Paul Robeson was perhaps one of the least known geniuses of our times. He was a man whose talent transcended into greatness in a multitude of endeavors. This morning I'd like to share with you something of the richness of his music, some of the glorious accomplishments of his life as well as the dark chapter in our governmental history that denied Robeson full recognition of his greatness.

Paul Robeson was born in 1898 in Princeton, N.J. the youngest of five surviving children of William and Maria Robeson. His father was the pastor of the Witherspoon St. Presbyterian Church of Princeton. To understand the foundation of Robeson's talents, one needs to be aware of what it was like to grow up in a Negro household headed by a minister. Robeson conveys the reverence he held for his father as well as the great influence his father had on his development in this description he gives in his book "Here I Stand". Though my father was a man of ordinary height, he was very broad of shoulder and his physical bearing reflected the rock-like strength and dignity of his character. He had the greatest speaking voice I have ever heard. It was a deep, sonorous basso, richly melodic and refined, vibrant with the love and compassion which filled him. How proudly as a boy, I walked at his side, my hand in his, as he moved among the people! There was a wide gap in years between us--he was 53 when I was born, near 60 when my mother died -- but during many of his years as a widower I was the only child at home and his devoted care and attention bound us closely together." The refuge of this minister's home was the social center, theatre, and concert hall to all who shared the quarters. Ragtime, gospels, blues, and spirituals poured forth the emotion of the black culture. Paul Robeson's roots were grounded in African influences that flowed into his tremendous musical creativity, the gift for which he may be best known. This song, "I've Got a Home in That Rock" speaks to those influences.

After Maria Robeson's death in 1904 Rev. Robeson t6ok his family first to Westfield NJ then to Somerville where they lived across the street from the home in which my father grew up. During Paul's youth he spent eight yrs in a segregated elementary school. His high school experience in an integrated school was basically a positive one no doubt because of his outstanding abilities in academics and sports. I remember my father relating the story of his own introduction to the high school baseball team. He was four years Robeson's junior but both played the same position on the field -- short stop. My father's first day on the team began with Paul's introduction of him to teammates saying, "Here's Sammy Woldin, the man whose going to fill my shoes on this team." The enjoyment and humor my father found in that comment was based on the difference in their physical stature. My dad was almost a foot shorter than Robeson with a shoe size probably about one half as big.

After graduating from Somerville High Paul entered Rutgers University in 1915 on a four-year scholarship. Only two other black students had ever attended Rutgers, the since its rounding in 1776 Paul's successes in the classroom at Rutgers, and later at Columbia Law School demonstrated his outstanding academic talents. He won Phi Beta Kappa honors in his junior .year at Rutgers and graduated valedictorian in spite of the demands on his time from many extracurricular activities, which ranged from the debating club to athletics as well as acting and singing, all of which he performed brilliantly. He was a great all around athlete receiving 12 varsity letters in sports while attending Rutgers in football, baseball, basketball, and track. When he went out for the football team as a freshman, it is said that his teammates tried to kill him rather than accept a black on the team. They ganged up on him, broke his nose, dislocated his shoulder, and cleated his hand, tearing away all the fingernails. Demonstrating great personal courage he went on in spite of this to become an outstanding football player, twice selected for the All-American team. In spite of his major accomplishments in college his name was later all but erased from the hall of records there because of his unpopular political attitudes that evolved later in his life. It wasn't until the close of his life that Rutgers officials gave any public recognition to Robeson's collegiate accomplishments.

While enrolled in Columbia Law School Robeson played professional football on weekends to pay his tuition. In 1923 after he met and married Eslanda Goode, Robeson graduated from Columbia Law School fully expecting to establish a professional career in the courtroom. He soon discovered that because of his race his career in law would never go beyond working behind the scenes doing research in the law libraries and resource rooms and he would be most certainly denied access to the courtroom floor. Unwilling to accept this social decree, he changed career objectives and turned his sights to the concert stage and the theater. During the 1920s, he spent a number of years first in Harlem, then in London gaining world acclaim for his voice. In 1924, he starred in two Eugene O'Neills play "All God's Chillun Got Wings" and "Emperor Jones". He later starred in 11 major plays in the US and in England. His crowning achievement in the theater was his historical portrayal of Othello in the 1943-44 Broadway production. It established an all time record for the longest run of any Shakespearean play on broadway with 296 performances. George Jean Nathan, a noted of the time said, "Robeson with relatively little experience and with no training to speak of is one of the most thoroughly eloquent, impressive and convincing actors that I have looked at and listened to in almost 20 years of professional theatre-going." In addition to live theater this artistic giant's presence emerged in numerous films. Here is his rendition of the song "Old Man River" written by Oscar Hammerstein from the movie and musical production Showboat. Paul modified the lyrics from Hammerstein's original rendition over the years in order that the words speak with greater dignity and strength to oppressed peoples.

By the 1940s Robeson's career was scaling to unprecedented heights. Yet during this most successful stage of his life, Paul Robeson remained true to his conviction and consistently fought for the rights of his people. When he sang below the Mason Dixon line he would accept no engagements where Negro and white people were forced to sit apart. Because of this decision there were few places for him to sing in the South -- basically only Negro universities and colleges where the faculty was willing to open doors to the white people who came. This was one of the earliest challenges to the Jim Crow system of the South long before the Civil Rights activities of Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks. While he was at the pinnacle of his career Robeson sought to aid his own people in those areas most vital to their existence -- to improve wages, hours, conditions of work and to abolish discrimination in employment and education. He began to work with mass organizations and labor unions. At one point Robeson gave a concert at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Nearby, the mine organizer, Joe Hill, had met his death by execution some 20 years before in the Utah State Prison. Many were amazed that this towering. black man would have the audacity to flaunt the charge of murder at the copper bosses in this local setting. The song received a mixed reception. At the close of the concept Robeson walked to the front of the stage and announced, "You've heard my final concert for at least two years, and perhaps for many more. I'm retiring here and now from concert work -- I shall sing, from now on, for my trade union and college friends; in other words, only at gatherings where I can sing what I please." Here is the song that amazed that audience demonstrating that this man who earned millions remained uncorrupted.

During the 40s Robeson also reached the bights of his acting career. Yet he put it all aside to make nation-wide appearances to protest the oppression of blacks. This is an excerpt for a speech to an interracial audience he made in New Orleans in 1942:

"...Deep down, I think, I had imagined Negroes of the South beaten, subservient, cowed. "But I see them now courageous and possessors of a profound and instinctive dignity, a pace that has come through its trials unbroken, a pace of such magnificence of spirit that there exists no power on earth that could crush them. They will bend, but they will never break... "I find that I must come South again and yet again. It is only here that I achieve absolute and utter identity with my people. There is no question here of where I stand, no need to make a decision. The redcap in the station, the president of your college, the man in the street--they are all one with me, part of me. And I am proud of it, utterly proud of my people."

In the United States Robeson's continued friendship with the Soviet Union as well as his unyielding defense of the rights of Black people were increasingly seized upon and used in an effort to curb his influence. In 1949 hatred of him exploded into an ugly riot in Peekskill, NY not long after he had declared, on behalf of the youth of Afro-Asia, that colored people did not want war with the Soviet Union. "It is unthinkable", he said, "that American Negroes could go to war on behalf of those who have oppressed them for generations against the Soviet Union which in one generation has raised our people to full human dignity." His respect for the Soviet Union made him an object of hatred. But his fame, along with his African ancestry gave a particularly ugly edge to that hatred. As suspicion of him grew in this country the spotlight of fame was quickly extinguished.

In 1950, Paul Robeson's passport was revoked by the State Department. He had refused to sign the non-Communist oath required to renew his passport, arguing properly on First Amendment grounds that the Government had no right to know his political beliefs and had no right to determine his right to travel according to what he did or did not believe. He was never charged with an illegal action. He was never arrested or put on trial. Yet, the State Department claimed it had the right to deny Robeson a passport "solely because of his recognized status as a spokesman for large sections of Negro Americans (and) in view of his frank admission that he has been for years active politically in behalf of interdependence of the colonial people of Africa." Robeson, it was said, was a dangerous "Red". Robeson, it was also said, was a dangerous Black. This made him twice as troublesome as anyone else in the Fearful Fifties when Communism was thought to be an ever present danger to the American Way of Life. An unprecedented executive order signed by President Truman forbade Robeson to set foot outside the limits of the continental U.S. with the penalty of five years imprisonment and a $5,000 fine. It soon became evident that a boycott had been imposed on Robeson: no concert hall, public or private, would rent to him, and the mass media were closed to him. Robeson's income plummeted from over $100,000 per year to less than $6,000 and remained there for more than a decade at a time in his life when his earning potential was the greatest.

In 1956 Robeson was summons to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee, chaired by Sen. Joe McCarthy. During this investigation one of the Congressmen asked why, if he liked Russia so much, he had not stayed there. Robeson's response was quick and direct. "Because," he said, "my father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I'm going to stay right here and have a part of it, just like you. And no fascist-minded people like you ~il 1 drive me from it. Is that clear?"

In his book "Here I Stand", Robeson asserts, "The truth is, I am not and never have been involved in any international conspiracy or any other kind and do not know anyone who is. It should be plain to everybody -- and especially to Negroes -- that if the government officials had a shred of evidence to back up that charge, you can bet your last dollar that they would have tried their best to put me under their jail. But they have not such evidence, because that charge is a lie."

In 1957 Robeson finally broke through the boycott and appeared to standing room audiences in Oakland California. In 1958, eight years after his passport had been revoked, it was reinstated by a Supreme Court ruling mainly through the efforts of a campaign by the "Committee to Restore Paul Robeson's Passport". Tumultuous welcomes were offered in concerts halls in England and all over Europe. In 1960, Paul Robeson made what was to be his last concert tour -- a highly successful event in Australia and New Zealand. He not only sang concerts, but spoke and' sang to workers during their lunch breaks, appeared at meetings of peace activist, and spoke in behalf of the Aborigine civil rights movement.

In 1961 illness caused Robeson's retirement from singing and acting. He returned home to the United States in 1963. He continued to make limited public appearances until the fall of 1965 when poor health required him to retire completely from public life. The strain of the persecution he experienced throughout his professional career no doubt contributed greatly to the physical and emotional problems he experienced late in his life. From 1965 until his death in 1976, he lived in quiet seclusion in Philadelphia with his sister Marian.

To close the program I'd like to share with you Robeson's rendition of the Ballad for Americans written by Earl Robinson and first performed by Robeson for C.B.S. in 1939. It gained great popularity and was even played at the 1940 Republican Convention. It might be said that the only crime that this man of dignity and strength ever committed was that he never gave up hope that this ballad could someday become a reality.