Biography-Memoir Religion-Philosophy

The Deep Faith of Paul Robeson

by Scott J. Pearson

On August 29, 2023, the Pew Research Center released survey data about the crossing between religious groups and racial issues. 53 percent of Americans said that people not seeing racial discrimination where it does exist was a bigger problem. 45 percent said the opposite, that people seeing discrimination where it does not exist is a bigger issue.

To anyone who has followed American politics in recent years, these results should come as no surprise. After all, we are a highly polarized society. We often live in our little ideological and journalistic bubbles where our own views are supported and never questioned.

What interested me most about these findings, however, was not this breakdown. Rather, the religious and racial breakdowns fascinate me. 72 percent of White evangelicals said claims of nonexistent racial discrimination were a bigger problem. 60 percent of White Catholics and 54 percent of White mainline Protestants agree. However, only 10 percent of Black Protestants, 31 percent of non-Christian religious Americans, and 35 percent of unaffiliated Americans (the “nones”) agree with this statement.

Which raises a question similar to that posed before the Civil War: How can these camps of White and Black Americans, who pray to the same God and read the same Scriptures, disagree so much on a critical, contemporary issue of faith and life?

We’re not going to solve that problem in these two weeks, but I hope you think about this question some during these two weeks and particularly this week. In fact, in a few minutes, I’m going to challenge you explicitly to expand your own personal, intellectual “tent” of how you understand the spiritual lives of your American neighbors.

I’m going to warn you that this story has race all over it. I’m also going to warn you that I’m most personally focused not on race but on faith. Numerous biographies exist that deal with the racial question in Paul’s life better than I could ever do. As a Christian and as a Sunday School coordinator, my personal interest is the inner life of Paul Robeson, what made him so courageous, even at times when he was so wrong. I see God’s silent but influential hand present all over his life.

I first heard of Paul Robeson in the early 2000s, while studying in Princeton as a seminary student. I occasionally saw his picture in Princeton restaurants, near pictures of local heroes such as Albert Einstein, George Washington, Woodrow Wilson, Bill Bradley, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Robert Oppenheimer. He stood out among all these white men. I looked up that he was a musician and a scholar in the mid 20th century, but I didn’t research his life much more than that at the time.

A couple months ago, I read the recent book Fires in the Dark: Healing the Unquiet Mind,on the history of psychotherapy in the first half of the twentieth century. This topic interests me because of a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. In the work, author Kay Redfield Jamison argues that the best healers in life – whether physicians, therapists, or leaders – are the ones who have healed themselves from deep wounds. One of the characters profiled was Paul Robeson, who was eventually driven to bipolar’s madness likely because of the strict racism he faced over decades. Nonetheless, he inspired the next generation of Civil Rights leaders who together started the successful dismantling of Jim Crow laws. For this, he didn’t and still doesn’t receive many kudos in the American public, but he never worried about that. He was happy with the result and like a good leader, did not need credit. In this book, I also discovered he was a pastor’s son who lost his mother while young.

All these crossing currents piqued my curiosity to understand him more. I found numerous biographies, but three volumes stood out for their intimate access: an autobiography and two volumes written by his son. Despite the bias of personal accounts, this intimacy is precisely what I sought, a close look at the inner man. Most biographers, I suspect, are more interested in his political impact – a noble topic, but not my main interest. I want to understand his spirit and how it might strengthen me today. Eventually, I collected enough material to fill a two-week presentation at the June Ramsey class, so I’m sharing.

In the first week, I’m going to cover his entire biography. It’s impressive and intense. Again, as with any early-twentieth-century black American, race is all over it. I don’t want to get sidetracked by that. I want first to understand what he did – the good and the bad – and what he suffered for and how he suffered. In the second week, I will highlight the events that formed his inner character, especially in his early life. I’m amazed at how he never let the externals grow into internal spiritual bitterness. I’m inspired by his determination. I want to emulate his courage. These traits, I strive to focus on and learn from.

Which brings me back to the Pew Research study. At the June Ramsey class, we proudly come from a diverse set of backgrounds, political patterns, and worldviews. Like Robeson, we each have unique experiences that made us who we are. My goal is to help us see outside our pre-formed boxes a little in these two weeks. I want us to see past race into our common human spirit. I want us to see past the ideological divides that the Pew Research study pointed out into our shared Christian faith.

Those who find ourselves with the 53 percent of Americans who think discrimination needs to be more acknowledged in American society, I want you to focus on how things have gotten better since Robeson’s day in the middle twentieth century. I myself see that hard-fought progress has been made and that things are better. If we find ourselves among the 45 percent of Americans who think that the race card is overplayed, I want you to focus on how Paul’s story can still be reflected in today’s youths, even with all our progress. Again, I myself see black youth experiencing similar challenges even today. In other words, I want you to try to do the opposite of what your natural instincts tell you to react.

I don’t hold Paul Robeson up as a perfect model to be emulated in all circumstances. In fact, I squarely disagree with his views against capitalism and for communism, and I would have acted differently. He praised Russian socialism while avoiding criticizing Stalinist pogroms that killed millions of Jews in ethnic violence. I find this silence from an internationally vocal leader intellectually dishonest and against humanistic principles.

As another fault, his marriage also struggled and occasionally boiled over to public. Early in their union, his wife Essie became his professional manager in an attempt to make herself indispensable. As his career grew, however, her talents could not match his opportunities, and a coldness between them ensued. Paul and Essie almost divorced for a time but then reconciled. After that, she was never his manager but rather a companion. As we all know, marriage squabbles are an inevitable part of life for even the best of us, and Paul and Essie seemed to work through theirs. With all of his fame, those squabbles boiled out into the press and caused us to know about them.

Yet when viewing his life in its totality, with decades upon decades of racial discrimination despite his many talents, I can sympathize why he had those blind spots. After being exploited for others’ financial gain for centuries, many blacks could not reconcile themselves to the American love of business. I find Robeson a very human figure: good in many, many respects but still having a few tragic flaws. Still, I find him to be faithful to his divine calling in life, however muddled his legacy may be. I want to be like him in many respects, but I also identify some significant shortcomings. Let’s dive into his life story so that we might find more of ourselves through God’s hand on Paul Robeson’s life.

Paul Robeson’s Life Biography

Paul Robeson’s life was very interesting and complicated. He was born in 1898 to a black pastor and his wife. His father William’s ancestral roots lie in the famous Ibo tribe of Nigeria, a group that has historically produced many black leaders in America. His father escaped slavery from North Carolina on the Underground Railroad; his mulatto mother Maria Louisa was from a mixed Quaker background. His maternal Quaker ancestors helped feed George Washington’s troops. William fought in the Civil War for the Union and then was educated at Lincoln University in Kentucky, a newer school (with a now famous history) for formerly enslaved persons.

Both Princeton University and Seminary were founded by Presbyterians in Princeton, New Jersey. Both institutions are now more religiously and culturally diverse, but those Reformed roots are deep. Nassau Presbyterian Church is the historic congregation right next to the University. Historically, blacks sat in the balcony as was the custom in many churches years ago. In 1839, a fire devastated the church, and 90 of the 131 former African American members asked to form their own church in town, Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church. It is one of the oldest African American Presbyterian Churches in New Jersey or even in America. Both churches still meet in a town that purports freedom and equality but is still divided along racial lines.

Paul’s father was pastor at the Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church from 1880 until 1901. He was known to have a beautiful oratory voice and was respected all over Princeton, whether among elite whites or the servant-class of blacks. Paul’s mother was accidentally burned to death while Paul was young. Despite stellar academic marks, Paul’s brother was rejected admission to Princeton University by then-president of the university Woodrow Wilson because of the color of his skin. Paul’s father was soon demoted from his pastorate because of his stances on social justice issues, a move many suspect bore the Southerner Wilson’s hand.

His father William pushed all his children towards disciplined academic accomplishment. William’s first son went to Lincoln University, like his father, and after many hardships, became a doctor. Paul both feared and loved his father at the same time. He rarely disobeyed an order. He grew up among his father’s many black parishioners in New Jersey. After leaving the Princeton church, his father transitioned his call from Presbyterianism to the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church.

His father always wanted Paul to enter Christian ministry, too, and gave Paul opportunities to preach and sing at his churches. Towards the end of college, Paul decided to take his career in a different direction, and his father amicably relented before his death. Throughout his life, Paul was pushed not towards good grades but towards perfect grades, to never make a mistake. As a black man, he could not afford to make an emotional lapse in white society at the time, lest he be thrown out as inferior.

The young Robeson also loved sports and excelled at them. Going to integrated schools, he often became the only black child on a sports team… and also the youngest. His brother, having played football at college, taught him how to play football and coached him on the fundamentals. He likely would not have received such good coaching were it not for his brother: The best coaches in the day focused on working with white kids.

In summers, Paul would often join his brother at the beach in Rhode Island where he served rich white people in restaurant work. Many talented blacks used this to earn good money in a culture where opportunities for black men were scarce. He said that this was the hardest work he has ever undertaken. But summer times for him also allowed him to practice football and build his determination.

Rutgers College

Robeson graduated high school with top marks and won a competitive academic scholarship to 99%-white Rutgers College. There, he earned fourteen – yes, fourteen – varsity letters in football, baseball, track, and basketball. In all these sports, he was the only black person on his team. And he wasn’t a light-skinned black man; he was as dark as they come. He won All-American status in football twice and a unanimous All-American at Defensive End his senior year. He also won awards in the debate society. Despite being popular and accomplished, he was not accepted into any fraternities. Upon graduation, he was one of four students in his class elected to the skull-and-bones society at Rutgers, the most outstanding award for students at the school. He delivered a valedictory address at graduation on “The New Idealism” that voiced the need for social progress. He was heralded as an emblematic “new negro” whose ability to accomplish should be admired.

He accomplished all this despite being mistreated racially during his time there. In high school, he was single-handedly dominating the leading school in New Jersey and scored three touchdowns on offense. However, the opposing team decided to have post-play activity that would punish Paul’s success. The referees averted their eyes from the only black player on the field. Though undoubtedly the player of the game, Paul ended up with a broken nose and many bruises.

While trying out for Rutgers, again as the only black player, he dominated the game by using his brother’s techniques. The white players could not block him. After one play, Robeson lay on the ground for a moment to collect his breath, and another Rutgers player, a fullback, stomped on Paul’s hand with his cleats. Obviously, this hurt. Robeson, cognizant of his father’s teaching, centered his energy despite the pain. On the next play, the fullback got the ball. Paul bounded through the offensive line and tackled the fullback for a loss by picking him up and throwing him backwards over Paul’s head. The coach, wanting to avoid a murder, blew the whistle immediately and pronounced that Paul was on the team. The Rutgers coach, one of that era’s best, later became a father figure to Paul in an early life of social isolation and challenges.

New York City After College

After college, Paul went to Columbia Law School but never practiced law. Even in New York at the time, blacks were discriminated against as lawyers. One time, a legal secretary refused to take dictation from him because he was black. Paul never fell in love with the idea of a law career, and his son even suggests that he pursued this route merely to feel like he was pleasing his recently deceased father. His grades went down, rather than up, in law school.

Paul did benefit from being in New York City in the time of the Harlem Renaissance. Blacks from all over the United States were mixing in Harlem, providing a resurgence of ideas, identity, and artistry that reverberates until today. In this new day, many blacks found that their impact could be best felt in the entertainment and artistic industries. The multi-talented Robeson was able to see firsthand how skilled African Americans could succeed while being true to themselves. He acted in many plays, both in the American northeast and in England. He moved from vaudeville plays with caricatures of blacks to serious more roles, like Shakespeare’s Othello and All God’s Chillun’ Got Wings portraying an interracial relationship.

England & the Continent of Europe

Paul’s baritone-base voice was exquisite like his father’s and excelled in both in oratory and singing. His world expanded to the point where he started doing plays and concerts across England. His wife Essie accompanied him there, and they ended up living there for about a decade and travelled Europe doing concerts. While in England, he witnessed a society that, while not perfect, was less racially complicated than America’s. In fact, he found acceptance among working-class whites, and he accepted these social outcasts. Remember that England’s social problems usually stemmed from classism, not racism. He saw these working-class whites as people of his own heart, unlike many whites who consistently mistreated him in America. He saw that skin color and race were not the real issues; rather, the problem centers in our attitudes. He began to advocate for a united front among the world’s working classes, regardless of race or nationality. This included an advocacy against European colonialism, especially in Africa.

Of note, while travelling through Berlin in the 1930s, Robeson describes where he and Essie became surrounded by German police officers, apparently in reaction to his skin color. He was worried that he might be lynched. They managed to escape unharmed, but this was a first experience that incited a lifelong passion against fascism. Some interpreted this as being pro-communism, whose great archenemy is fascism. However, it helps to consider Paul’s alternatives. At the time, the American system, whose people he still supported, suffered from racist laws and a racist culture. The fascist system, in Germany, Italy, and Spain, looked to imitate the American system in its ethnic animosities. Communism alone sought to bring a colorblind society. When Stalin brought pogroms and even executed some of Paul’s friends, his support grew more tepid.

Paul routinely studied the grammars and conversational vocabulary of the countries he sang in. He aimed to sing some of that country’s folk songs in an ode to the working people of the world. He did this even in Germany during the ascendancy of fascism. He also studied the languages of Africa with particular interest. By the end of his life, he had mastered conversational fluency in over twenty languages. His songs often record him switching languages mid-song to show a continuity of the world’s people. In an era of nationalism between the World Wars and before globalization, these sentiments of human unity set trends.

Run In with America’s Red Scare

On a trip to the Soviet Union, he scandalously pointed out that the Soviets at the time had achieved greater social equality than the United States had. He noted that tan-skinned people in Russia had made more progress in the last twenty years than America’s blacks have made in seventy years after emancipation. Because of this, he said that African Americans would not fight in “an imperialist war” against the USSR. This happened in 1949, when the Red Scare was gaining steam in America. As you’d imagine, Paul’s words reverberated in the press and quickly made him a persona non grata at home. The State Department even denied him a passport, an essential tool for an international singer. Over a decade later, the US Supreme Court eventually deemed that denying passports was unconstitutional, but Paul lost many years of income in prime singing years because of this governmental shunning. His earnings fell from $100,000 per year, a lot at the time, to around $6,000 per year. He spent over a decade in isolation, but consistently spoke out for better treatment of his race.

Seven years later, in 1956, Paul testified before the Congressional House Committee on Un-American Activities about his sentiments towards the Soviet Union and about America and race. He denied being a communist, but consistently held that the communists were better when it comes to race than the Americans. He argued that his ancestors helped to build this country, and unlike Stalin’s pogroms, the millions of deaths among his kinfolk are consistently avoided. In so doing, he tried to be anti-fascist in the American context without necessarily being pro-communist. In the McCarthyism of the day, however, that nuance seemed to be lost among the representatives questioning him.

In 1958, he published an autobiography and defense of his actions in the book Here I Stand. These words evoked the language of Martin Luther in the Protestant Reformation. He also cites numerous black spirituals throughout the book to unite his struggle with the struggle of his people. He defends that his people helped build America and that some of his Quaker ancestors even helped provide George Washington’s troops with bread. They and he should be given equal treatment and access to her bounty. For him, this struggle culminated with his being denied a passport so that he could not pursue his vocation.

In less than a decade, his struggle could be viewed as prophetic with the success of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Its leaders saw Robeson as an early inspiration. They saw his status as a “model negro” that succeeded on many fronts. They took value in their own God-given lives and eventually changed our country. Even John Lewis, educated in Nashville, said that one of the highlights of his life was meeting Paul Robeson in the early years of the movement. Paul never received many accolades – those rested with the next generation – but like any good leader, he was happy with the result. He did not need credit; he just wanted freedom for his people.

Later Life

Years of conflict and struggle with the American system had their toll, however. Robeson came down with bipolar disorder, then known as manic depression. Bipolar disorder is typically triggered by stress of some sort, and Paul’s likely came from contentious racial leadership in America. He and Essie kept this secret because of the heavy stigma of mental illness in the 1950s. His first episodes likely occurred in 1955. The first was manic, as is typical in males, followed by a depressive episode. In 1961, his passport was restored, and he returned to travelling. But all was not well. Paranoid and suicidal, he was hospitalized in Moscow and then London. Another episode happened in 1964 in New York. Again, the family tried to keep his struggles secluded from the world, but in so doing, they kept him secluded from the world.

Paul died following a stroke at age 77 in 1976. His funeral was held in Harlem at the famous Mother Zion AME Zion Church, where his brother was a former pastor. Harry Belafonte was a pall bearer. His talents were immense, and his view of the world, unique. Many schools, libraries, and streets in New Jersey bear his name. Many poems and songs across the world tribute him in lyrics, including such far-flung languages as Kurdish, Welch, Bengali, Hindi, Nepali, and Sanskrit. When he starred in Othello, it became the longest-running production of a Shakespeare play ever staged on Broadway.

His life was well-awarded yet filled with conflict. Even the black press in Harlem or NAACP leadership did not always support his stances. I know of no other person with remotely a similar career trajectory as Robeson. Yet his anti-colonialist, anti-fascist, pro-racial-equality stances were generally vindicated by history. I contend most of these views started with his father, who escaped from slavery, educated himself, and led other blacks to do such with their faith. I want to focus on this theme next week.

Moving from External Accomplishments to Inner Life

So that’s the noteworthy life of Paul Robeson in a nutshell – a lot of adversity and accomplishments. This story can be found in and analyzed by numerous historians and scholars of African American studies. But I’m frankly more interested in what’s beneath the surface, what might show up on a psychotherapist’s couch or in a pastoral counseling session rather than through newspaper clippings. To do that, I will rely on Paul’s voice and Paul’s son’s voice. Next week, I plan to focus on five themes:

  • Upbringing as a Pastor’s Son
  • Singing the Spirituals & Folk Music (including some recordings of Paul’s singing!)
  • Advocacy for Workers of All Races
  • The Calling of Art as Striving for the Divine
  • Determined Stand on Race

I believe God writes each of our stories in mysterious ways, including yours, mine, and Paul’s. I hope next to glean a few glimpses of God’s handwriting on Paul’s life, glimpses not readily apparent in the roll call of successes and challenges that I just shared. I’m interested in his spiritual biography, with a special focus on his younger, formative life. In looking at that religious biography, I hope we all can discern our own spiritual biographies a bit more acutely.

Paul Robeson’s Spiritual Biography

Before delving into Paul’s spirituality, let me describe a few broad differences between black Christianity and white Christianity in America. Of course, these generalizations are not applicable in every instance, but these cursory trends have been observed in my studies and life experiences. Despite their limitations, they illustrate important differences between our two cultures, differences that we will see in our exploration of Paul Robeson’s spirituality today.

First, in the American black church, race and religion are relatively inseparable. The white church, particularly we in the Reformed/Presbyterian tradition, in John Calvin’s line, often focuses on the elect versus the non-elect, on who’s in and who’s out. Not so with the black church. God desires good for all God’s people, and that includes good for the black race generally. Strong lines of us-versus-them are not generally as pronounced… except when it comes to oppressors. I’ve encountered exceptions, of course, in individual churches and individual preachers. Still, it’s strongly emphasized that God desires liberation and freedom for oppressed and marginalized peoples. That includes race but in no way is limited to a racial component. I admire the faith of many African Americans because their faith helps those in most need more deliberately and with more focus. Paul Robeson’s views are no exception.

Second, the Old Testament is used very extensively in most black churches while the New Testament is almost exclusively the preferred text in white churches. Similarly, the story of the Exodus – God leading a chosen people to the promised land – plays a much more central role in black theology than it does in white theology. White theology often centers on an individual being “saved” or attaining “salvation,” usually in the realms of eternity. For much of black theology, the here and now are also very important, perhaps centrally important depending on the theologian.

Besides being relevant to today’s topic, these important differences help us learn from each other instead of isolating from each other in “holy huddles.” Again, like last week, I challenge you to see through another’s eyes and potentially learn a thing or two for your own spiritual life.

Upbringing as a Pastor’s Son

There’s a lot we can learn from looking at someone’s childhood. It’s no different with Paul Robeson. His mother Maria Louisa gave birth to him at age 45, impressive for the late 1800s, much less today. She soon grew blind and could not work when Paul was young. This applied financial strain upon the house and more pressure upon Paul’s father.

Then trauma struck. While Maria Louisa was tending a wood stove, her dress caught on fire and soon consumed all of her clothing and some of the house before it was doused. She was taken to a hospital. Her husband was able to see her before they gave her a strong dose of opioids to induce a painless death.

In the fog of trauma, Paul’s whereabouts during this episode are unknown, even to Paul’s son. He rarely spoke of the incident. His brother does not remember him being at a friend’s house. He might have been in the neighborhood, but he might have seen the whole episode unfold. The brother suspects that he saw, fled, and hid. Of note, his son suspects that this trauma affected Paul’s entire life and caused difficulties with keeping people emotionally close.

Paul’s father William Drew Robeson, of course, was a pastor. A former slave, he was educated at what was then an experiment in black education at Lincoln University in Kentucky. He was broadly respected in the community, even among whites. He could not escape racism, though. When Paul’s brother Ben applied to Princeton University, then-college-president Woodrow Wilson denied him admission on account of his race. When William Drew protested, he was soon deprived of his job – despite the congregation’s near-universal objections. He found other work before returning to pastor other New Jersey churches. By all accounts, he was a revered leader.

Also, by all accounts, Paul loved, respected, and feared his father. His father drove him not to be the best student but to do everything right. These lessons could carry him as a “model Negro” into a hostile white society. He would tell Paul, “Climb up if you can, but always show that you are grateful. … Above all, do nothing to give them cause to fear you.” Paul observed that he would always be humble, but never servile. Paul would mimic this attitude for his entire life.

Paul also adored his brother Ben, who followed William Drew into the ministry. As an adult, Ben became senior pastor at the famous Mother Zion AME Zion Church in Harlem. In the summers when Paul was a teenager, Ben brought him with himself to Narragansett Pier in Rhode Island to work for elite whites. Paul said that he never worked so hard again, but also never had so much fun as these times with Ben. Ben would provide a spiritual anchor to Paul’s life, even writing an appendix in Paul’s autobiography.

Among his father’s church folk, Paul was doted on both as a pastor’s son and as a motherless child. They nourished him, physically and spiritually. Notably, these people first introduced him to music in the spirituals. He noted the emotional expressivity of these tunes about African-American culture. For Paul, these songs elicited consolation, self-expression, deep feelings, transcendence, and a state of grace. In life, he was sadly alone, left to his thoughts, but then he was never alone when given these songs. Forecasting future love of working-class people, he wrote:

Hard-working people, and poor, most of them, in worldly goods—but how rich in compassion! There was the honest joy of laughter in these homes, folk-wit and story, hearty appetites for life as for the nourishing greens and black-eyed peas and cornmeal bread they shared with me. Here in this little hemmed-in world where home must be theater and concert hall and social center, there was a warmth of song. Songs of love and longing, songs of trials and triumphs, deep-flowing rivers and rollicking brooks, hymn-song and ragtime ballad, gospels and blues, and the healing comfort to be found in the illimitable sorrow of the spirituals.

Yes, I heard my people singing!—in the glow of the parlor coal-stove and on summer porches sweet with lilac air, from choir loft and Sunday morning pews—and my soul was filled with their harmonies.

Finally, Paul had a racially mixed upbringing that was unusual in that day. Black parishioners surrounded his father and his family, often for dinners. Yet Paul also attended white schools. His success at all sorts of sports made him exceedingly popular, as with many black children today. He regularly encountered racism, but not from everyone. One school principal tried to vex him however he could, but to counter, the talented Paul consistently won over the affections of teachers and students. Moving in between these societies equipped Paul uniquely for adulthood, where he would continue to move between two cultures.

Singing the Spirituals & Folk Music

Professionally, Paul’s most famous song, without a doubt, was Ol’ Man River. He performed this song in the play Show Boat. Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote it in the 1920s with Robeson in mind. When Paul first performed this song in America, he brought many in the audience to tears. At other times, the audience interrupted the play to give a minutes-long standing ovation. With Paul’s caressing bass voice, the words speak of the futile, perpetual struggle of slavery, without reward for one’s labors. As an ambassador for the American black race, he sang this song throughout Europe and even in North Africa.

There’s an old man called the Mississippi
That’s the old man I don’t like to be
What does he care if the world’s got troubles?
What does he care if the land ain’t free?

That old man river
That old man river
He must know sumpin’
But don’t say nothin’
He just keeps rollin’
He keeps on rollin’ along

He don’t plant taters
He don’t plant cotton
And them that plants ‘em is soon forgotten
But old man river
He just keeps rollin’ along

You and me, we sweat and strain
Body all achin’ and racked with pain
Tote that barge, and lift that bale
You show a little grit
And you lands in jail

But I keeps laughin’
Instead of cryin’
I must keep fightin’
Until I’m dyin’
And old man river
He’ll just keep rollin’ along

At Rutgers, Paul’s beautiful baritone/bass voice garnered attention not only through public speaking but also in the glee club. Unfortunately, the glee club often performed in segregated venues while on tour, so he could not join; even at home, whites-only social events were often on its line up, too. Thus, because of simple bigotry, the Rutgers community denied themselves of one of the most mesmerizing voices of its generation.

Being denied formal training, Paul self-trained his voice in churches, often after the pattern of his father. He would read passages from Scripture or even preach the occasional sermon under his father’s tutelage. These experiences are what first taught him the spirituals in his youth. Congregants sang them in church or while they were undertaking the regular business of life.

Like Taylor Swift has internalized the structure of the modern breakup through song, Paul seemed to internalize the message of the spirituals, too. He did not just sing them. He studied them deeply. Paul’s son points out that these spirituals, almost universally, had a theological focus on the Old Testament. They were not songs of the elite, but sang of a longing for God through the lens of common laborers.

Paul provided one of the broadest introductions to the black spirituals for American society. Certainly, others come before him like the Fisk Jubilee Singers, but Paul brought these voices to the masses in a way never seen before. He also engaged in speaking events that advocated for causes to his liking. The then-newer media of the radio provided a means of amplification. Compounded with tours organized by his wife Essie, Paul gained fame and renown.

While in England, Paul spent considerable time studying folk songs of England, Europe, and Africa. He taught himself the native tongues so that he could sing and understand them properly. When he presented black folk songs to European audiences, he explained them, often in the native tongue, and shared how these songs of oppression was wrapped in religious language. In Europe, the institutional church was often looked upon as an oppressor, so the switch to religion as a language of the oppressed provided a change in ideological lens. This spiritual insight was also noted by European students of this day who came to study in American seminaries.

Overall, Paul focused his vocation on embodying the noble voices of his ancestors through singing along with acting roles with dynamic black characters. He sought to bring African American experiences to white America and multicultural Europe. He told of its suffering and of a deep collective faith in a God that hears the groans of the oppressed.

I’ll close this section with another famous ballad from Robeson that is likely familiar to us all, Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.

Ooooh
Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen
Nobody knows my sorrow
Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen
Glory hallelujah

Sometimes I’m up
Sometimes I’m down
Oh, yes, Lord
Sometimes I’m almost to the groun’
Oh, yes, Lord

Ooooh
Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen
Nobody knows my sorrow
Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen
Glory hallelujah

Although you see me goin’ ‘long so
Oh, yes, Lord
I have my trials here below
Oh, yes, Lord

Ooooh
Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen
Nobody knows my sorrow
Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen
Glory hallelujah

Theological Statement in a Journal in 1928

As an adult, Paul made two distinctly theological statements – one in his journal and the other in a letter to a friend while he and his wife Essie contemplated divorce. Both writings thoughtfully explore divinity more than any other of his adult statements. I want to look at each of them on their own merits.

The first occurs in a journal entry dated November 12, 1928, at the age of 30. It starts with a discourse on the nature of “true art.” Then he explores what his belief in God means to him. I share this not as a theological authority on orthodoxy but as a view about how he understood his own place in the universe and in relation to God.

Art is creation, or rather re-creation, of beauty. Artist sees what others omit. He brings it to others.

…

God doesn’t watch over everyone, because everyone isn’t important. But perhaps way back He created world to see if from lowest forms of life God could emerge. God says to himself: “Where did I come from? How did I get here?” He created several worlds with different forms of life on each. Will see how God can emerge. We have several stages, and on Earth man evolves. There may be man or other forms of life on other planets. But on Earth (& Mars, etc.) God is interested in those beings who more closely approach him. These God-like people emerge naturally—just like an artist creates something more than he knows; so [there are] different God-like people in different epochs. Different God-like qualities. So many great kings—like Pharaohs, Alexander [the Great], Elizabeth, Alfred, Napoleon—could be God-like archangels thrown out of heaven.

God is infinite good and infinite evil, since he controls so-called Satan. Satan is other side, so Zeus [the most powerful Greek god] was not always good. But God is good, and thrusts his evil side far away. He recognizes great forces of evil and good as superhuman, but he encourages good and sees evil brought to grief. So at one time Christ, Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, Moses, David, St. Augustine, Luther; so Socrates, Aristotle, Bacon, Shakespeare, Purcell, Rowland. So founders of Democracy, etc. Emphasis on different people or classes at different times.

As a reward, he gathers good souls around him to watch others struggle—but mass return to inanimate matter or perhaps carry on humdrum life as souls elsewhere; but [I] think—since God [is] interested in finding himself—ordinary mortal [is] of no more consequence than ordinary person in this world. Anyone born with chance to be God-like—just as any painting [has] chance to be great when artist begins.

So give all a chance, but most fall by the wayside. So if God came to Earth, all would follow—so Christ and 12 [disciples]. So people subconsciously rush to God-like people and hope to get grace from them.

…

So by chance have some of this power—have power to create beauty. Have wife as scientist who holds me to truth necessary to create true beauty. So God watches over me and guides me but lets me fight my own battles and hopes I’ll win.

Here, I find several themes, some of which I find wanting. He speculates on how life evolved, as is typical in his day. He invokes a sort of social Darwinism – that God-like life evolved through survival of the fittest. He also tends towards an ableism – the idea that those who are able are inherently better. As one with a mentally handicapped sister, I find this troublesome, too. Of course, such ableism was common in the 1920s. He also says that God is “infinite good and infinite evil.” More thoughtful theologians have said that God is “pure good” and that evil is the absence of good. These small nuances have big effects when we wrestle with how to understand imperfections in our universe. Paul doesn’t dwell on these, though, and neither will I.

He talks about the place of the world religions among other great philosophical lights. He sees no need to isolate religions away from other great truths. Indeed, he sees them all as contributing towards civilization’s progress. In a present-day society where mentioning religion is often socially discouraged, I welcome Robeson’s open expressions.

He talks about “struggle.” For him, struggle is an inherent part of life and work. It’s the intrinsic part of an artist’s work. Out of struggle comes all truth and beauty, whether scientific, artistic, or religious. Eventually, our struggle returns to the baseline, but every once in a while, something noteworthy emerges. Just like tennis player Coco Gauff recently at the US Open, so sometimes great struggle produces great results. Again, this is very ableist, but it speaks to why he continues to struggle to create as an artist. His creative work is very much theologically inspired.

There’s a certain sense of personal destiny here. Remember that his father raised him to be a “model Negro” who advances his race. Although Paul did not take on this task as a Christian minister, he embraces the task of being a “model Negro” through his art. He sees himself as among the greats there. While this statement might seem somewhat megalomaniacal and even narcissistic, remember that today, a century later, his picture can be found in Princeton diners next to Einstein’s and Oppenheimer’s.

Finally, he brings this excursion to its head by maintaining that an artist’s job is to produce truth and beauty. His wife Essie once worked as a scientist (a pathologist) at New York Presbyterian Hospital before she quit to manage his career. She was included in this sense of great calling and contributes. Prior experiences in the 1920s Harlem Renaissance surely sit near in the background here, with its aim to show America the beauty and strength of the black soul. For Robeson, it’s just not art for art’s sake, but art for civilization’s sake, art for humanity’s sake, and dare I say, art for God’s sake.

Theological Statement in the Black Press in 1932

The second significant theological statement in an interview with the black press in 1932, around age 33. The transcript of the interview was published under the title “The God I Believe In Is the Friend of Simple People.” According to his son, Paul rarely attended church personally, and his wife was an agnostic. Yet he did lead his family and prayer. He never proselytized nor even discussed his religious creed publicly except here.

I am a black man, and all black men are religious. Africa has given religion to the world. … [I remain] convinced of an omnipotent and loving Providence.

God is good. And that tells you what we owe to the Hebrews. Before Moses the everlasting powers were malevolent. They had to be placated to save man from destruction. It was left to Christ to give us the idea of love, of mercy, of compassion. That changed everything. What if, from the back of beyond, the hand of God came out, not primarily to punish, but to caress us! That’s one side of it. But there is the other. What if malevolence is not merely wrong, but silly! What if gentleness and goodwill are bound to win! How marvellous [sic] to hear echoing through the universe: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” What a shattering blow is that to our heaped battalions with their artillery!

Well, my God is the God that Christ preached. The friend of simple people. A merciful God, and one that loved merciful men. … We are striving, more or less, to become Godlike. Again and again we fall. But in the end, with the help of much that has gone before, we shall attain. … [J]ust now we are very near the brute. [Nevertheless] simple men survive, and they are the ones who know the most about the Eternal.

…

How do I know anything about God? I think that most men know. When a man looks into the eyes of his beloved he knows. When a simple man faces the majesty of Nature he knows. And as an artist I have my moments of ecstasy when the thing is plain. But I do not exalt the artist above the common man. The common man feels; we artists have the power of expression—that is the difference. Nevertheless, when I sing my Spirituals, in which is the whole history of my race, it is then, more than at any other time, that I am liable to be caught away, and feel and know, that God exists, and God is love.

Interestingly, in his biography of his father, Paul’s son follows this passage with a personal observation: “This deeply felt religious belief, an important source of Paul’s artistic strength, was harder to discern as a principle in his private life. There was a selfish side to him—an aspect of his personality that protected his sense of spiritual freedom and sometimes conflicted with his principled, self-sacrificing behavior.”

In my observations, I first note that in contrast with his earlier statement, Paul deals with ableism better here. “But I do not exalt the artist above the common man. … we artists have the power of expression—that is the difference.” Those who can do are not necessarily better people in this statement.

In the interview, there was some back and forth about how God could exist if evil existed in such abundance. Paul simply defends that the “simple people” believe in God. This is a pragmatic faith that’s woven into the tapestry of the universe. “Gentleness and goodwill are bound to win!” Paul maintained this outlook as an essential part of black spirituals, even when singing in the atheist USSR.

He credits religion as growing out of Africa from Egypt, harkening back to the Israelites’ Exodus experience. A religion scholar might have pointed out that Mesopotamia bears much responsibility, too, but Paul got the region correct.

He ties his belief in God to how he feels artistically, whether singing in repetition or creating afresh. The goal of life is progressive, in contrast to the pessimism of the fall of Christianity that we hear in many white churches today. Paul instead says that human civilization’s aims to advance humanity towards God. This hopeful, optimistic rendition of human history has deep roots in the Christian tradition. It is reflected in Dr. King’s words as well, that “the arc of history is long, but it arcs towards justice.” In the midst of today’s challenges, with an anxiety so prevalent on the news, I welcome this voice of principled hope.

Paul’s journey began as being an exemplar of his race. His time in London and travelling Europe helped him to see that racial oppression was merely a social construct of American life. He saw other forms of oppression, like that of laborers in England, and united himself with their struggles.

In the beginning of the Cold War, some called this unity with workers a form of communism. Recall that Karl Marx thought that communism would first take hold in England and certainly not Russia. In England, the unfettered capitalism of the Industrial Revolution produced horrific conditions that destroyed human life along with the environment. Charles Dickens built a splendid literary career complaining of these effects.

Paul Robeson latched onto these historical trends and artistically built something bigger to return to America with. He united the spirituals of enslaved black people working with the workers in England and on the European continent. He united them with newly freed serfs in Russia, of all skin tones. He united them even with German folk songs, despite that country’s recent turn towards fascism. What began as a “race problem” transformed into a human problem, a human longing for freedom and self-determination. In articulating this in the early-to-mid twentieth century, he laid a solid foundation for others to build upon.

So many of these abstract historical forces – post-World-War-I Europe, the struggle against fascism, the struggle against American racism, the rise of Russian communism – personified the world’s human struggle in the twentieth century. He combined all of these in one person. In turn, Paul Robeson was founded upon his father’s run from slavery and embrace of the Christian faith which recognizes all humans as made in the image of God. Paul reminded us that we need to strive for God each day, too, just like his enslaved ancestors did.

A Determined Stand on Race

I contend that all of this “struggle” for divinity and appreciation for the common man is what drove Paul to make a determined, lasting stand against the American system on race when he returned to our shores at the start of World War II. On the one hand, he could be adored as the most famous American in the world in the capitols of Europe. On the other, he and his family could be denied equal dining facilities on the return to New York on a ship. For exercising his free speech to criticize American racist laws, the State Department denied him the freedom to work abroad under a passport for ten years.

This stark contradiction in treatment produced the stress that eventually drove him mad with bipolar disorder. His first episode seemed to occur after Lithium was discovered to treat manic depression, as it was then known. Despite being better than nothing, from what biographers can gather, Lithium’s treatment was imperfect for him, too. Though he protested American racism until his death in 1976, he did not grow bitter towards his home country. This deep faith in American freedom, I suggest, is the most compelling legacy of the oppression of America’s black community. As Robeson’s spirituals attest, the hope for freedom never died, despite no seeming way of being fulfilled. I covet that hope today.

He welcomed the advances of the Civil Rights movement as he aged. He received little public recognition other than being a forerunner of the movement. Certainly, its leaders respectfully honored him. Like Robeson before, many struggled in that movement, from John Lewis’ broken skull in Selma to John Seigenthaler’s being struck by a pipe. The creative spirit of the Harlem Renaissance lives on in modern black entertainers today, like Beyonce.

Paul Robeson, once a famous name, lies mostly forgotten in history’s annals. His life witnessed dramatic changes. His father escaped slavery but encountered systemic racism. He endured attacks by teammates just in order to play organized football. He mastered acting and singing on his own, without formal training. He mastered many nations’ folk songs, usually alongside mastering a nation’s native tongue.

Paul rarely if ever lashed out against an establishment bent on his subjugation. He persisted under his father’s admonitions to be a “model Negro” through excelling at anything he put his mind to. Like all of us, he died unable to accomplish his most evocative dreams, but observant of the start of great changes he dreamed of.

His enduring faith, taught through his family and his father’s church, inspires me. It wasn’t a perfect faith. He had the stereotypical selfishness of a driven artist and some naivete pertaining to power in international politics. But it was a determined and courageous faith that sought to embody the spirituals from black slavery, no matter the audience. It was an inclusive faith that welcomed anyone working for a better world more God-like in character. To me, those personal traits comprise the great Paul Robeson’s great legacy.

Because Paul’s voice deserves to be heard more than mine, let’s close with another spiritual, Go Down, Moses.

When Israel was in Egypt land,
Let my people go!
Oppressed so hard they could not stand,
Let my people go!

Go down, Moses,
way down in Egypt land,
tell old Pharaoh
to let my people go!

“Thus spoke the Lord,” bold Moses said,
Let my people go!
“If not I’ll smite your first-born dead!”
Let my people go!

Go down, Moses,
way down in Egypt land,
tell old Pharaoh
to let my people go!

Originally delivered to the June Ramsey Sunday School Class at First Presbyterian Church of Nashville in September 2023.

Sources