Paul Leroy Robeson Jr. (November 2, 1927 – April 26, 2014) was an American author,

archivist An archivist is an information professional who assesses, collects, organizes, preserves, maintains control over, and provides access to records and archives determined to have long-term value. The records maintained by an archivist can cons ...

and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

Biography

Robeson was born in Brooklyn to lawyer, actor, singer and activist

Paul Robeson Paul Leroy Robeson ( ; April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, actor, professional American football, football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for h ...

and chemist, author and activist

Eslanda Goode Robeson Eslanda "Essie" Cardozo Goode Robeson (December 15, 1895 – December 13, 1965) was an American anthropologist, author, actress, and civil rights activist. She was the wife and business manager of performer Paul Robeson. Biography Early ye ...

. 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 The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. In Moscow, he attended an elite school. The Robesons returned to the United States in 1939 to live first in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater ...

, New York, and after 1941 in Enfield, Connecticut. Robeson graduated from

Enfield High School Enfield High School is a secondary school established in 1893 in Enfield, Connecticut. The Enfield High School campus is located in the Connecticut River Valley, on Enfield Street (U.S. Route 5) in Enfield's Historical District. The school has ...

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, escaped from a

plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...

in his teens and eventually became the minister of Princeton's Witherspoon Street

Presbyterian Church Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Christianity, Reformed Protestantism, Protestant tradition named for its form of ecclesiastical polity, church government by representative assemblies of Presbyterian polity#Elder, elders, known as ...

in 1881. Robeson's paternal grandmother,

Maria Louisa Bustill Maria Louisa Bustill Robeson (November 8, 1853 – January 20, 1904) was a Quaker schoolteacher; the wife of the Reverend William Drew Robeson of Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church in Princeton, New Jersey and the mother of Paul Robeson ...

; cf. , was from a prominent Quaker family of mixed ancestry: African, Anglo-American, and

Lenape The Lenape (, , ; ), also called the Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. The Lenape's historica ...

. 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. 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". He was married to Marilyn Greenberg in 1949; the couple had two children, David (died 1998) and

Susan Susan is a feminine given name, the usual English version of Susanna or Susannah. All are versions of the Hebrew name Shoshana, which is derived from the Hebrew ''shoshan'', meaning ''lotus flower'' in Egyptian, original derivation, and severa ...

, and one grandchild. Robeson died of lymphoma in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 2014.

Paul Robeson Sr. legacy

Robeson maintained on many occasions that his father "never joined the Communist Party or any party for that matter—he was an independent artist and would never submit to any kind of organizational discipline." On his own politics he stated: "I was much more an organized political person", he said, adding that from about 1948 to 1962, he was a member of the

Communist Party USA The Communist Party USA (CPUSA), officially the Communist Party of the United States of America, also referred to as the American Communist Party mainly during the 20th century, is a communist party in the United States. It was established ...

. "It was an instrument, a radical instrument that could help advance the interests of African-Americans. It helped build the early civil-rights movement and independent trade union movement in the 1930s, '40s and '50s." He said he left the party in 1962 after "it became bureaucratic and corrupt". Robeson's father, Paul Sr., was one of his closest friends and protectors, traveling and living with him intermittently during his life. Following his father's death, Robeson Jr. worked extensively to establish the Paul Robeson Archive and the Paul Robeson Foundation. The archive, housed at Howard University's Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, is the largest repository in the Western hemisphere of Robeson documents and articles, totaling well over 50,000 items. In the documentary film '' His Name was Robeson'' (1998) by Nikolay Milovidov he spoke about a previously unknown episode from his father's biography, which his father told him before death. It was a secret conversation between

with the Jewish poet

Itzik Feffer Itzik Feffer (10 September 1900 – 12 August 1952), also Fefer (Yiddish איציק פֿעפֿער, Russian Ицик Фефер, Исаàк Соломòнович Фèфер) was a Soviet Yiddish poet executed on the Night of the Murdered P ...

about the circumstances of

Solomon Mikhoels Solomon (Shloyme) Mikhoels ( lso spelled שלוימע מיכאעלס during the Soviet era , – 13 January 1948) was a Soviet actor and the artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater. Mikhoels served as the chairman of the Jewish ...

' death. He was of Igbo descent through his father.

Bibliography

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References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Robeson, Paul Jr. 1927 births 2014 deaths Family of Paul Robeson 20th-century African-American academics 20th-century American academics 21st-century African-American academics 21st-century American academics Black studies scholars African-American writers African-American communists American expatriates in the United Kingdom American communists American literary critics American people of English descent American people of Portuguese-Jewish descent Cornell University alumni Writers from New York City American expatriates in the Soviet Union Deaths from lymphoma in the United States People from Enfield, Connecticut Historians from New York (state) Historians from Connecticut