Photo: Singer-athlete Paul Robeson, 1963 (AP Photo) / Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell, May 17, 2011. (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds) / Heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali , Dec. 3, 2009 (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)
There didn’t seem to be much Paul Robeson couldn’t excel at. As a college student, he played football player for Rutgers University, where he was named valedictorian of his graduating class. He went on to become a world-renowned star and film actor, a singer, an athlete, and an activist. His fight against racism and his bent toward a communist political philosophy led to him being blacklisted during the paranoia of McCarthyism in the 1950s.
Paul Robeson at Rutgers University
“From an early age I had come to accept and follow a certain protective tactic of Negro life in America, and I did not fully break with the pattern until many years later. Even while demonstrating that he is really an equal (and, strangely, the proof must be superior performance!) the Negro must never appear to be challenging white superiority,” he wrote in his memoir, “Here I Stand.”
He continued, “Climb up if you can — but don’t act ‘uppity.’ Always show that you are grateful. (Even if what you have gained has been wrested from unwilling powers, be sure to be grateful lest ‘they’ take it all away.) Above all, do nothing to give them cause to fear you, for then the oppressing hand, which might at times ease up a little, will surely become a fist to knock you down again!”
This didn’t stop him for continuing to speak out.
Robeson once said, “The answer to injustice is not to silence the critic, but to end the injustice.”
When On June 12, 1956, Robeson, who had travel to Russia in 1949, was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) after he refused to sign an affidavit affirming that he was not a Communist. When House Committee member Gordon H. Scherer, asked Robeson, “Why do you not stay in Russia?”Robeson answered, “Because my father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay here, and have a part of it just like you. And no Fascist-minded people will drive me from it. Is that clear? I am for peace with the Soviet Union, and I am for peace with China, and I am not for peace or friendship with the Fascist Franco, and I am not for peace with Fascist Nazi Germans. I am for peace with decent people.”
Paul Robeson on racism and colonialism
