Against the odds, Paul Robeson made his mark on history

When Paul Robeson was born in 1898, the United States was a very different, very segregated place. In much of the country, including the nation’s capitol, “colored” people couldn’t use “white” restrooms, drink from “white” drinking fountains, ride in “white” train cars, sit on “white” bus seats, or swim in “white” swimming pools. Laws prohibiting interracial marriages were on the books in more than half of the 46 states.

It was a time when many African Americans received only a few years of grade school education. Yet Robeson earned an academic scholarship to Rutgers and graduated class valedictorian, got his law degree at Columbia, and studied Swahili and linguistics at the University of London.

Robeson was also a two-time collegiate All-American who played football professionally in the NFL. He was a concert performer, recording artist, stage and film actor — and an early supporter of the civil rights movement and related social justice issues.

Stogie Kenyatta, an actor and playwright who has made a career of portraying Robeson, describes him as “the paradigm for African American success.”

“He was excellent at all the things that made African Americans wealthy and famous — athletics, entertainment, law, and social justice. He was Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X (and) W.E.B. Du Bois, intellectually and socially consciously. However he was Jackie Robinson, he was Joe Louis, he was all of those men as well,” Kenyatta said, calling during a stopover on his way from Barbados to Los Angeles.

“The modern-day equivalent would be if Michael Jordan also turned out to have a law degree, had graduated valedictorian (from college) and went on to become to president of the NAACP — all while starring on Broadway and in films and becoming one of the best singers.”

Kenyatta is bringing his one-man show, “The World is My Home — The Life of Paul Robeson,” to Honolulu this weekend for two performances at the Doris Duke Theatre, sponsored by Sisters Empowering Hawaii to open Black History Month.

“Robeson was so far ahead of his time, intellectually, spiritually, culturally, socially as well as artistically, that he is easily the most unique (of his contemporaries),” Kenyatta said. “His vision of a colorblind society where all men are treated equal preceded Dr. King by around 70 years, and he envisioned a unified Africa 30 years before Americans started identifying themselves as African Americans.”

A HINT of Robeson’s versatility can be gleaned from his performance credits. Robeson starred in the 1925 Broadway production of Eugene O’Neill’s dark drama, “The Emperor Jones.” He played Othello in London in 1930 and on Broadway in 1943.

He played Joe — the character who sings “Old Man River” — in the 1936 film version of “Show Boat” after earning rave reviews for his performance as Joe in the 1928 London stage premiere production.

Robeson was also a prolific recording artist.

KENYATTA DOESN’T shy away from one of the more controversial aspect of Robeson’s biography — his outspoken support of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, communism and the Soviet Union in general.

Robeson visited the Soviet Union for the first time in 1934, encountered none of the racism he experienced in the United States and other nations, and came away impressed. He met Stalin, and came away impressed by his charm and kindness.

Other Americans who visited the Soviet Union in the 1930s returned home outspoken advocates of Stalin and his “workers paradise,” during an era when communism held attractions for U.S. workers. However, Stalin’s repressive governance, anti-Semitism and other factors led a lot of Americans to repudiate both Stalin and communism, particularly during the Cold War era after World War II.

Robeson, who died in 1976, never publicly renounced his support of Stalin or the actions of the Soviet Union in general. That’s an issue Kenyatta considers irrelevant to the story.

“A lot of Americans hold Robeson to a standard they didn’t hold themselves to,” Kenyatta said forcefully. “When people say to me — and 100% of the time they’ve all been white — ‘How do you feel about him not repudiating Stalin?’ I say, ‘How do you feel, asking me that question as an African in America?’

“This is how it sounds when you ask black people, ‘How do you feel about Robeson not standing up for the suffering of the Jews, even though his race was catching way more hell, and his life was at stake?’ They treated blacks in America worse than Russia treated Jews.”

KENYATTA SPOTLIGHTS one of the other ironies in Robeson’s life — his good fortune to attain an extensive education, in an era when most African Americans had little access to adequate schooling — in a scene where Robeson is talking with famed African American poet Langston Hughes.

“Hughes tells him, ‘It’s not that black people don’t love you. They just don’t have the intellect to understand you. You’re a valedictorian with a law degree. They’re lucky if they got a year of high school.

‘You’ve traveled the world, you speak 12 to 15 languages fluently, you’ve been to 25 countries. They’re struggling to learn one and they’ve never left where they were born. So, who they know like you, Paul? You’re too smart for the room. You’re a stranger amongst your own people.”

“THE WORLD IS MY HOME – THE LIFE OF PAUL ROBESON”

>> Where: Doris Duke Theatre, Honolulu Museum of Art

>> When: 7 p.m. Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday

>> Cost: $35

>> Info: bit.ly/PaulRobesonShow Hawaii