Paul Robeson (110 page)

Ultimately those conclusions must undergo the scrutiny of other scholars, and soon will, when the Robeson Family Archives has been opened to general use. To facilitate that evaluation, I have made my notes
unusually full, using them to cite gaps or contradictions in the evidence, to point to relevant secondary sources as well as manuscript materials—and in general to do all that I could to alert other scholars to the possibility of variant interpretations. I do so in recognition that Robeson's history has previously been uncharted and is an emblematic story of black achievement and struggle. As such, it belongs to future generations, and awaits their evolving verdict.

Rich though the Robeson Family Archives is, it has one serious drawback: the materials represent Essie Robeson far more than Paul. Herself a voluminous letter-writer and diarist, Essie tended to save, even to hoard, every scrap. Paul was the temperamental opposite. He had no instinct for “collecting” and scant interest in recording his own thoughts and feelings. To a remarkable—and, for a biographer, disheartening—degree, he avoided putting pen to paper. Except for some brief shorthand notes made at a few points in his life, he kept no diary. And he disliked writing letters; indeed, his avoidance of correspondence became something of a joke (and occasionally a source of recrimination) to his friends. The Archives contains hundreds and hundreds of pages of Robeson's musical notations, his markings on film and theater scripts, and, for the period of the mid-thirties, some lengthy, valuable discursive ruminations on Africa. But of more private matters there is almost nothing, no substantial enough record of his personal response to individuals (or even to such critical public events as Khrushchev's revelations to the Twentieth Party Congress) to allow a scholar to track his emotional life with retrospective confidence.

His antipathy to keeping a personal record has been the chief stumbling block to this biography, and especially to any effort at probing his inner life. Time and again, the material in the Robeson Archives consists of Essie's, rather than Paul's, jottings and musings. Since they were very different people, often at odds emotionally and politically, her account can hardly be taken as an accurate reflection of his. Yet, in the absence of other material, I have sometimes had to use Essie's letters and diary (especially for the period of the twenties) as the chief sources for a given event. In doing so, I've tried to remain alert to the danger of equating her attitude with his—and have periodically alerted the reader as well (see, for example, note 43, page 601; note 38, page 624; note 41, pages 644–45). Robeson's refusal to leave behind a detailed record of his own is consonant with his temperament. Accurately described by one of his close friends as “a man with a thousand pockets,” he disliked the notion of anyone's being able to rummage through them all, to pierce the secretiveness he came to regard as necessary protection.

Since the Robeson Archives is heavily weighted with material Essie Robeson herself accumulated or wrote, I've attempted to leaven that bias by interviewing some 135 friends and associates of Robeson's and by reading widely in other manuscript collections. Finally, nothing can substitute
for Robeson's own voice (nor can any amount of scholarly diligence invent one), but the interviews have thickened the number of perspectives on him, and the supplementary manuscript sources have yielded much additional material about him (and even a few supplementary letters by him)—as well as enriching the general contextual background. Below is a full listing of interviewees, followed by the manuscript sources consulted other than the Robeson Family Archives itself.

People Interviewed

James Aronson

Peggy Ashcroft

Etta Moten Barnett

Cedric Belfrage

Mirel Bercovici

Rada Bercovici

Eubie Blake

Charles L. Blockson

Leonard Boudin

Anne Braden

Geri Branton

Fredda Brilliant

Oscar Brown, Jr.

Oscar Brown, Sr.

Margaret Burroughs

Alan Bush

Angus Cameron

Lee Cayton

Revels Cayton

Frances Quiett Challenger

Si-lan Chen

Alice Childress

Herbert E. Cohen

Gertrude Cunningham

Peggy Dennis

Freda Diamond

Earl Dickerson

Hazel Ericson Dodge

Bess Eitingon

Inger McCabe Elliot

Emma Epps

Howard Fast

Andrew Faulds

Max Fink

Ishmael Flory

Moe Foner

Harry Francis

Milton Friedman

Indira Gandhi

John Gates

Nina Goodman (Mrs. Ben Davis, Jr.)

Sally Gorton (Mrs. Rockwell Kent)

Joseph Gould

Victor Grossman

Bonnie Bird Gundlach

Uta Hagen

John Hammond

Ollie Harrington

Dorothy Healey

Jean Herskovits

Lena Horne

Micki Hurwitt

Jean Blackwell Hutson

C. L. R. James

Ruth Jett

Howard Eugene (“Stretch”) Johnson

Barney Josephson

Alfred Katzenstein

Ursula Katzenstein

Larry Kerson

Ari Kiev

Bernard Koten

Joseph Lederer

Harold Leventhal

Elma Lewis

Jay Leyda

Marian Liggins

Diana Loesser

Sanford Meisner

Herbert Marshall

Josephine Martin

Carl Marzani

Jan Mason

Ivor Montagu

Chuck Moseley

H. A. Murray

William Mutch

Richard Nachtigall

Kay (Mrs. Aubrey) Pankey

Sam Parks

Graham Payn

Theodora Peck

Thelma Dale Perkins

Morris Perlmutter

Rose Perry

William Pickens III

Sidney Poitier

Martin Popper

Louis Rawls

Edward Rettenberg

Milton Rettenberg

Jim Richards

Alan Rinzler

Marilyn Robeson

Paul Robeson, Jr.

Earl Robinson

Robert Robinson

Flora Robson

Clara Rockmore

Ted Rolfs

Helen Rosen

Norman Roth

Rose Rubin

Annette Rubinstein

S. A. Russell

Bayard Rustin

Homer Sadler

Antonio Salemmé

G. Foster Sanford, Jr.

Junius Scales

Sylvia Schwartz

Pete Seeger

Jean Seroity

Marie Seton

Sadie Davenport Shelton

Robert Sherman

Frederick Shields

Julius Silverman

Ruby Silverstone

Abbott Simon

Anita Sterner

Michael Straight

Alexander Taylor

Studs Terkel

Edith Tiger

Chatman Wailes

Ruth Walker

Fredi Washington (Bell)

Elizabeth Welch

Aaron Wells

Rebecca West

Monroe Wheeler

Mrs. Harry White

Henry Wilcoxon

Doxey Wilkerson

Aminda Badeau (Mrs. Roy) Wilkins

Addie Wyatt

Asa Zatz

In addition, I have had access to Paul Robeson, Jr.'s interviews with: Peter Blackman, Bruno Raikin, and Marie Seton; and to Anita Sterner's interviews (done for a 1978 BBC program on Robeson) with: Tommy Adlam, George Baker, Frank Barnes, Alfie Bass, Alan Booth, Dave Bowman, Lord Brockway, J. Douglas Brown, May Chinn, George C. Crockett, Jr., Ossie
Davis, Ruby Dee, Leonard de Paur, Dai Francis, John Gerstadt, Leo Hurwitz, Emlyn Jenkins, Roderick Jones, Armina Marshall, James Monk, Mrs. Northcote, Will Paynter, “Princeton Old People,” Philip Stein, Phillip Thomas, Rachel Thomas, André Van Gyseghem, Otto Wallen, Charles Wright, Ellsworth Wright, Coleman Young.

Manuscript Sources

(other than the Robeson Family Archives)

AKADEMIE DER KÜNSTE DER DDR, PAUL ROBESON ARCHIV
: assorted manuscript letters, first-person reminiscences of Robeson, extensive newspaper and photo collection.

AMISTAD RESEARCH CENTER:
Fredi Washington Papers; Countee Cullen Papers

CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY:
Claude A. Barnett Papers

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY:
Robert Minor Papers; Oral History Research Office (some two dozen pertinent interviews including especially those done with: Charles Ascher, Eric Barnouw, A. Philip Randolph, William Jay Schieffelin, Carl Van Vechten, Roy Wilkins, and Henry Agard Wallace); Paul Robeson Law School Records

COUNTWAY MEDICAL LIBRARY, HARVARD:
Louis Wright Papers

DUSABLE MUSEUM, CHICAGO:
Metz Lorchard Papers; Margaret Burroughs Papers

FDR LIBRARY, HYDE PARK:
Eleanor Roosevelt Papers

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL HISTORY, AMSTERDAM
: Emma Goldman Papers

KURT WEILL FOUNDATION FOR MUSIC:
Weill/Eslanda Robeson Correspondence

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS:
Nannie H. Burroughs Papers; NAACP Papers; Mary Church Terrell Papers; Margaret Webster Papers

MOORLAND-SPINGARN RESEARCH CENTER, HOWARD UNIVERSITY
: Bustill-Bowen-Asbury Collection; E. Franklin Frazier Papers; George Murphy Papers; William L. Patterson Papers; Jessica Smith Papers; Jacob C. White Collection

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY, MANUSCRIPT DIVISION:
Paul Kester Papers; Vito Marcantonio Papers; Joel E. Spingarn Papers; Carl Van Vechten Papers

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY, SCHOMBURG COLLECTION:
Lawrence Brown Papers; Civil Rights Congress Papers; Melville J. Herskovits Papers; Alberta Hunter Papers; National Negro Congress Papers; Papers of the Black Academy of Arts and Letters; Pettis Perry Papers; William Pickens Papers; Paul Robeson Collection; Arthur Schomburg Papers

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, WAGNER ARCHIVES
: Actors' Equity Association Records

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY:
Melville J. Herskovits Papers; Ira Aldridge Collection

PRESBYTERIAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY:
Records of New Brunswick Presbytery

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY:
Sylvia Beach Collection; Otto Kahn Papers

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES:
assorted Paul Robeson-related material

SCHLESINGER LIBRARY, RADCLIFFE:
Charlotte Hawkins Brown Papers; Margaret Cardozo Holmes interview

SMITH COLLEGE, SOPHIA SMITH COLLECTION, WOMEN'S HISTORY ARCHIVE
: Ella Reeve Bloor (“Mother Bloor”) Papers

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY, CARBONDALE, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
: Herbert Marshall Papers

STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, WISCONSIN
: Eugene and Peggy Dennis Papers Syracuse university: Earl Browder Papers

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
: R. Golding Bright Papers; Oral History interviews with Edwin Lester and Ed Biberman; Ralph Bunche Papers; George Johnson Film Collection

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS, AMHERST:
W. E. B. Du Bois Papers

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, BANCROFT LIBRARY
: Noel Sullivan Papers

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, LABADIE COLLECTION:
Maurice Brown/Ellen Van Volkenburg Papers

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, RANSOM HUMANITIES CENTER:
Maxwell Anderson Papers; Frank Harris Papers; Alfred and Blanche Knopf Papers

YALE UNIVERSITY:
James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of Negro Arts and Letters; Laurence Langner Papers; Eugene O'Neill Correspondence; Gertrude Stein Correspondence; Theater Guild Papers; Carl Van Vechten Papers

Additionally, a number of people have given me access to privately held manuscript material:

Peggy Ashcroft (ms. memoir)

Cedric Belfrage (Belfrage-Peggy Middleton correspondence)

Maimie Neale Bledsoe (ms. memoir and speeches)

Leonard Boudin (files on Robeson passport case)

A'Lelia P. Bundles (ms. letter)

Revels Cayton (ms. letter, biographicar materials)

Tim Couzzens (Robeson materials in William Ballinger and Winifred Holtby Papers)

Gertrude Cunningham (Nathan F. Mossell papers)

Lloyd L. Davies (ms. letters, reminiscences)

Freda Diamond (ms. letters)

Paulina Forsythe (ms. letters to Robeson during the dozen years, 1965–76, when he lived with her and her mother, Marian Forsythe, in Philadelphia)

Milton Friedman (court briefs)

Walter Goldwater (ms. letters)

Nina Goodman [Mrs. Ben Davis, Jr.] (ms. letters)

Rupert Hart-Davis (ms. letters)

Marie Jones (ms. letters)

Corliss Lamont (ms. letter)

H. A. Murray (ms. letters)

Kay [Mrs. Aubrey] Pankey (ms. letters)

Juliet [Mrs. Malcolm] Pitt (ms. letters)

Paul Robeson, Jr. (hospital records; book manuscripts (“With Malice Toward One,” “Gideon's Journey”); Washington, D.C., FBI files)

Clara Rockmore (Rockmore-Robeson correspondence)

Helen Rosen (Rosen-Robeson correspondence)

Junius Scales (ms. memoir)

Marie Seton (ms. letters, book ms.)

Louis Shaeffer (interview notes)

Anita Sterner (tapes and transcripts of three dozen interviews for 1978 BBC program on Robeson)

Leonora [Pat] Gregory [Stitt] (ms. memoir and draft of book started with Robeson)

Studs Terkel (tape of others reminiscing about Robeson)

Nancy Wills (ms. memoir)

A number of people I corresponded with added further to the stock of primary materials through their anecdotes and personal recollections of Robeson (as well as by providing leads to others with firsthand accounts). In this regard, I owe special thanks to Kathryn Cavan Avery, Paul Avrich, Edward Biberman, Charles L. Blockson, George Breitman, Harry Bridges, Bob Cohen, Malcolm Cowley, Millia Davenport, Michael H. Ebner, Veit Erlmann, Kim Fellner, Bernard Forer, Joseph Gould, James Frederick Green, Judith Green, John Devereux Kernan, Ralph Kessler, David Randall Luce, Luretta Bagby Martin, Ruth C. McCreary, Jim Murray, Paul G. Partington, Robert Richter, Naomi Rogers, Irene Runge, Stanley Schear, Athene Seyler, Harry Slochower, George Spector, C. A. Tripp, Jules Tygiel, Mrs. William A. P. White, Nancy Wills, and Jane Wright.