The Perimeters of Black Expression:
The Cases of
Paul Robeson and Nat King Cole
The Case of Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson was a singular American. He was a brilliant student, graduating with honors from Rutgers University, and then earning a law degree at Columbia University. An outstanding athlete, he was named an All-American football player in 1917 and 1918. He was also a premier operatic bass, and a sensitive interpreter of folk music. He is well remembered as an impressive stage and screen actor. Yet, Robeson jeopardized his professional success by insisting that his first social priority was to speak for black Americans—that no matter what praise he received from the world of culture, he was still a part of an abused minority whose plight was dismal and whose champions were few.
Robeson used his international fame as a platform from which to denounce the hypocrisy of a society founded on personal liberty, yet tolerant of segregation, inequitable Jim Crow laws, and lynching. In stressing his point, Robeson publicly announced his approval of the Soviet Union as the highest arrangement of social equality in the world.
Although Robeson was not a member of the Communist party, his passion for the betterment of African Americans frequently led him parallel to Communist ideology. Throughout the 1930s, he was a familiar spokesman for the Soviet formula: a blend of socialism, pacifism, and egalitarian rhetoric.
While he was tolerated in the Depression years, during World War II—a time when the United States was a military ally of the Soviet Union—Robeson became a political asset. Ile often appeared on radio as a spokesman for the Allied cause. On several occasions his voice was beamed around the world via shortwave. In his speeches and concerts, and by his physical presence, Robeson suggested that the lot of the black American was improving. In the fervor of the war against a racist Fascist enemy, his crusade against American bigotry seemed also to be reaching fruition.
The postwar world, however, was different for Robeson. Personally, he found in the newly established Progressive party a legitimate political organization through which to channel his reformist energies. As did millions of citizens, he rallied behind the Progressive candidate in the presidential elections of 1948, former Vice-President Henry Wallace. He appeared in Wallace campaign films. Robeson seemed genuinely inspired when, in a campaign speech in Washington, D.C., he told an audience, "We have taken the offensive against fascism! We will take the power from their hands and through our representatives we will direct the future destiny of our nation."
The least of Robeson's postwar defeats was the dismal showing made by Wallace in the November elections. In a society now locked in a cold war with the Russian rival, Robeson's progressive politics were labeled "communistic" and "treasonable." He consistently suffered because of his outspoken political views. Speeches were abruptly canceled, concerts were called off, biographies of Robeson were banned from public libraries, and rioting often occurred during his appearances.
His pro-Russian views put Robeson in an untenable position. When Congress held hearings on legislation outlawing the Communist party, Robeson was asked to testify on the issue. When he proclaimed that it was "unthinkable" that American blacks would "go to war on behalf of those who have oppressed us for generations" and against the USSR, "a country which in one generation has raised our people to full human dignity of mankind," he was denounced by social leaders, black and white.
Robeson's alienation from American society reached its peak in 1950 when, in the midst of an anti-Communist hysteria aggravated by the outbreak of hostilities in Korea, the State Department revoked his passport. Until the Supreme Court ruled this action unconstitutional, Robeson was unable to perform at home or to travel abroad. This "imprisonment" lasted for eight years.
It was in this atmosphere that he was invited in 1950 to appear in New York City on Today with M