Movies 500 Years Later Role Author | Name Paul Jr. | |
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Born November 2, 1927Brooklyn, New York, U.S. ( 1927-11-02 ) Spouse Marilyn Paula Greenberg (m. 1949) Died April 26, 2014, Jersey City, New Jersey, United States Parents Eslanda Goode Robeson, Paul Robeson Grandparents Maria Louisa Bustill, William Drew Robeson I Similar People | ||
African American Legends: Paul Robeson, Jr.
Paul Robeson Jr. (November 2, 1927 – April 26, 2014) was an American author, archivist and historian.
Contents
Paul Robeson Jr at Harlem Speaks
Biography
Robeson was born in Brooklyn to entertainer and activist Paul Robeson and Eslanda Goode Robeson. As his family moved to Europe he grew up in England (visiting the St Mary's Town and Country School in London) and Moscow, in the Soviet Union. In Moscow he attended an elite school. The Robesons returned to the United States in 1938 to live first in Harlem, New York, and after 1941 in Enfield, Connecticut. Robeson graduated from Enfield High School and attended Cornell University where he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering in 1949.
Robeson worked on the legacy of his father, published two books about him, and created an archive of his father's films, photographs, recordings, letters, and publications. As an advocate for social and racial justice he shared the political views with his father indicating that "like him, I am a black radical". He was married to Marilyn Greenberg in 1949; the couple had two children (David, who died in 1998, and Susan) and one grandchild.
Robeson died of lymphoma in Jersey City, New Jersey in 2014.
Paul Robeson Sr. legacy
Robeson maintained on many occasions that his father "never joined the Communist Party or any party for that matter -- he was an independent artist and would never submit to any kind of organizational discipline."
On his own politics he stated: "I was much more an organized political person", he said, adding that from about 1948 to 1962, he was a member of the Communist Party. "It was an instrument, a radical instrument that could help advance the interests of African-Americans. It helped build the early civil-rights movement and independent trade union movement in the 1930s, '40s and '50s." He said he left the party in 1962 after "it became bureaucratic and corrupt".
Robeson's father, Paul Sr., was one of his closest friends and protectors, traveling and living with him intermittently during his life. Following his father's death, Robeson Jr. worked extensively to establish the Paul Robeson Archive and the Paul Robeson Foundation. The archive, currently housed at Howard University's Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, is the largest repository in the Western hemisphere of Robeson documents and articles, totaling well over 50,000 items. He is of Igbo descent through his father.