Paul Robeson

by Martin Duberman

  7. Statements of support from many people were published in a pamphlet, Let Robeson Sing, put out by the London Robeson Committee (a copy is in RA). Flora Robson and J. Dover Wilson wrote supporting letters to the London Times (May 4, 10, 1957). Driberg’s column is in Reynolds News, May 12, 1957. The British Equity resolution and the debate surrounding it are described in the Manchester Guardian, April 20, 1957, and the London Times, April 29, 1957. The actor Adolphe Menjou told the New York columnist Hy Gardner he was “incensed” at British Equity (Herald Tribune, May 14, 1957). According to Cedric Belfrage (interview, May 29, 1984), Laurence Olivier was one of the few in England to refuse to lend his name. PR also valued an invitation to appear at the International Music Festival Prague Spring (Vilein Pospisil to PR, Jan. 25, 1957; PR to Pospisil, March 16, 1957, RA).

  8. The two fullest accounts are Cedric Belfrage’s article in the National Guardian, May 27, 1957, and the detailed report he wrote ER, May 27, 1957, RA. Additional details are in Belfrage to ER, May 1, 10, 20, 28, 30, 31, 1957; ER to Belfrage, May 13, 30, June 5, 17, 1957—all in RA.

  9. Belfrage to ER, May 27, 1957, RA; Manchester Guardian, May 28, 1957; ER to Belfrage, May 30, June 5, 1957, RA. In his May 27 letter Belfrage reported that “One thing that was particularly good was the number of Negroes in the concert audience—I should think at least 150. We also had mainly African and West Indian students as ushers.” Taking a page from Belfrage’s book, the South Wales miners arranged for a transatlantic transmission for the Eisteddfod in Oct. 1957 (Dilwyn Jones to PR, Oct. 25, 1957; Paynter and Evans to PR, October 7, 1957, RA).

  10. Boudin to PR, with enclosed copies of correspondence with the Passport Division, Jan. 22, Feb. 19, March 15, May 10, 1957, RA; interview with Boudin, July 14, 1982; Boudin passport-case files, courtesy of Boudin.

  11. The full transcript of the hearing is in FBI New York 100-25857-1A88; FBI Main 100-12304-403 (“wash out”).

  12. ER to Mr. Evans, Aug. 29, 1957 (perjury fear); Knight (Passport Division) to PR, Aug. 9, 1957; Boudin to PR, Aug. 13, 1957. FBI Main 100-12304-427 (Trinidad). The Jagans had met and corresponded with the Robesons (e.g., Janet Jagan to ER, Oct. 2, 1957, RA).

  13. Shaw to PR, Oct. 16, 1957, RA. Shaw had first sounded out PR about the possibilities of Pericles in Jan. 1957 (ER to Paul Endicott, Jan. 15, 1957, RA); the formal invitation and announcements ten months later were aimed at public relations. Boudin to PR, Nov. 7, 1957; Boudin to John Abt (who had joined as PR’s counsel; Abt was known as the lawyer for the CPUSA), Dec. 6, 1957, enclosing draft letter to Frances G. Knight; Boudin to Knight, Dec. 10, 1957—all in RA.

  14. ER to Shaw, Nov. 15, 1957; ER and PR to Shaw, Nov. 26, 1957; Shaw to ER and PR, Nov. 22, 1957; Tony Richardson to PR, three notes, n.d.—all in RA.

  15. Daily Herald, Jan. 15, 1958. Harold Davison to PR, Jan. 14, 31, 1958; Richardson to ER and PR, n.d.; Frances G. Knight to Boudin.Jan. 17, 1958; Boudin to Loy Henderson, Jan. 31, 1958; Boudin to PR, Feb. 3, 19, 1958; Boudin to ER, Feb. 7, 25, 1958; ER to Richardson, Feb. l, 1958—all in RA. Daily Express, Jan. 31, 1958; see pp. 233–34 for the earlier incidents referred to. Less predictably, the Oxford Mail wrote (Jan. 30, 1958), “He has made some most insulting remarks about Britain, but obviously does not mind taking British money”; but the Mail did not want to keep him out of Britain—to do that “would be to punish a man for his opinions.”

  16. ER to Shaw, Feb. 22, 1958; Shaw to ER, March 8, 1958, RA. Edric Connor, the West Indian singer and actor, replaced Robeson as Gower, thereby becoming the first black to appear in a Shakespeare season at Stratford. According to the London Daily Herald (July 8, 1958), PR had suggested Connor as a replacement. For more on Robeson and Connor, see note 12, p. 686; note 48, p. 750.

  17. FBI New York 100-25857-2921 (“losing courage”), 2927 (“supers”), 3184 (1957 activities); FBI Main 100-12304-428 (1957 activities); ms. of PR’s Carnegie Hall speech, Nov. 10, 1957, RA; PR’s many New Year’s Day greetings are in RA; the Albanian one is dated Feb. 25, 1958.

  18. ER to Richardson, Feb. 1, 1958; Pollard to ER and PR, Jan. 29, 1958; Daisy Bates to PR, Jan. 24, 1958; ER to Bates, Feb. 22, 1958; Archie Moore to PR, Jan. 26, 1958, telegram April 5, 1958—all in RA. Another telegram from Archie Moore to PR, dated Dec. 31, 1958, reads: “One punch was in your behalf. I’m sure you understand me” (RA).

  19. Sacramento Union, Oct. 27, 1957; San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 5, 1958; Oregon Journal and The Oregonian, March 17, 1958. Pleased though he was to have renewed requests for his appearance, PR turned down a tentative invitation for a concert at the Metropolitan A.M.E. Church in Washington, D.C., unless (in ER’s paraphrase) it “should be backed by the NEGRO COMMUNITY, not just one church, in order to insure that the concert will be properly supported by a wide section of the community, and not become involved in fears and rivalries and uncertainties of individuals or small groups” (George Murphy.Jr., to ER, Feb. 22, 1958; ER to GM, Jr., Feb. 28, 1958, MSRC: Murphy).

  20. FBI Main 100-12304-465, 501, 511, 515.

  21. FBI Main 100-12304-465 (Perry), 511 (left prominence). Hoover decided not to survey PR’s residence for “installation of a tesur,” since his continuing travels would prevent “sufficient day-to-day coverage” of his activities (FBI Main 100-12304-501, May 28, 1958). Interview with Rose Perry, April 27, 1982; ER to Pettis Perry, Nov. 16, 1957, NYPL/Schm: Perry Papers. When SAC, New York, later recommended to Hoover that PR “be removed from the Key Figure list of the NYO” (FBI Main 100-12304-545, Oct. 17, 1958), Hoover replied that “The Bureau does not concur with your recommendation.… Robeson continues to be of sufficient importance and potential dangerousness from an internal security standpoint to require his immediate apprehension in the event of an emergency.… Robeson’s current activities and freedom to travel enhance his value to the communist movement. It is, therefore, felt that his potential dangerousness to the internal security of the United States is increased” (Hoover to SAC, New York, Oct. 28, 1958, FBI Main 100-12304-545). PR, Jr., ms. comments (accident). For more on the St. Louis and Los Angeles incidents, see pp. 317 and 431.

  22. Oakland Tribune, Feb. 10, 1958 (“velvety”); San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 10, 1958 (“greatest basso”); FBI New York 100-25857-3502; FBI Main 100-12304-515 (effective). PR billed his 1958 concerts as “informal recitals,” combining songs with his reflections on “the origins of, and relations between, folk music”—meaning theories on the pentatonic scale (PR press release, RA). Geri Branton (interview, April 2, 1982 [PR, Jr., participating]) confirmed PR’s enthusiastic reception in the black community.

  23. Pittsburgh Courier, April 12, 19, 28, 1958. The FBI kept fully posted on the events in Pittsburgh (FBI Main 100-12304-512). Rosalie to Marian Forsythe, April 22, 1958, courtesy of Paulina Forsythe.

  24. ER to Burroughs, March 22, 1958; ER to Bennett, March 22, 1958; ER to Ishmael Flory, March 23, 1958—all in RA; interview with Oscar Brown, Sr., July 2, 1986. By the time of the Alpha Phi Alpha national convention the following year, Ishmael Flory, who attended, found “attitudes towards both Du Bois and Robeson very high, very high” (interviews with Flory, July 1–2, 1986).

  25. Interview with Margaret Burroughs, July 1, 1986; interview with Julia Lorchard, July 2, 1986. Mrs. Lorchard has recently (1986) given her husband’s papers to Du Sable Museum in Chicago, and I found them a rich source. Also useful was a 1969 tape Studs Terkel played for me made with various prominent blacks in the Chicago area, including Margaret Burroughs (for a full description of the tape, see note 7, p. 577.

  26. Interview with Sam Parks, Dec. 27, 1986, plus follow-up phone discussion, Dec. 30, 1986.

  27. Ibid.

  28. Interviews with Ishmael Flory, July 1–2, 1986; interview with Oscar Brown, Sr., July 2, 1986; Jet, April 17, 1958; Murphy to ER, April 10, 1958, RA; MacDonald, Black and White TV, pp. 56–57 (local TV). According to Flory, the establishment of the Afro-American Heritage Association was the direct result of PR’s 1958 visit to Chicago. A number of people had asked Robeson wh
at they could do to help, and he had suggested they direct their energies toward disseminating information about the Afro-American past. Flory described the Heritage Association as “an effort to build local heritage associations for the purpose of stressing the Negro’s past history in communities of Negro population of 2000 or over” (Flory to Pettis Perry, May 30, 1958, NYPL/Schm: Perry Papers).

  29. The quotations in this and the following paragraph are from PR, Stand, pp. 1–2, 38–40. The 1958 edition of Here I Stand was issued by Othello Associates and was dedicated to ER (a rather impersonal acknowledgment of her political labors). Angus Cameron, the radical editor at Knopf who had known PR in the Progressive movement, had been trying since the 1940s to get him to write an autobiography; he believes PR did not submit Here I Stand to him for possible publication because he wanted to keep “full control” in his own hands (interview with Cameron, July 15, 1986). The 1971 edition (Beacon Press) contains an informative preface by Lloyd L. Brown about the book’s initial reception and a brief Afterword (dated Aug. 28, 1964) by PR in which he takes pleasure in noting recent “transformations” that had changed his 1958 emphasis on the “power of Negro action” from “an idea into a reality that is manifesting itself throughout our land. The concept of mass militancy, of mass action, is no longer deemed ‘too radical’ in Negro life.” There was open displeasure among some in the CPUSA over PR’s emphasis in Here I Stand on the need for blacks themselves—rather than the Party—to serve as the vanguard in the black struggle.

  30. Stand, pp. 98–99, 103.

  31. The Afro-American, Feb. 22, March 15, May 3, 1958; Pittsburgh Courier, Feb. 22, March 29, 1958; Chicago Crusader, March 8, 1958; Herald Dispatch, May 8, 1958; The Crisis, March 1958; “Summary Financial Statement” as of May 31, 1959, RA. Continuing his campaign to mend fences, PR sent an inscribed copy of the book to Ralph Bunche, who acknowledged it politely (Bunche to PR, Feb. 14, 1958, RA). The FBI also took an interest in the book, following its publication history and sales closely (FBI New York 100-25857-3266). In a bugged conversation between Lloyd Brown and Ben Davis, FBI SAC New York reported to J. Edgar Hoover (Sept. 15, 1958, FBI Main 100-12304-541) that Brown felt a recent speech by A. Philip Randolph was “right out of the book on the subject of white allies” and that “even” Adam Clayton Powell was “red-baiting less and less”; Davis responded with the assertion that Here I Stand “is going to be like Tom Paine’s Common Sense as far as Negroes are concerned.” The Afro-American serialized Here I Stand in nine weekly installments in the spring of 1958, as arranged for by George Murphy, Jr. (GM, Jr., to ER, Dec. 20, 1957, Jan. 13, 1958; GM, Jr., to Carl Murphy, Dec. 20, 1957, MSRC: Murphy).

  32. Ebony, Oct. 1957; transcript of the Oct. 2, 1957, NBC program is in RA. In response to a question about whether Robeson was ill, Rowan said, “I noticed no signs of physical illness when I interviewed him.” George Murphy. Jr., to ER, n.d. (1957); in a letter to his brother Carl, Murphy characterized the Rowan piece more moderately (GM, Jr., to CM, Sept. 30, 1957, MSRC: Murphy). In a long letter to Ebony, Essie expressed gratification that “the Negro press has taken the inititaive in raising the Curtain of Silence with which official America has tried for seven years to cut Paul Robeson off from the American public” (ER to Ebony, Sept. 16, 1957, RA).

  33. ER to Peggy Middleton and Cedric Belfrage, Feb. 5, 1958, RA; ER to George Murphy, Jr., Feb. 28, 1958, MSRC: Murphy. Equity, June 1958, has selections from the debate over the Robeson resolution; the resolution was not, however, passed by the Equity Council, to which it was automatically sent (The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, April 1, 10, 1958). Nat Hentoff sat in on one of the Vanguard recording sessions and wrote a piece about it (The Reporter, April 17, 1958) in which he quoted the “grinning” president of Vanguard, Maynard Solomon, as saying, “It’s a real schmaltzy album.”

  34. The correspondence between Peggy Middleton and Essie, in RA, is full of details of the birthday celebrations; additionally, Middleton’s correspondence with “Schlicting” (G. F. Alexan) in the GDR, copies of which are in RA, and Alexan’s with PR, are particularly rich in information about the East European celebrations. Also useful has been Akira Iwasaki to PR, March 16, 1958; ER to Iwasaki, March 30, 1958; L. Kislova to PR, April 19, 1958—all in RA; FBI Main 100-12304-490 (Port-au-Prince). RA also has a bulky collection of messages of greeting to PR from around the world, including one from Soong Ching-ling (Madame Sun Yat-sen), March 31, 1958. Earl Robinson (interview, Aug. 1986) said the GDR paid him ten thousand dollars to make the film on Robeson. PR himself was in Chicago on the actual day of his birthday and celebrated at a public party for him in the Masonic Temple.

  35. A copy of Nehru’s widely publicized statement is in RA, dated March 6, 1958. The New York Times announced it on March 21, then in its edition of April 9 headlined “Nehru Soft Pedals Words on Robeson.” The New York Post, among other publications, characterized the Indian celebration as run by “Indian Communists” (March 25, 1958), and Blitz (London) reported the diplomatic flurry (April 12, 1958).

  36. The full packet of Indian press clippings and pertinent State Department documents are in RA and too numerous to cite. The critical documents are: Bunker telegram to Dulles, March 26, 1958; Chargé Turner to State, telegram, March 20, 1958; Department of State memoir of talk with Mehta, March 21, 1958; Bunker to Dulles, telegram, March 22, 1958; Dulles to Bunker, telegram, March 24, 1958. A stirring defense of PR by Chagla is in Blitz, April 19, 1958.

  37. ER to Nehru, March 31, 1958; ER to Indira Gandhi, March 31, 1958 (RA). Details on the celebrations in India are in the Delhi Times of India, May 10, 1958; The Hindustan Times, April 7, 1958; National Herald, April 10, 1958; The Hindu Weekly Review, April 14, 1958. Turner reported to Dulles that Alub D. Gorwala had suggested to him that “Nehru’s backing this movement stems from Lady Mountbatten who is admirer of Robeson” (telegram, March 21, 1958, 791.-001/3-2058); for the earlier contact between Mountbatten and PR, see pp. 160–61. In an untaped interview granted me, PR, Jr., and Marilyn Robeson in Aug. 1982, Indira Gandhi expressed anger at the attempted interference of the American authorities in the celebration and confirmed that her father, for diplomatic reasons, had stayed aloof from the detailed planning after issuing his initial statement. Late in her life Indira Gandhi described PR as “a remarkable man. It is tragic that his country tried to denigrate and belittle him” (Gandhi to Marie Seton, Aug. 22, 1982, courtesy of Seton).

  38. The Afro-American, May 17, 1958; National Guardian, May 19, 1958; New York World-Telegram, May 10, 1958 (“lost glow”); New York Herald Tribune, The New York Times, May 10, 1958; New York Post, May 11, 1958; New York Amsterdam News, May 17, 1958; Newsweek (the sourest review), May 19, 1958; DownBeat, May 29, 1958 (“vigor”); The Saturday Review, May 24, 1958. The latter review, by the respected Irving Kolodin, chided PR for announcing the “basic musicological truth” about the affinity between the different folk musics of the world as if it was “a revelation”—aided by his “histrionic talent for vivifying a commonplace by an inflection of speech, a thrust of head.…” The FBI tapped a phone conversation with Ben Davis in which PR spoke of “new vistas” (FBI Main 100-12304-? [illegible], May 26, 1958). The second concert is described in an interview with Marvel Cook (who helped distribute the tickets) by Mike Wallington and Howard Johnson for their 1986 BBC program on Robeson (tapes courtesy of Wallington and Johnson); interview with Edith Tiger, June 17, 1985. The tape of the concert at Mother A.M.E. Zion is in RA. George Murphy, Jr., played a key role in arranging the A.M.E. Zion concert (GM, Jr., to Ben Robeson, March 3, 1958, MSRC: Murphy).

  39. FBI Main 100-12304-516, 524; ER to Paul Endicott, June 19, 1958, RA; Daily Worker, June 28, 1958; interview with Leonard Boudin.July 14, 1982; New York Times, June 17, 27, 1958; National Guardian, June 23, 1958; The Afro-American, May 31, 1958; ER to Glen Byam Shaw, June 30, 1958, RA. Corliss Lamont, who, unlike PR, had been at liberty to travel in the Western Hemisphere, got his passport back at the same time. Originally passports had
been denied both men on the ground that their travel was contrary to the “best interests” of the nation. Later the ground was shifted to stress their refusal to sign “non-Communist” affidavits, a rationale entirely removed as a result of the court’s denial that the State Department had a right to inquire into the political beliefs or associations of those applying for passports. The court did not, however, give a definitive ruling on the constitutional question of whether Congress had the right to withhold passports on the basis of an applicant’s politics. As a result, there was an immediate move, spearheaded by President Eisenhower himself, to pass explicit enabling legislation. On July 7, 1958, Eisenhower asked Congress to give the government “clear statutory authority” to refuse passports to known Communists and to those subject to CP domination, claiming it was “essential” that the Secretary of State have such authority to maintain “national security.” Eisenhower stressed the “urgency” of the matter: “each day and week that passes without it exposes us to great danger.” A bill embodying the President’s wishes was immediately introduced in both the House and the Senate. (The New York Times came out editorially against such a bill [July 8, 9, 1958]; the New York Herald-Tribune came out for it [June 18, July 9, 1958].) Eisenhower’s call for speed prompted a sardonic editorial in the Washington edition of The Afro-American (July 12, 1958): he “proved again this week that his advocacy of patience is a commodity which he reserves especially for a minority clamoring for civil rights.… Eisenhower does not think that it is important to rush matters where the interests of colored citizens are concerned.…”