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Date: March 30, 1998
Paul Robeson: The First 100 Years
University, community to reflect on life of actor and activist
Princeton, N.J.&endash;The University and the Princeton community will join forces April 7 at 8 p.m. in Richardson Auditorium to celebrate the centennial of the birth of Paul Robeson, the famed African-American actor and singer who was born here and became a leading voice for the cause of civil rights, despite efforts to silence to him.
The program, "Paul Robeson: The First 100 Years, " will feature music, commentary and a presentation of film clips of Robeson’s performances. The event is being jointly presented by the Princeton University Programs in African-American Studies and American Studies, the New Jersey Historical Commission and by the Arts Council of Princeton, which is located in the Princeton neighborhood where Robeson spent his childhood.
"It’s a celebration of Robeson’s life," said Nell Irvin Painter, Edwards Professor of American History and director of the Program in African-American Studies. Painter, who will serve as the moderator, said the evening "will be very personal." The program will feature commentary from Robeson’s biographer, Lloyd Brown, and a vocal performance by Jeanie Bryson. Sean Wilentz, professor of history and director of the Program in American Studies, will present a montage of film clips.
Robeson was born in Princeton on April 9, 1898, the son of a minister who had escaped from slavery in Virginia. After graduating from Somerville High School, Paul Robeson went to Rutgers University, where he became both valedictorian of the Class of 1919 and the first African-American football player to be named an All-American. He began acting while a student at Columbia Law School. Robeson became a lawyer, but he left that career for the stage in 1924 following his breakthrough performance in Eugene O’Neill’s play, "All God’s Chillun Got Wings."
He added concerts to his repertoire in 1925, becoming the first singer to popularize the music of black churches. Through the 1930s and 1940s, he toured Europe and the United States, starring in "Showboat," and "Porgy and Bess" as well as Shakespeare’s "Othello," perhaps his best-known role. A trip to the Soviet Union in 1934, at the invitation of the famed filmmaker Sergei Eisentstein, changed his life. Robeson said that in the Soviet Union, he had been treated not as a Negro, but with the full dignity of mankind.
At the peak of his popularity, Robeson took up the cause of civil rights, becoming an eloquent spokesman against racial and economic discrimination. But his embrace of leftist causes
caused him to be investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee. A campaign to silence Robeson ensued. He saw his concerts cancelled, his records pulled from store shelves and his passport revoked. His income plummeted. Yet Robeson would not yield, often refusing to answer whether he was a Communist. At another appearance before the HUAC in 1950, he shouted, "You are the real un-Americans and you should be ashamed of yourselves."
For these reasons, Robeson’s place in the nation’s civil rights history is a touchy subject, according to Wilentz. "Like some black activists of his generation, he was drawn into the orbit of the Communist Party," Wilentz said. "And that has led some critics to honor him as a martyr and others to repudiate him utterly," For example, efforts to have a commemorative stamp issued in honor of the centennial were turned down.
Robeson ultimately regained his right to travel, but his career and his spirits never recovered. He experienced circulatory problems and stopped making public appearances as his health worsened. Robeson died in seclusion at his sister’s home in Philadelphia on December 28, 1976. In recent years, his contributions have been viewed in a more positive light, in part because of the approaching anniversary and in part, Wilentz said, because "it sometimes takes 20 to 30 years for an artist to be rediscovered."
Wilentz is especially anxious for young people who never saw Robeson to see the clips of his performances. The title of the anniversary program reflects this legacy. Although censored in his own lifetime, Wilentz said, "Robeson will live on as a great American artist."
The event is free and open to the public. Biographies of participants are attached.
Paul Robeson: The First 100 Years
Participants
Lloyd Brown, a journalist and biographer, was the longtime friend of Paul Robeson, who designated Brown to be his biographer. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Brown is largely self-educated. He first worked as a printer and became a union organizer. His first published work, Young Workers in Action: The Story of the South River Strike, appeared while he was still a teenager. After serving in the Army Air Force during World War II, Brown became a magazine editor and published his first novel, Iron City, in 1951. He joined the staff of Robeson’s newspaper, Freedom, in 1950 and collaborated with the actor on his newspaper column and his autobiography, Here I Stand. Brown’s major recent work is The Young Paul Robeson: "On My Journey Now." (1997, Westview Press/Harper Collins)
Jeanie Bryson had more than a decade of experience in the New York jazz scene before releasing her first album, the well-received I Love Being Here With You. Influenced by Dinah Washington, Carmen McRae and Peggy Lee, Bryson’s vocal style has been compared to that of Billie Holliday. Her albums Tonight I Need You and Some Cats Know include material previously recorded by Lee as well as songs co-written with her mother, Connie Bryson. The daughter of jazz great Dizzy Gillespie, Jeanie Bryson has toured extensively in the United States and Europe. She grew up in East Brunswick, N.J., and, like Paul Robeson, is a graduate of Rutgers University.
Sean Wilentz, professor of history at Princeton, is the director of the Program in American Studies. Wilentz is an expert on the history of American labor movements; his books include Chants Democratic: New York City & the Rise of The American Working Class (1984, Oxford University Press) and The Key of Liberty: The Life and Democratic Writings of William Manning, "A Laborer" 1747-1814 (with Michael Merrill, 1993, Harvard University Press). Wilentz is a recipient of the Cotsen Family Faculty Fellowship for excellence in teaching at Princeton and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and Ford. He received bachelor’s degrees from Columbia and Oxford and his Ph.D. from Yale.
Nell Irvin Painter, Edwards Professor of American History at Princeton, is the director of the Program in African-American Studies. Much of Painter’s scholarship has focused on the American South in the 19th and 20th centuries; her books have chronicled the migration of blacks to Kansas after Reconstruction and the lives of white plantation mistresses. More recently, however, she has received acclaim for her biography of a northern African-American, Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol (1996, W.W. Norton & Company). She has been a Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Humanities and Ford Foundation fellow and a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. Painter received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley and her Ph.D. from Harvard.