Examiner.com

   Paul Robeson was approachable

Its an unwritten legacy until now that the Black Fives Era, produced players who would go on and shake up the world. Two of them were Ralph Bunche and Paul Robeson, both men became outstanding leaders of their people, despite overcoming difficult obstacles.

Paul Robeson, is a prime candidate for Renaissance Man, when you consider all the things he did, despite rejection from his enemies and friends alike. Walter Camp who became known as 'The Father of American Football, who was a coach, said this about Robeson: “the greatest to ever trot the gridiron.” How do you measure greatness?

When Robeson tried out for the Rutgers University football team, he was the only black student during his time on campus. “Robeson was one of three classmates at Rutgers accepted into Phi Beta Kappa in his third year.” In 1919 he was one of four students selected to Cap and Skull, Rutgers honor society.

   Robeson pictured with Albert Einstein

When he tried out for the football team he faced savagery. “When a senior member of the team crushed Robeson's hand with a cleated foot, tearing off the fingernail. He bore the abuse to prove his worth, eventually becoming the greatest football player of his era.” He rose so well that he attracted the governments attention, and because of his political beliefs later in life. His selection as All-American in 1918 was stricken from the roster. It wasn't until 1995 that his name was restored to Rutgers University sports records and he was officially inducted into the The College Football Hall of Fame.

        Robeson the Renaissance Man

After completing law school at Columbia in the period between 1920-1923 he supported himself by working as an athlete and a performer. He played professional football in the American Professional Football Association later called the NFL. He also played for the St. Christopher Club traveling to basketball games during the 1918-1919 season. This was a Black Fives Team. He graduated from law school the same class as William O. Douglass—later a United States Supreme Court Justice.

In that same year he was hired at the NYC law firm of Stotesbury and Miner, where he was rebuffed by a secretary. “Robeson quit after a white secretary refused to take dictation from him because of his color of skin.

Robeson was truly the Renaissance Man, when you consider the following done amid more prejudice than most of us today could ever imagine. He was an American bass—baritone concert singer, scholar, actor of film, All-American and professional athlete, writer, multi-lingual orator, lawyer and noted for wide ranging social justice activism. Robeson was trade union activist, peace activist, Phi Beta Kappa Society laureate, and a recipient of the Springarn Medal and Stalin Peace Prize.

His career in acting and singing was phenomenal. “Robeson was the first major concert star to popularize the performance of Negro Spirituals and was the first black actor of the 20th Century to portray Shakespeare's Othello on Broadway.” In 2010, his run on Broadway for that role has the longest run in history. He paved the way for other blacks in later times who would come after him, because his roles in American and British films were dignified and respectful. It was because he spoke out about Fascism and Racism that he became a target of both the East and the West.

If you can believe it, he was attacked by both the United States Congress and the NAACP. “To this day, Robeson's FBI file is one of the largest of any entertainer ever investigated by the United States Intelligence Community.” Primarily because he remained committed to both socialism and anti colonialism. There has been a work in progress in recent years, and his son, Paul Robeson Jr. has helped to restore his father's name to the prominence that it deserves.

Robeson died at the age of 77, in 1976. His body was viewed in Philadelphia at Benta's Funeral Home and numerous visitors paid homage to him. His granddaughter, Susan Robeson, recalled....watching this parade of humanity who came to pay their respects....from the numbers runner on the corner to Gustaf VI Adolf King of Sweden.”

“'Condolences came from around the world including Coretta Scott King who deplored 'America's inexcusable treatment' of a man who had had 'the courage to point out her injustices.'”

Robeson's biographer, Martin Duberman wrote the following about his treatment from the press: “The white press, after decades of harassing Robeson, now tipped its hat to a great American, paid its gingerly respect in editorials that ascribed the vituperation leveled at Roberson in his lifetime to the Bad old Days of the Cold War, implied those days were forever gone, downplayed the racist component central to his persecution, ignored the continuing inability of white America to tolerate a black maverick who refused to bend. The black press made no such mistakes. It had never, overall, been as hostile to Robeson as the white press, (though at some points in his career, nearly so).”