Paul Robeson was an African American actor and singer who lived from 1898 to 1976. A Rutgers student and a two-time All-American football player, he earned a law degree at Columbia in 1923, where he met his future wife, Eslanda Cordoza Goode, before building a career in performance. His screen work included Body and Soul in 1925 and The Emperor Jones in 1933, and his recording of “Ol’ Man River” from Show Boat became one of the defining American performances of the century.
His stage repertoire included Othello and Show Boat. His Othello opened on Broadway in October 1943 and ran for 296 performances through June 1944, a run that still holds the record for the longest-running Shakespeare production in Broadway history. Robeson also used his public platform to oppose racial injustice, campaigning against lynching and for the rights of Black workers. During the Cold War, he faced blacklisting and attacks surrounding his concerts, including violence at Peekskill in 1949. The State Department revoked his passport in 1950, and he lost a court appeal over the restriction in 1955 before the Supreme Court restored his right to travel in 1958.
In 1958, he published Here I Stand, part autobiography and part manifesto, laying out his politics while the passport fight was still unresolved.
