“'Kill the N****r Commie.' One of
the placards said that. There were dozens of them, but that’s the only one I recall
(I was only seven). And they were all screaming and shouting, those white men
and women. Then he started to sing, with this impressive, commanding, deep
voice. By the time the second song started, the placards had all come down, and
they were all listening. I thought then
that if music can do this, I want to play music.”
77-year-old retired drummer and
plumber Roger Blank related this story last Sunday, after a Martin Luther King
Day musical celebration at a Baptist Church in Brooklyn which included excerpts
from a play about Paul Robeson. That encounter of his with Robeson had taken
place in New Rochelle in 1946, at a rally in support of Henry Wallace’s unsuccessful
campaign for President under the Progressive Party ticket.
Three years later however, another
mob was less susceptible to Robeson’s artistry, and the outdoor concert
resulted in what would become the infamous Peeksill riots - arguably one of the
lowest points in modern American history, and an episode that lurks too dangerously
in the subconscious, given its contemporary resonances.
Robeson, apart from being probably the most famous
American artist in the 1930s as a singer of hundreds of songs and spirituals (Ol’ Man River being his most famous),
and as a stage and screen actor, was also a forerunner of the civil rights
movement. He was referred to as “The Tallest Tree in Our Forest” by Blacks at
the height of his fame. It seems something of an injustice that he remains largely
hidden from public consciousness when compared to Dr. King, or even Malcolm X,
who was himself assassinated days before a scheduled meeting with Robeson – requested
by the young minister in recognition of the older man’s pioneering activism and
personal sacrifice.
Today, most young activists (and even many middle-aged
ones) of any complexion would struggle to recognize Robeson’s name, despite the
fact that many of his sayings in the first half of the twentieth century can be
applied to today’s national and international situation. Which supporter of the
Black Lives Matter Movement would argue with such dramatic action as leading a
delegation to the United Nations in 1951 to lay a charge of genocide against
Black people by their own country – not just through police and civilian
brutality and violence, but through wide economic and health disadvantage? And
for those who stress that ALL lives
matter, he wrote of his personal “belief
in the oneness of humankind, about which I have often spoken in concerts and
elsewhere, [which] has existed within me side by side with my deep attachment
to the cause of my own race ... There is truly a kinship among us all, a basis
for mutual respect and brotherly love.” And peace campaigners today would
surely agree with his 1946 speech in which he declared that “The absence of peace in the world today is
due precisely to the efforts of the British, American and other imperialist
powers to retain their control over the peoples of Asia, the Middle East,
Europe and Africa.”
The sudden and dramatic slide in
his popularity began in April 1949 when he made a speech at the World Peace
Congress in Paris suggesting that African Americans would not fight against the
Soviet Union because they remained second-class citizens in their own country.
Such a stance continues to land people in trouble decades later (most notably
Muhammed Ali), illustrating how far ahead of his time he was. His mass appeal
as an entertainer, when combined with his love for the Soviet Union, his
socialism and internationalism, transformed him into one of the most dangerous
people in the country in the establishment’s eyes, and the campaign to
discredit and denounce him went into full gear immediately after that Paris
speech. Those efforts to suppress his story have been largely successful, and in
fact, it can be said that his character, career and reputation were
assassinated and buried years before he actually died forty years ago - on
January 23, 1976.
Despite whichever of his views
can be considered to have been mistaken (particularly his unrelenting support for
Stalin, some argue), or the phenomenon of Barack Obama, the fact that Robeson’s
words ring so true today suggest that he needs to at least be part of the
national conversation. He embodied the truth that through art, people’s hearts,
minds and souls could be transformed. The 7-year-old Roger Blank would grow up
to tour the country and the world with great artists like Sun Ra, Clark Terry and Sonny
Rollins, not to make money, he says, but to “spread peace and be part of
changing the rhythm of people’s lives, their spirit.”
Mr. Blank would agree with the
beautiful words of the playwright Marc Connelly, who wrote this in tribute to
Robeson on the occasion of his 44th birthday: “I suppose by that dreary instrument, the
calendar, it can be contended that you are the contemporary of your friends.
But by more important standards of time measurement, you really represent a
highly desirable tomorrow which, by some lucky accident, we are privileged to
appreciate today.”
He would also agree that even though it would be
pure fantasy hope for a day for Robeson in the national calendar, the fortieth
anniversary of his death should not go unmarked today.
Tayo
Aluko is the British-Nigerian writer and performer of the award-winning play
Call Mr. Robeson.
Some 40th anniversary events:
27 January 2016: Paul Robeson: Celebrating his Life, His Art, His Legacy. PCS Union Headquaters, London
12 February 2016: Paul Robeson: 40 Years Death. Marx Memorial Library, London
