Highlights from a rare TV special in which Paul Robeson, Jr. shares stories about his late father.
The film he introduces can be viewed here (poor quality) in its entirety • Video
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Paul Leroy Robeson (/ˈroʊbsən/ ROHB-sən;[1][2] April 9, 1898 - January 23, 1976) was an American bass baritone concert artist and stage and film actor who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his political activism. Educated at Rutgers College and Columbia University, he was also a star athlete in his youth. He also studied Swahili and linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London in 1934.[3] His political activities began with his involvement with unemployed workers and anti-imperialist students whom he met in Britain and continued with support for the Loyalist cause in the Spanish Civil War and his opposition to fascism. In the United States he also became active in the Civil Rights Movement and other social justice campaigns. His sympathies for the Soviet Union and for communism, and his criticism of the United States government and its foreign policies, caused him to be blacklisted during the McCarthy era.
Paul Leroy Robeson Jr. (November 2, 1927 - April 26, 2014) was an American author, archivist and historian.
Robeson was born in Brooklyn to entertainer and activist Paul Robeson and Eslanda Goode Robeson. As his family moved to Europe, he grew up in England (visiting the St Mary's Town and Country School in London) and Moscow, in the Soviet Union. In Moscow, he attended an elite school. The Robesons returned to the United States in 1939 to live first in Harlem, New York, and after 1941 in Enfield, Connecticut. Robeson graduated from Enfield High School and attended Cornell University, where he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering in 1949.
Robeson's paternal grandfather Reverend William Drew Robeson was born into slavery,[1] escaped from a plantation in his teens[2] and eventually became the minister of Princeton's Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church in 1881. Robeson's paternal grandmother, Maria Louisa Bustill[3] was from a prominent Quaker family of mixed ancestry: African, Anglo-American, and Lenape.[4]
Robeson worked on the legacy of his father, published a two-volume biography of him, and created an archive of his father's films, photographs, recordings, letters, and publications.[5] As an advocate for social and racial justice he shared the political views of his father, indicating that "like him, I am a black radical".[5][6] He was married to Marilyn Greenberg in 1949; the couple had two children, David (died 1998) and Susan,[7] and one grandchild.[6]
Robeson died of lymphoma in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 2014
Shared for historical purposes. I do not own the rights.
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26 апр 2020
