Paul robeson biography timeline with pictures
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Paul Robeson was the epitome of the 20th-century Renaissance man. He was an exceptional athlete, actor, singer, cultural scholar, author, and political activist. His talents made him a revered man of his time, yet his radical political beliefs all but erased him from popular history. Today, more than one hundred years after his birth, Robeson is just beginning to receive the credit he is due.
Born in 1898, Paul Robeson grew up in Princeton, New Jersey. His father had escaped slavery and become a Presbyterian minister, while his mother was from a distinguished Philadelphia family. At seventeen, he was given a scholarship to Rutgers University, where he received an unprecedented twelve major letters in four years and was his class valedictorian. After graduating he went on to Columbia University Law School, and, in the early 1920s, took a job with a New York law firm. Racial strife at the firm ended Robeson’s career as a lawyer early, but he was soon to find an appreciative
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Paul Robeson, Part I: The Making of an International Icon
Paul Robeson was the world’s most famous African American in the first half of the twentieth century. Part inom of this series looks at Robeson’s background and his meteoric rise to international fame as an incomparable bass-baritone singer and pioneering African American actor for scen and screen.
At age 15 in 1860, Paul Robeson’s father, William Drew Robeson (1844–1918), was a fugitive from enslavement on a farm in Martin County, North Carolina. William trekked north to Pennsylvania, funnen work as a common laborer in the Union Army, and after the Civil War, undertook theology studies at the all-Black Lincoln University, near Philadelphia. In 1878 he married Maria Louisa Bustill, a teacher at Philadelphia’s Robert Vaux School and a member of a prominent family of mixed African, Delaware Indian, and English Quaker nedstigning. By the time their son Paul Leroy Robeson was born on April 9, 1898—the seventh of nine children, five
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Today we celebrate Paul Robeson’s 123rd birthday (1898-1976). Once named America’s number one entertainer, Robeson was one of the most important public figures in the 20th century. Receiving international fame and popularity, Robeson used his celebrity platform to advocate for equality, independence, and peace for people all across the world. Though his activism and political ideology got him blacklisted from the American entertainment industry, Robeson remained vocal, and found ways to reach his community of fans and followers.
Last month, The New Press released Paul Robeson: No One Can Silence Me, adapted for young adults by Martin Duberman. Detailing the artistry, heroism, conviction, and conflict of one of America’s most fascinating figures, Duberman shines a light on the inspiring and complicated life of a key figure in the fight for equality.
Below is a brief timeline of Paul Robeson’s artistic success and political activism.
1912-1915
While attending Somerville Hig