“... the people of the lands of Socialism want peace dearly”
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Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American bass-baritone concert artist, actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his political stances.
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entertainment · American singer, actor, political activist, and athlete (1898–1976) · singer · lawyer · activist · basketball player · American football player · film actor · stage actor · actor · musicologist · civil rights advocate · also Paul Robeson, Robeson
Born 9 April 1898 · Died 23 January 1976 · Q273233
129 published statements · 0 followers
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2026· 6 entries
“Whether I am or not a Communist is irrelevant. The question is whether American citizens, regardless of their political beliefs or sympathies, may enjoy their constitutional rights.”
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“danger of Fascism [in the U.S.] has averted”
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“Here I am not a Negro but a human being for the first time in my life ... I walk in full human dignity.”
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Public attention spiked: 3,454 Wikipedia readers in one day, 3.7× the usual 923, with 0 article edits.
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The Nation: The Collision Between Paul Robeson and Jackie Robinson
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2025· 2 entries
Yahoo: Emmy Winners Joe Brewster, Michèle Stephenson To Direct Documentary On Paul Robeson, Giant Of 20th Century Arts, Entertainment, Politics
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The New York Times: Paul Robeson
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2024· 2 entries
Released album “Paul Robeson Live in New York 1958”.
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KPBS: Paul Robeson's many faces get new spotlight in recording premiere
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2023· 1 entry
Yahoo: I Don't Think We Talk Enough About Paul Robeson (And What He Brought To The Film Industry)
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2022· 1 entry
The Real News Network: The Chris Hedges Report: Gerald Horne on the unrelentingly radical life of Paul Robeson
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2021· 2 entries
YES! Magazine: A Supreme Symbol of Hope: The Life of Paul Robeson
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Released album “Paul Robeson: Songs of Struggle and Love”.
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2020· 2 entries
CounterPunch: Paul Robeson, Artist as Revolutionary
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6abc News: Legacy of entertainer, activist Paul Robeson continued in West Philadelphia
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2019· 1 entry
The Washington Post: Paul Robeson was an unrepentant Stalinist. Rutgers should acknowledge that.
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2018· 3 entries
Released album “Paul Robeson”.
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Released album “Freedom Train and the Welsh Transatlantic Concert”.
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Released album “Every Time I Feel the Spirit”.
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2016· 1 entry
“There is this... that must be admired about Du Bois, Robeson, Ben Davis and others. They are not taking it lying down. Ben Davis is in prison... Robeson has sacrificed... DuBois has fought without let up for over half a century and at 85 be is determined as ever. Some day when truth gets a hearing, America, regardless of colour, we will honour them.”
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2012· 1 entry
Released album “My Journey: Paul Robeson Live at Carnegie Hall”.
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2011· 1 entry
As a high point in Shakespearean theatre in the 20th century
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2010· 1 entry
Susan Robeson launched a project at Swansea University, supported the Welsh Assembly, to create an online learning resource in her grandfather's memory
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2009· 1 entry
Awarded New Jersey Hall of Fame (2009).
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2008· 3 entries
Released album “The Very Best of Paul Robeson”.
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Released album “The Complete EMI Sessions, 1928-1939”.
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Released album “The Best of Paul Robeson”.
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2007· 1 entry
Released album “On My Journey: Paul Roberson's Independent Recordings”.
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2006· 1 entry
Released album “The Collector's Paul Robeson”.
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2003· 1 entry
Released album “Porgy and Bess (Selections): Original Cast and Other Early Recordings (Recorded 1935–1942)”.
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2002· 1 entry
A blue plaque was unveiled by English Heritage on the house in Branch Hill, Hampstead where Robeson lived in 1929–30
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2001· 2 entries
(Here I Stand) In the Spirit of Paul Robeson, a public artwork by American artist Allen Uzikee Nelson, was dedicated in the Petworth neighborhood in Washington, D
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“The Undiscovered Paul Robeson”
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2000· 3 entries
Released album “The Legendary Paul Robeson: Ol’ Man River”.
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Released album “The Essential Paul Robeson”.
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Released album “The Great Paul Robeson”.
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1999· 2 entries
Released album “Ol' Man River”.
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Released album “Legends of the 20th Century: Paul Robeson”.
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1998· 2 entries
Awarded Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (1998).
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Released album “The Peace Arch Concerts”.
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1997· 3 entries
Released album “Songs for Free Men”.
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Released album “The Legendary Moscow Concert”.
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Released album “Songs of Free Men”.
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1996· 2 entries
Released album “The Voice of the Mississippi”.
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“Electronic New Jersey Site: Paul Robeson.”
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1995· 1 entry
Was named to the College Football Hall of Fame
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1993· 2 entries
The building was designated a New York City landmark as well
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Released album “Spirituals, Folksongs, and Hymns”.
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1992· 2 entries
Released album “Great Voices Of The Century”.
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Released album “The Odyssey of Paul Robeson”.
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1991· 2 entries
Released album “The Power and the Glory”.
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The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission declared Robeson's sister Marian's house where he spent his last years, or Paul Robeson's House, a historical landmark
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1990· 3 entries
Released album “Paul Robeson Sings "Ol' Man River" & Other Favorites”.
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Released album “The Glorious Voice of Paul Robeson”.
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Released album “A Man and His Beliefs”.
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1989· 1 entry
Released album “Ballad for Americans”.
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1987· 2 entries
Released album “Green Pastures”.
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Released album “'Ol' Man River”.
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1983· 1 entry
Released album “The Golden Voice of Paul Robeson”.
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1982· 1 entry
Released album “Negro Spirituals”.
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1978· 1 entry
The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union announced that the Latvian Shipping Company had named one of its new 40,000-ton tankers Paul Robeson in honor of the singer
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1977· 2 entries
Released ep “Кругозор №10/1977”.
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Released album “American Baladeer”.
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1976· 8 entries
Died 1976-01-23.
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Robeson died in Philadelphia at the age of 77, following complications of a stroke
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“If the American Negro is to have a culture of his own he will have to leave America to get it.”
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“I found a special eagerness among the younger, and I am sorry to say, the more intelligent Negroes, to dismiss the spiritual as something beneath their new pride in their race. It is as if they wanted to put it behind them as something to be ashamed of...”
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“Could I say that the reason that I am here today, you know, from the mouth of the State Department itself, is: I should not be allowed to travel because I have struggled for years for the independence of the colonial peoples of Africa.”
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The apartment building on Edgecombe Avenue in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan where Robeson lived during the early 1940s was officially renamed the Paul Robeson Residence, and declared a National Historic Lan
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“Films make me into some cheap turn...You bet they'll never let me play a part in a film where a Negro is on top.”
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“The artist must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative. The history of the capitalist era is characterized by the degradation of my people: despoiled of their lands, their true culture destroyed... denied equal protection of the law, and deprived their rightful place in the respect of their fellows.”
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1974· 2 entries
Awarded Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame (1974).
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Awarded Paul Robeson Award (1974).
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1973· 1 entry
But he recorded a message that was played at the event: "Though I have not been able to be active for several years, I want you to know that I am the same Paul, dedicated as ever to the worldwide cause of humanity for fr
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1972· 2 entries
Released album “Songs Of My People”.
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Released album “The Best Of Paul Robeson Volume 2”.
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1970· 1 entry
Released album “In Live Performance”.
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1968· 2 entries
Robeson moved to his sister's home in Philadelphia
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A victim of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, but Robeson continued to send royalties to his family
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1966· 1 entry
Released album “Das andere Amerika”.
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1965· 1 entry
Was hospitalized with Double pneumonia and a kidney blockage that nearly killed him
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1964· 1 entry
Released album “Paul Robeson singt”.
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1960· 3 entries
Released album “"Encore, Robeson!" Vol. 2”.
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During his final concert performance in Great Britain, Robeson sang to raise money for the Movement for Colonial Freedom at the Royal Festival Hall
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Released album “Live at Carnegie Hall”.
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1958· 3 entries
Robeson took part in a service at London's St Paul's Cathedral, the first black performer to sing there
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Released album “Robeson”.
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Released album “Songs of Free Men * Spirituals”.
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1957· 2 entries
Robeson sang for a London audience at St
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Released album “The Incomparable Voice Of Paul Robeson”.
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1956· 3 entries
Robeson was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee after he refused to sign an affidavit affirming he was not a Communist
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In the United Kingdom, Topic Records, at that time part of the Workers Music Association, released a single of Robeson singing the labor anthem "Joe Hill", written by Alfred Hayes and Earl Robinson, backed with "John Bro
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After public pressure brought a one-time exemption to the travel ban, Robeson performed two concerts in Canada in February, one in Toronto and the other at a union convention in Sudbury, Ontario
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1953· 1 entry
And over the next two years, two further concerts took place
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1952· 1 entry
Robeson was awarded the International Stalin Prize by the Soviet Union
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1951· 1 entry
An article titled "Paul Robeson – the Lost Shepherd" was published in The Crisis and attributed to Robert Alan, although Paul Jr
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1950· 2 entries
Robeson co-founded, with W
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Robeson was awarded the International Peace Prize for his Songs of Peace
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1949· 2 entries
And marred the aftermath of the replacement concert held eight days later
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Robeson spoke at the Paris Peace Congress saying: "We in America do not forget that it was on the backs of the white workers from Europe and on the backs of millions of Blacks that the wealth of America was built
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1948· 1 entry
Robeson was prominent in Henry A
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1946· 2 entries
Robeson met with President Truman and admonished Truman by stating that if he did not enact legislation to end lynching, "the Negroes will defend themselves"
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Released album “Spirituals”.
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1945· 2 entries
Won Spingarn Medal (1945).
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Received the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP
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1943· 2 entries
Released ep “Head Like a Rock / Lindy Lou / Deep River / I’m Goin’ to Tell God All My Troubles”.
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And became the first African American to play the role with a white supporting cast on Broadway
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1940· 3 entries
The magazine Collier's named Robeson America's "No
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The Chinese progressive activist, Liu Liangmo taught Robeson the patriotic song "Chee Lai
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The Beverly Wilshire Hotel was the only major Los Angeles hotel willing to accommodate him due to his race
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1938· 2 entries
Was named by American Motion Picture Herald as the 10th most popular star in British cinema
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Because he believed in the International Brigades's cause
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1937· 1 entry
Used his concert performances to advocate the Republican cause and the war's refugees
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1936· 1 entry
And My Song Goes Forth, King Solomon's Mines and Big Fella, all in 1937
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1935· 1 entry
Robeson met Albert Einstein when Einstein came backstage after Robeson's concert at the McCarter Theatre
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1933· 1 entry
Robeson played the role of Jim in the London production of Chillun virtually gratis, then returned to the United States to star as Brutus in the film The Emperor Jones – the first film to feature an African American in a
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1932· 1 entry
And Robeson and Essie reconciled, but their relationship was permanently scarred
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1931· 1 entry
“From what I have already seen of the workings of the Soviet Government, I can only say that anybody who lifts his hand against it ought to be shot! “It is the government’s duty to put down any opposition to this really free society with a firm hand,”
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1930· 1 entry
While performing Othello in London, Robeson was painted by the British artist Glyn Philpot; this portrait was sold in 1944 under the title Head of a Negro and thereafter thought lost, but was rediscovered by Simon Martin
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1928· 2 entries
Robeson played "Joe" in the London production of the American musical Show Boat at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
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Scored a major success in the London premiere of Show Boat
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1926· 1 entry
After hearing the "organ-like tones' of Robeson's speaking voice
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1915· 1 entry
Robeson won an academic scholarship to Rutgers College in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he was the only African-American student
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1912· 1 entry
Robeson began attending Somerville High School in New Jersey, where he performed in Julius Caesar and Othello, sang in the chorus, and excelled in football, basketball, baseball, and track
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1910· 1 entry
Where Robeson filled in for his father during sermons when he was called away
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1900· 1 entry
A disagreement between William and white financial supporters of the Witherspoon church arose with apparent racial undertones, which were prevalent in Princeton
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1898· 2 entries
Born 1898-04-09.
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To Reverend William Drew Robeson and Maria Louisa Bustill
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