Paul Robeson
A visitor to Brighton, appearing at the Dome Brighton in 1938.

Paul Robeson was a famous African-American athlete, singer, actor, and advocate for the civil rights of people around the world.

Born on April 9, 1898, Paul Robeson was the youngest of
five children. His father was a runaway slave who went on to graduate from Lincoln University, and his mother came from an abolitionist Quaker family.

In 1915 Paul Robeson won a four-year academic scholarship to Rutgers University. Despite violence and racism from teammates, he won 15 varsity letters in sports (baseball, basketball, track) and was twice named to the All-American Football Team.
He received the Phi Beta Kappa key in his junior year.

Robeson met and married Eslanda Cordoza Goode, who was to become the first Black woman to head a pathology laboratory.

He took a job with a law firm, but left when a white secretary refused to take dictation from him. He left the practice of law to use his artistic talents in theater and music to promote African history and culture.

In London, Robeson earned international acclaim for his lead role in Othello, for which he won the Donaldson Award for Best Acting Performance (1944), and performed in Eugene O'Neill's Emperor Jones and All God's Chillun Got Wings. He is known for changing the lines of the Showboat song "Old Man River" from the meek "...I'm tired of livin' and 'feared of dyin'....," to a declaration of resistance, "... I must keep fightin' until I'm dying....". His 11 films included Body and Soul (1924), Jericho (1937), and Proud Valley (1939).

Robeson's opening night performance of Emperor Jones
brought the audience to its feet with cheers for twelve encores.
Paul Robeson used his deep baritone voice to promote Black spirituals, to share the cultures of other countries.

Paul Robeson retired from public life in 1963. He died on January 23, 1976, at age 77, in Philadelphia. source: .cpsr.cs.uchicago.edu