to reach his car.7
On the evening of August 16, Soviet television broadcast a live twenty-minute conversation with Robeson, preceded by a narrated film about him. On camera, he described his life in the United States since his last visit to the U.S.S.R. and expressed his joy at being back. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow reported to the State Department that his remarks had been distorted in translation by the television commentator, giving as an example the transposition of Robeson’s saying, “We still have trouble in America, but things have become a lot better,” into “Life in America is very hard.” The Embassy characterized the television program as “Soviet exploitation of an obviously politically illiterate (but very charming, warm, and sympathetic) Robeson for its own propaganda purposes.…”8
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