Paul Robeson

by Martin Duberman

  Many notables from the black community attended and participated in the Salute—including Odetta, Leon Bibb, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte (who also produced the show), James Earl Jones, Roscoe Lee Browne, Ossie Davis, and Ruby Dee. Coretta Scott King spoke of Robeson’s having been “buried alive” because, earlier than her husband, he had “tapped the same wells of latent militancy” among blacks; Mayor Richard G. Hatcher of Gary, Indiana, referred to him as “our own black prince and prophet.” An even larger number of notables sent in tributes. Andrew Young wrote from the House of Representatives to thank him for his “beautiful life” and to say that, had he not “kept alive a legacy of hope through some of the darkest days of our history … our accomplishments in the 60’s would not have been possible.” The same note of acknowledgment was picked up and broadened by a host of leaders from third-world nations. Julius K. Nyerere, President of Tanzania, expressed sentiments very close to those of many others (Prime Minister Michael Manley of Jamaica, Cheddi Jagan, L. F. S. Burnham of Guyana, Lynden O. Pindling of the Bahamas, Errol W. Barrow of Barbados, and the President of Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda) in thanking Robeson for having “used his great abilities and great gifts” to draw attention “to the evils of oppression and inequality.” Sounding a more personal note, Indira Gandhi recalled “the wonder,” on meeting him, “of finding such gentleness in such a powerful frame.” And a Mr. Guy Warren of Ghana wrote this from the heart: “If I told you that I LOVE you and that you are simply gorgeous, won’t that bring a smile to your glorious lips?”20

  A few additional honors came during Robeson’s seventy-sixth year—his alma mater, Rutgers, held a symposium on his life (and his father’s alma mater, Lincoln University, awarded him an honorary degree), his old friend C. L. R. James lectured at the University of Massachusetts on “Mr. Robeson and the International Struggle for Freedom and Independence” as part of a series set up in Robeson’s honor, and the Black Sports Hall of Fame cited him for his athletic achievements. But essentially the hurrahs were over with the Carnegie Hall event. Definitive closure came from the FBI—early in 1974 it dared to conclude that “no further investigation is warranted.” Such milestones as remained tended to be sorrowful ones. Larry Brown passed away just months before Robeson reached seventy-five, and at a memorial concert in remembrance of Brown’s gentle, whimsical spirit, recordings of some of the songs the two men had performed together in their thirty-year collaboration were played over an amplifier to end the service. A poignant note of another kind was struck by Max Yergan, Robeson’s one-time political associate and then bitter political adversary. Himself ill, Yergan wrote Robeson a brief letter late in 1974 to say, “I am at times deeply pained that a long and cherished friendship with you was interfered with,” and “to make it clear that it is my deep desire to withdraw, wipe out and apologize for anything I ever said or did which could interfere with our friendship.”21

  Robeson’s life was drawing to a close. Stephen Fritchman, now retired as minister of L.A.’s First Unitarian Church, stopped by to see him in September 1975, their first meeting in nearly a decade, and Fritchman reported to the congregation that, when he entered Marian’s house, “there was Paul,” dressed (as always when receiving visitors) in coat and tie, “rising from the sofa to his great height, his countenance beaming, his deep-set eyes twinkling, his hand extended.… He embraced me with a bear hug and a kiss on the cheek and the years fell away as we talked of many things.…” Fritchman apparently arrived on a very good day, but Freda Diamond, too, recalls that Paul often spoke during her visits, and once even sang: “When a question came up about a particular spiritual, he reminded me that it was that spiritual he was singing as the curtain rose in All God’s Chillun Got Wings”; he seemed surprised that she didn’t remember the song—and sang it through for her. After visiting Robeson in his seventy-seventh year, Lloyd Brown reports talking with him for a little bit about his great-great-grandfather Cyrus Bustill—“though [he was] obviously relieved to get back to his restful chair. His strength is now only in his spirit.” When Brown asked him directly about his health, Robeson replied, “Just kickin’ along.”22

  A month after Lloyd Brown’s visit, on December 28, 1975, Robeson was hospitalized with what was thought to be a mild stroke. After a setback he had always physically rebounded to his previous baseline. Not this time. To his cardiologist’s surprise, there was “an abrupt onset of weakness,” and then a final stroke. On January 22, Paul, Jr., and Marilyn visited his father. On January 23, Helen and Sam Rosen arrived at the hospital and were told that Paul had died an hour before. They were shown into his room and left alone to say their private goodbyes. As Helen recalls the moment, “Sam drew back the curtain surrounding Paul’s bed, leaned over, and kissed his forehead. He lay still and gray, dressed in a suit. I held his hand, and the dam of years of restraint in me broke, and I sobbed. Then Sam and I went to fetch Marian and to call Pauli. He came and took over.…” A hospital spokesman announced to the press that the cause of death was “complications arising from severe cerebral vascular disorder.” No autopsy was done: his son decided against it, willing to trade the additional knowledge an autopsy would have yielded on his father’s medical history in favor of being able to let the black community view the body at the funeral home, of letting his father “go out in style.”23

  Condolences came in from around the world, from those who had stood beside him, near him—and apart from him. Old, old friends—among them Fritz Pollard, Peggy Ashcroft, André Van Gyseghem, and Flora Robson—sent their sorrowful messages of loss—and Roy Wilkins, who had been his adversary, characterized him as “a man of strong convictions.” (Coretta Scott King, unstinting, deplored “America’s inexcusable treatment” of a man who had had “the courage to point out her injustices.”) 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, 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). Now, at his death, one paper—in a paroxysm of atoning grief—splashed “GOODBYE PAUL!” in its headlines, and others spoke in editorials of this “Gulliver among the Lilliputians,” this life that would “always be a challenge and a reproach to white and Black America.” A black prisoner in the Marion, Illinois, penitentiary perhaps summed it up as well as anyone in a poem:

  PAUL ROBESON

  They knocked the leaves

  From his limbs,

  The bark

  From his

  Tree

  But his roots

  were

  so deep

  That they are

  a part of me.24

  A cold rain fell all day outside Mother A.M.E. Zion Church in Harlem on January 27, 1976. Despite the rain, thousands, mostly black, gathered on the sidewalks and slowly moved inside the historic church where Paul’s brother Ben Robeson had presided for twenty-seven years: Old Left and New, theater people and trade-unionists, white and black, Communists and conservatives, dear friends, old adversaries, complete strangers. A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin showed up; so did Harry Belafonte; Uta Hagen; Malcolm X’s widow, Betty Shabazz; and Paul’s Rutgers sweetheart, Maimie Neale Bledsoe; so did Steve Nelson of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and Henry Winston, national chairman of the CPUSA; so did Helen and Sam Rosen, Clara Rockmore, Eubie Blake, Revels Cayton, and Freda Diamond; so did hundreds of Harlem’s so-called ordinary people. As they filed in, Robeson’s voice came out over the loudspeakers, singing the spirituals and songs most closely connected to him. His closed casket at the foot of the pulpit was draped in black, covered with red roses.25

  Bishop J. Clinton Hoggard, a boyhood friend, delivered
the eulogy. He commended the family for the decision “to bring Paul home” to Mother Zion and used a verse from Galatians—“Henceforth, let no man trouble me”—to recount the history of a man who had tried to live “with dignity” and who for his persistence “bore on his body marks of vengeance”; he ended with a paraphrase from a line Robeson used to sing at the close of “Joe Hill”—“Don’t mourn for me, but live for freedom’s cause.” Lloyd Brown and Sam Rosen spoke next, spoke of how fortunate they felt that Paul had graced their lives, of how (in Sam’s words) “his warmth and love and humor and wisdom” would always remain a precious memory.26

  Lastly, his son rose to pay his tribute. His words the more eloquent for being spare and unsentimental, he thanked the “great and gentle warrior” who was his father for the example of his compassion and his courage, for his legacy of “special memories that will always sustain us.” When he concluded, they carried the coffin out into the rain. The mournful strains of “Deep River” flooded the Harlem street.

  Acknowledgments

  The many Robeson friends who allowed me to interview them, the correspondents who shared firsthand anecdotes, and the owners of privately held manuscript materials who shared them with me are cited in the Note on Sources. That still leaves a large number of acknowledgments to make for a large variety of assists in preparing this book.

  For help with translation, transcription, and research, I am grateful to Jules Cohen, Tim Couzzens, Anita Feldman, Martin Fishgold, Eric Garber, Eric Gordon, Rosalyn and Terrence Higgins, Michael Lipson, Laura May-hall, Peter Osnos, Grace Palladino, Susan Palmer, Anne Lise Spitzer, Carol Shookhoff, Laurie Winer, Nancy Wonders, and Zina Voynow. During the first year, Terry Collins labored with special diligence; during the last year, Janet Jones showed special resourcefulness in locating material on William Drew Robeson.

  A number of specialists—medical, legal, and scholarly—have given me the benefit of their advice: Edward Allsworth, Stan Arnold, Nicholas Barber, Stephen F. Cohen, Thomas Cripps, Richard Dyer, Candace Falk, Donald Gallup, Edward Greer, Judith Mara Gutman, Barbara Haber, Frances Kean, Stanley I. Kutler, Ellis Levine, David Levering Lewis, Lawrence Mass, Michael S. de L. Neill, Robert Millman, Arnold Rampersad, Judith Stein, and Theodore Tyberg. For a wide assortment of other favors, assists, supports, and leads, I particularly want to thank: Dennis Altman, Joyce Easton Ashley, Neal Basen, Theresa Bauml, Rosalyn Baxandall, Kathy D. Beckwith, Sally Belfrage, Jolanta Benal, Alan Bennett, Esme E. Bhan, Alison Boyle, Susan Brownmiller, John Bynoe, Annette Cameron, Nancy Clements, Louise A. De Salva, Cecilia Drury, Joellen El Bashir, Bill French, Frankie Gillette, Saskia Grabow, Larry Gross, Barbara Heinzen, Jean Herskovits, Howard Johnson, Bruce Kellner, Randall Kenan, Michael Kimmel, Seymour Kleinberg, William A. Koshland, Gara La Marche, Hollis R. Lynch, William S. McFeely, August Meier, Ralph Melnick, Emily Miles, E. J. Montgomery, Frank Morris, Vance Muse, Marc Myers, Alan Newland, Mary Martin Niepold, Gil Noble, Kent Paul, Isabelle Powell, Thomas Powers, Shephard Raimi, David Richards, Judy (Rosen) Ruben, Rose Rubin, Irene Runge, D. A. Sachs, Kate Sharpe, Susan Sheehan, William Stampus, Dorothy D. Storck, Sarah McKinley Taylor, Mike Wallington, Steven Watson, Sule Grey Wilson, Laurie Winer, Melvin T. Wolfe, and Anne T. Zaroff.

  The following archivists and librarians have been particularly resourceful and generous in aiding my research: Yuri Afanasyev (Moscow State Institute of History and Culture), Whitney Bagnall (Columbia Law School Archives), Brigid Bogelsack (Robeson Archiv, Berlin), Susan L. Boone (Sophia Smith Collection), James A. Cavanaugh (State Historical Society, Wisconsin), Toni Costonie (DuSable Museum), Rudolph De Jong (International Institute of Social History), Anne Engelhard (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe), Linda Evans (Chicago Historical Society), David Farneth (Kurt Weill Foundation for Music), Jackie Goggins (Library of Congress), Cathy Henderson (Ransom Humanities Center), Charles J. Kelly (Library of Congress), Diana Lachatanere (NYPL/Schomburg), R. Russell Maylove (Northwestern), Judith Mellins (Harvard Law School Archives), Eleanor Mish (American Museum of the Moving Image), Christine Naumann (Robeson Archiv, Berlin), Marjorie F. Nelson (Robersonville Public Library), Hans E. Panofsky (Herskovits Library of African Studies), Randy Penninger (Atkins Library, UNC, Charlotte), Kathleen Reed (Special Collections, University of Pennsylvania), Sheila Ryan (Southern Illinois University, Carbondale), Betsy Sandoz (UCLA Special Collections), David E. Schoonover (Beinecke Library, Yale), Ruth Simmons and Ed Skipworth (Rutgers University Archives), Richard Strassberg (Catherwood Library, Cornell), Edward E. Weber (Labadie Collection, University of Michigan), Richard J. Wolfe (Countway Medical Library, Harvard), and Mary Yearwood (NYPL/Schomburg).

  I owe a special debt to the dedicated staff at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center of Howard University, the repository of the Robeson Archives; I am particularly grateful to Thomas C. Battle, Maricia Bracey, and Karen Jefferson for easing my path in a multitude of ways.

  Finally, I’m greatly indebted to those—some of them participants in the events described, others “objective” scholarly observers—who read drafts of this book in whole or in part. Though occasionally I’ve had to resist the special pleading of certain participants (or, alternately, the ideological disagreements of certain scholars), these early comments have helped me to correct any number of errors. My thanks for their efforts to: Geraldine (Maimie) Neale Bledsoe, Angus Cameron, Revels Cayton, Frances Quiett Challenger, Peggy Dennis, Freda Diamond, Max Fink, Uta Hagen, Alfred Katzenstein, Ari Kiev, David Machin, Richard Nachtigall, Sam Parks, Rose Perry, Martin Popper, Paul Robeson, Jr., Helen Rosen, and Fredi Washington (Bell). I want to offer Eric Gordon, David Levering Lewis, and Eli Zal special thanks: they gave me immensely useful readings of the entire manuscript, catching everything from misplaced commas to fuzzy conceptualizations.

  Barbara Bristol, my editor at Knopf, has patiently sat with me while—day after day, line by line—we fine-tuned the final manuscript; along with a superb set of editorial suggestions, which improved the manuscript immeasurably, she provided endless psychic balm. Frances Goldin, my agent and friend of long standing, amazes me more than ever: I know of no one else whose capacity for hard work is matched by such a capacity for caring. Eli Zal was a great comfort and support to me while I was finishing this book; he reminds me that there will still be life after it.

  Note on Sources

  This biography has been written almost entirely from manuscript sources. In this regard, the Robeson Family Archives has proved by far the most important single collection. The Archives has been deposited since 1978 at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University, in Washington, D.C., but has not previously been open to scholars.

  It is a vast archive. Totaling some fifty thousand items—with a diary counting as a single item—it was originally amassed by Eslanda (“Essie”) Goode Robeson and subsequently added to and organized by Paul Robeson, Jr. It was he who came to me late in 1981 offering unrestricted access to the Family Archives as an inducement to undertake his father’s biography. I needed no inducement, but I did feel it necessary to attach one condition before accepting Paul Robeson, Jr.’s offer: a formal legal agreement in which he eschewed approval of the final manuscript. I felt the need to put in writing what every scholar takes as a guiding principle: the refusal ever to write to specification, to allow any interested party to interfere with the process of historical inquiry. Paul Robeson, Jr., has been of great help in introducing me to some of his father’s friends, and has also given generously of his time in sharing his own recollections, but he and I have had sharp disagreements throughout. We evaluate some of the historical evidence differently, and hence have come to see certain segments of his father’s history quite differently. Sons and scholars often have separate agendas. The conclusions in this book are mine alone.

  Ultimately those conclusions must undergo the scrutiny of other scholars, and soon will, when the Robeson Family Archives has been opened to general use. To facilitate that evaluation, I have made my notes unusually full, using t
hem to cite gaps or contradictions in the evidence, to point to relevant secondary sources as well as manuscript materials—and in general to do all that I could to alert other scholars to the possibility of variant interpretations. I do so in recognition that Robeson’s history has previously been uncharted and is an emblematic story of black achievement and struggle. As such, it belongs to future generations, and awaits their evolving verdict.

  Rich though the Robeson Family Archives is, it has one serious drawback: the materials represent Essie Robeson far more than Paul. Herself a voluminous letter-writer and diarist, Essie tended to save, even to hoard, every scrap. Paul was the temperamental opposite. He had no instinct for “collecting” and scant interest in recording his own thoughts and feelings. To a remarkable—and, for a biographer, disheartening—degree, he avoided putting pen to paper. Except for some brief shorthand notes made at a few points in his life, he kept no diary. And he disliked writing letters; indeed, his avoidance of correspondence became something of a joke (and occasionally a source of recrimination) to his friends. The Archives contains hundreds and hundreds of pages of Robeson’s musical notations, his markings on film and theater scripts, and, for the period of the mid-thirties, some lengthy, valuable discursive ruminations on Africa. But of more private matters there is almost nothing, no substantial enough record of his personal response to individuals (or even to such critical public events as Khrushchev’s revelations to the Twentieth Party Congress) to allow a scholar to track his emotional life with retrospective confidence.