41. Dorothy Heyward to PR and ER, May 3, 1939; ER to PR, June 25, 1939 (Vesey), RA; for PR’s interest in the Hey ward play during the forties, see note 47, p. 665. Anderson’s letter to PR (March 3, 1939) is reprinted in Laurence G. Avery, ed., Dramatist in America: Letters of Maxwell Anderson (University of North Carolina Press, 1977), pp. 84–86, which also refers to ER to Anderson, March 29, 1939, in which she cites PR’s refusal to perpetuate a stereotypic image of blacks. In 1941–42 Robeson was marginally involved in abortive negotiations by Clarence Muse for an all-black production of Brecht and Weill’s Threepenny Opera. In a letter to Essie, Weill characterized the contract Muse offered him as “the most shameful proposition that has ever been made to me,” and in response Essie expressed relief that Weill had held on to his rights—“We feel the idea of a Negro Theatre is a splendid idea, but I must say the actual workings of it at the moment are not so splendid!!” (ER to Kurt Weill, March 22, July 15, 1942; Weill to ER, June 11, 1942, Kurt Weill Foundation for Music [henceforth KWF].) For the subsequent history of Eneas Africanus, and the renewed possibility in 1945 that Robeson might become available to perform in it, see Ronald Sanders, The Days Grow Short: The Life and Music of Kurt Weill (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980). In turning down the script, ER wrote Anderson a long and revealing explanation, an attempt to blend diplomacy with self-respect.
You may perhaps know, that the general public has taken it for granted that Mr. Robeson REPRESENTS to some extent, the Negro race, the Negro thought, and the Negro behavior. This is extremely inconvenient for us, as it limits our scope a great deal. It is also very unfair and unreasonable and irritating. If he plays a drunk, then Negroes are drunkards; if [he] plays Ol’ Uncle Tom, then all Negroes are “handkerchief heads” and don’t want to be free. It is ridiculous, of course, but there it is.
We both feel very deeply about our problems as a race; while we are not at all sensitive, we are deeply conscious—which is another matter altogether. Mr. Robeson feels that one of the reasons for the almost universal prejudice against our race is the fact that very few people know anything about us (as a race). The ignorance is largely deliberate, we feel. The general public’s idea of a Negro is an Uncle Tom, an Aunt Jemima, Ol’ Mammy, and Jack Johnson. These types have always been sold to the public deliberately. Well, now they don’t exist any more except in the sentimental minds of credulous people, and we feel that we certainly must not do anything in any way, to prolong their non-existent lives!!! We feel Mr. Robeson must play a Negro who does exist, who has something to do with reality. That’s all he asks.…
She added that she herself had “loved the story” in Anderson’s play, and thought it “very funny, very folky and very touching.” Paul did not agree. But Essie thought that perhaps later on, when he “doesn’t have to consider it merely as a vehicle for himself, he too will find it amusing and interesting” (ER to Anderson, March 29, 1939, UT).
42. Hughes to ER, July 25, 1939, RA; Naison, Communists in Harlem, p. 209; ER to PR, June 25, 1939, RA. The following year Robeson was again briefly tempted by a possible Langston Hughes project (Charles Leonard to PR, Nov. 26, 1940, RA). PR stayed abreast of the activities of the Harlem Suitcase Theatre; an eleven-page description of its “Summer Season and Activity—1939” is in RA, along with a covering letter (James H. Baker, Jr., to PR, Oct. 6, 1939). During his New York trip PR made himself more accessible to the black press than the white. Interviews with him and articles about him appeared in the New York Amsterdam News, May 20, 1939 (plus an editorial on May 29 that seconded his decision to educate his son in the U.S.S.R. to avoid racial prejudice, saying his statement “just about sums up the feeling of most Negroes today: it isn’t Communism that they are seeking, but equal opportunities”); the Chicago Defender, May 27, June 17, 1939; and the Pittsburgh Courier, May 27, 1939. The Defender (June 17) quotes him as praising the Roosevelt administration for having rebuked the DAR after it refused Marian Anderson permission to sing in its hall. PR also gave an interview to the Sunday Worker (June 4, 1939) in which he’s quoted as saying, “I feel that it is now time for me to return to the place of my origin.…” Robeson did agree to appear, while in New York, in behalf of Spanish Intellectual Aid (Spanish Culture in Exile), singing at its meeting in the grand ballroom of the Roosevelt Hotel (Jane Sherman to PR, June 30, 1939, RA).
43. News Review, June 1, 1939 (Balcon); Hampstead and St. John’s Wood News and Advertiser, June 1, 1939 (Tennyson). Pen Tennyson had made a promising directorial debut at age twenty-seven with There Ain’t No Justice, a boxing exposé; he was killed early in the war, having completed only three films (George Perry, The Great British Picture Show [Hill & Wang, 1984], p. 85).
44. ER to CVV and FM, July 18, 1939, Yale: Van Vechten.
45. Leonard Lyons’s column, “The Lyons Den,” New York Post, Dec. 26, 1940, printed PR’s letter to Lyons (“in no way whatsoever”) denying Lyons’s earlier report in his column that the Nazi-Soviet pact had produced a change in Robeson’s sympathies; four-page typewritten ms., “The Foreign Policy of the Soviet Union,” undated (1940?), RA (pact).
46. ER Diary, Sept. 1–30, 1939, RA; ER to CVV and FM, Sept. 22, 1939, Yale: Van Vechten; Walter Legge (of His Master’s Voice) to PR, Aug. 10, 1939 (recordings); Sterner interviews with people in Wales (Rachel Thomas, Dilys Thomas, Evelyn Jenkins, Clifford Evans, Roderick Jones, W. J. Davies, Dai Francis) who either acted in The Proud Valley or got to know Robeson during the filming. The interviewees all agree in their profound admiration for PR, all echoing in different words the view of Rachel Thomas quoted in the text. My own interview with Herbert Marshall and his wife, Fredda Brilliant (July 20, 1985), who together had written the original script for The Proud Valley especially for Paul, elicited the additional information that an American cameraman on the picture had to be removed because of his racist views. Finally, there is the testimony gathered by Mark A. Exton (“Paul Robeson and South Wales”), including interviews with Rachel Thomas, Martha Edwards, and Annie Powell, of the uniformly high esteem in which the Welsh held Robeson. The original script of The Proud Valley had a group of unemployed miners defying the owners by opening up the pit themselves and operating it as a cooperative—a strong left-wing statement with obvious appeal to Robeson. That ending, however, was ultimately changed; Balcon, the producer, decided it was not sufficiently “tactful,” given the wartime call for greater production (Balcon, Michael Balcon Presents [Hutchinson, 1969], p. 126).
47. At first they gave some thought to leaving Pauli in school in London, but decided it was too dangerous (ER to Harold Jackman, Aug. 12, 1939, Yale: Johnson). In her diary (Sept.-Oct. 1939, RA) Essie noted with pleasure the warmth of their reception from the dining-room staff on the ship home (the S.S. Washington). The truth of that reception has emerged in a phone interview with Ted Rolfs (Feb. 17, 1987). Rolfs, then a dining-room steward on the ship and a trade-union activist, witnessed the Robesons being “placed in a very undesirable area near the galley.” He informed the chief steward who Robeson was, and the steward said to him, “Well, if you think so much of him, give up the captain’s table [where Rolfs had been the waiter] and serve him.” Rolfs did. Thereafter the rest of the dining-room staff became “unctuous and oily” to Robeson. He refused a request to sing to the passengers—“He was hurt”—but accepted Rolfs’s request to sing to the crew at a union meeting. Rolfs and Robeson maintained contact (see note 17, p. 701, and note 19, p. 710).
CHAPTER 12 THE WORLD AT WAR (1940–1942)
1. ER Diary, “End of October” 1939, RA (docking); PR’s ms. statement is in RA; PR’s remarks are from an interview with the New York Amsterdam News, Oct. 21, 1939; PR, Notes, 1939, RA (Goering). Essie noted in her diary that they paid no duty on their enormous number of bags, the customs inspectors showing interest in nothing except the heads Jacob Epstein had done of both Pauls and the African artifacts from her trip. (There are a number of letters in RA during 1938–39 from Epstein discussing the two sculptures.)
2. Hann
en Swaffer, World’s Press, March 14, 1940; New York Post, Feb. 1, 1940 (Laski, etc.). Additional interviews with PR from which the above statements are drawn are in the Daily Worker, Dec. 12, 23, 1939 (interview with Ben Davis, Jr.); the Philadelphia Record, Dec. 11, 1939; and the Evening Public Ledger (Philadelphia), Dec. 8, 1939. Four-page typewritten ms. entitled “The Foreign Policy of the Soviet Union,” undated (1940?), RA (peace pact). In an article on PR in the Sunday Worker, 1940, his career is said to have been seriously damaged as a result of his refusal to defend Finland (“… no manager would dare rent an auditorium to Robeson”), to be rescued only by the huge success of “Ballad for Americans”; but I have found only minor evidence of any career setback. After the war Swaffer and Robeson renewed contact, and with considerable cordiality (e.g., Swaffer to PR, Dec. 13, 1961, RA).
3. New York World-Telegram, Jan. 20, Feb. 1, 1940 (“real democracy”); the black letter-writer was Cyril W. Stephens (New York Amsterdam News, Dec. 23, 1939); a similar rebuke to Robeson is in the Winnipeg Free Press, Feb. 14, 1940; McKay, The New Leader, Jan. 20, 1940. McKay’s criticism of Robeson was later echoed in the assessment of Shostakovich in his Testimony (see note 42, p. 690). For a detailed exposition of official CPUSA reaction to international issues in this period, see Maurice Isserman, Which Side Were You On?: The American Communist Party During the Second World War (Wesleyan University Press, 1982).
4. New York Post, Feb. 1, 1940; New York World-Telegram, Feb. 1, 1940; Daily Worker, Oct. 26, 1939; CVV to White, Dec. 14, 1939, CVV to Noel Sullivan, Feb. 13, 1940, CVV to Peterson, Dec. 3, 1939—all in Kellner, ed., Letters CVV, pp. 169, 171–72.
5. ER Diary, “End of October,” “End of November,” 1939, RA.
6. Time, Nov. 20, 1939 (background on “Pursuit”); interview with Earl Robinson, Aug. 17, 1986.
7. Interview with Earl Robinson, Aug. 17, 1986. Later in life, PR wrote, “… now I always try to pitch my songs in the range of my speaking voice. Therefore practically all of my songs have to be transposed to lower keys, since my natural voice is a deep bass” (music notes, n.d. 1960s?, RA).
8. Liner notes inside cover of Victor recording; interview with Earl Robinson, Aug. 17, 1986; Norman Corwin to PR, Nov. 8, 1939, RA; Atkinson to PR, Dec. 29, 1940 (Atkinson was writing in response to the Victor recording, not the broadcast); Robert Minor to PR, Dec. 31, 1939 (Lydia Minor wrote him separately, also raving about “Ballad,” n.d.)—all RA.
9. Luther Davis and John Cleveland, “And You Know Who I Am” (profile of John LaTouche), Collier’s, Oct. 19, 1940 (convention, “Boy scouts”). Time, July 8, 1940, reported that Robeson’s Victor recording of “Ballad” was “the popular number most in demand at the R.C.A. exhibit at the New York World’s Fair.” Time also reported that the Republicans had considered inviting Robeson to sing “Ballad” but had decided against it because of his color. But Earl Robinson (interview, Aug. 17, 1986) insists that the Republicans did invite Robeson to sing at their 1940 convention, but he had to turn them down because of a prior engagement in New York. When The New Yorker asked Robinson for his reaction to the Republicans’ doing “Ballad,” he said, “Fantastic!—we wrote the Ballad for everyone.”
10. Seton to ER, Jan. 5, 1951; interview with Earl Robinson, Aug. 17, 1986.
11. ER Diary, “End of December,” 1939, “End of January,” 1940, RA; Daily Worker, Oct. 26, 1939 (Ben Davis); interviews with Bayard Rustin, March 25, April 20, 1983; ER to CVV and FM, Dec. 15, 1939; postcard, Jan. 6, 1940, Yale: Van Vechten. Essie’s warning to him about the Bradford script is in ER to PR, June 25, 1939, RA. A sample of the mixed-to-negative out-of-town reviews: Variety, Dec. 13, 1939; Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 12, 1939; Evening Public Ledger, Dec. 16, 1939; Boston Herald, Jan. 4, 1940. A sample of the New York reviews: Herald Tribune, New York World-Telegram, The New York Times, all Jan. 11, 1940. Only the Telegram was strongly favorable to the play, but almost all the reviewers liked Robeson’s performance—“a man of magnificence who ought to be on the stage frequently in plays that suit him,” Brooks Atkinson wrote in the Times; and in a letter, PR’s friend Jimmy Sheean said, “I thought your performance … one of great power and beauty. It’s hard luck that the play itself didn’t rise to the height of that performance” (Sheean to PR, Jan. 11, 1940, RA). Because of a dispute between the producer and the theater manager, a financial brouhaha developed, and Robeson had trouble securing his salary for a time (New York World-Telegram, Jan. 20, 1940; ER Diary, “End of January,” 1940, RA; Sterner interview with Leonard de Paur, who supervised the show’s music). Two organizations, the Harlem Cultural Conference and the Negro People’s Committee for Spanish Refugees, took over the house for one performance of John Henry (Yergan to ER, Dec. 8, 1939, RA).
12. ER Diary, Jan. 21, 1940, RA; PR, ms., “Notes on speech at Hamilton College,” RA; Woollcott to PR, May 25, 1940, RA. When Woollcott died in Jan. 1943, Robeson read the Twenty-third Psalm at his memorial service (The New York Times, Jan. 29, 1943; Utica Observer Dispatch, Jan. 22, 1940). Oumansky to ER, Dec. 11, 1939, RA; ER Diary, Jan. 28, July 18, 1940, RA.
13. Rudolph Polk to Fred Schang, Jan. 18, 1941 (Kraft); Moses Smith to PR, May 9, 1941 (Columbia); Schang to Rockmore, Feb. 1, 1941—all RA; Hearings Special Comm. (Dies) UnAmerican Activities, May 22, 1941, 60 (in hearings three years later, Matthews again cited the SRT article against PR, falsely claiming that in it he had “stated categorically that communism was the only way”: Sept. 29, 1944, p. 10337.
14. A. Philip Randolph to Walter White, Feb. 6, 1941, LC: NAACP. White forwarded Randolph’s criticisms to Gilbert Josephson, director of the World Theatre (Feb. 13, 1941, LC: NAACP). The Proud Valley was released in 1940 in Britain, 1941 in the United States. Several of the British reviewers liked the film (Listener, March 21, 1940; Picturegoer, May 18, 1940; Scotsman, April 1, 1940), but the majority found it, in the words of the Manchester Guardian (March 7, 1940), “undistinguished” (see also Punch, March 27, 1940; The Times, March 11, 1940; New Statesman, March 9, 1940; The Observer, March 10, 1940). A radio-broadcast version of The Proud Valley was given before the actual release of the film (The Times, London, March 7, 1940). The American reviews were marginally more favorable; the New York Daily News (May 17, 1941) seems representative: “roughly made … fine Welsh music … The plot is a routine affair.… Robeson’s magnificent voice is one of the picture’s chief attractions.…” The Afro-American (May 24, 1941) hailed the film as “a triumph for Robeson, and for the British motion picture makers as well” because of its unorthodox casting.
15. Los Angeles Examiner, Los Angeles News, Los Angeles Times (responsive); Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express (ovation)—all May 14, 1940. Betty L. Richardson, 1982 interview with Edwin Lester (producer of the Civic Light Opera), under auspices of Oral History Program, UCLA (Bertha Powell). In the interview Lester also reports that he had to let Helen Morgan go because of her drinking problem. He recounts, too, an aborted effort to present PR in the role of Porgy at the Civic Light Opera. According to Lester, PR initiated the idea, and Lester went along with it, though warning him that he thought the role lay too high for his voice. Robeson was at first confident he could sing it (and Lester proceeded to make tentative production plans), but he subsequently backed out, afraid his voice would not stand up under the strain.
16. New York Sun, June 26, 1940; New York Amsterdam News, July 6, 1940; Time, July 8, 1940; ER Diary, June 24, 1940, RA. Time reported, “Last week Mrs. Robeson, who chaperones her husband in interviews, shushed him on politics, said ‘there is a witch hunt on in America now.’ Asked if Communism is compatible with the U.S. Constitution, the Robesons declined to reply.”
17. Chicago Journal of Commerce, July 29, 1940 (Cassidy); on Aug. 31 Robeson performed “Ballad” again in Chicago, this time under the baton of the black conductor James A. Mundy (Pittsburgh Courier, Sept. 14, 1940); New York World-Telegram, Aug. 6, 1940 (Jones); Langnerto O’Neill, Aug. 20, 1940, RA; Langner to PR, Aug. 15, Sept. 13, 1940; Rockmore to Langner, Aug. 29, Sept. 11, 16,
1940—all in Yale: Langner. (Langner also tried, unsuccessfully, to interest Robeson in appearing in a new play, Not on Friday.) There is a letter from PR to O’Neill, July 31, 1940 (Yale: O’Neill) requesting permission to use a special Hammond Organ for offstage sound effects in the Jones production; perhaps O’Neill denied the request, since the reviews don’t refer to such effects.
During Aug. PR also found time to sing at Camp Wo-Chi-Ca, an interracial camp for the children of workers that had declared Paul Robeson Day (Hackettstown Gazette, Aug. 16, 1940)—for more on the camp, see p. 254—and also to sing at a benefit for the monthly journal Equality, prompting Lillian Hellman to write him, “It is a fine thing to hear you sing, and like all really decent art, it makes you feel sad and happy and good” (Hellman to PR, Aug. 12, 1940, RA).
Robeson had somewhat less than full success in his first indoor New York City concert in nearly five years in Carnegie Hall in early Oct. 1940; it was enthusiastically greeted by the audience, but somewhat less so by the critics (New York Herald Tribune, Sun, World-Telegram, and Times—all Oct. 7, 1940—expressed varying degrees of reservation). When he returned to sing in New York two months after that Carnegie Hall concert, Robeson was again treated with politeness rather than acclaim by the critics—at least in comparison with the thunderous welcome he got on tour; as in Britain, his provincial receptions were more enthusiastic than his cosmopolitan ones (New York Herald Tribune, Sun, Times, World-Telegram, PM—all Dec. 18, 1940; the Sun review seems representative: “… Robeson’s richly sonorous but somewhat monotonous voice …”). During the war years, Robeson gradually expanded his concert repertoire. He added a number of Russian songs, especially by Mussorgsky (including “The Death Scene” and “Varlaam’s Ballad” from Boris Godunov), and also a number of popular English ballads (“Oh No, John!” became a great audience favorite, though its trivial, arch nature was hardly well suited either to Robeson’s voice or his temperament). The programs for PR’s concerts in 1939–45 are in RA.
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