The Undiscovered Paul Robeson, Quest for Freedom, 1939-1976

While [Paul Robeson Jr.] was regarded by many on both the left and right as singularly owned by the Communist Party of the US, Robeson Jr., who himself became a party member, records the complexity of his father's political thought. Robeson characterized himself as an anti-fascist and anti-colonialist. Fascism existed not only as Nazism, but also in Jim Crow laws, racism in the US, and colonial attitudes of white European powers to developing countries. In conversation with his son he spoke of himself as "a human being first, a Negro second, and a Marxist third. But all three of those levels are inseparably connected." (56) As an artist, educator, and activist, he was not only a precursor to the forthcoming civil rights movement but also prefigured the division between the more conservative elements of that movement, and the rise of independent and militant Black self-organization. He advocated the need for such independent political action of "his folk." Robeson Jr. gives us a portrait of an artist as a cultural/political activist, organizer, and symbol. The biography examines the critical juncture and dynamic links between social class and race, revealing important issues of political organization and strategy that pitted radical and conservative elements within both the labour and civil rights movements against each other nationally and internationally, and explores the role of state policy in exacerbating such disputes. It importantly reveals, through the focus on the work and personal beliefs of Robeson, the intrinsic relationship between cultural/artistic work and political work, treating culture not simply as an adjunct to politics but as a critical method of politics. In the person of Paul Robeson they truly were inseparable.