In 1938, Paul Robeson visited Spain and was very moved by the courage and energy displayed by the residents of Madrid who had mobilized against fascism. While there, he sat for a brief interview in which he discussed the current civil war as well as his artistic endeavors. He explained how, early in his career, he had been eager about the prospect of playing Brutus Jones in Eugene O’Neill’s play The Emperor Jones because in it he “saw the possibilities that a Black [actor] had in dramatic art.”1 However, he continued, “I must tell you that for me this was only a point of departure, a means to do more basic and important things, since it was necessary in a country like mine to demonstrate first that a man of color had artistic sensibility, and could walk the stage or pose before a movie camera with the same presence as the whites, and sometimes with greater presence. That is why I later portrayed Othello, and I am now preparing to do King Lear.” Robeson viewed Brutus Jones as a jumping-off point that would propel him into weightier, serious roles like Othello. Although Robeson never performed in Shakespeare’s King Lear, his interest in the role illustrated the high regard with which he held such classic characters in the Western canon.
Moreover, as the quote above implied, Robeson considered his first foray into Shakespearean theater, with Othello in 1930, to be a building block that would demonstrate his acting ability and stage presence, and would enable his career to progress. Through the 1930s, Robeson achieved greater stature as an artist while his resume grew to include numerous film and stage credits as well as scores of concert tours, which were always especially well received. More important, the trajectory of this decade can also be charted by the public emergence of his political advocacy. His burgeoning consciousness was of enormous significance to his interpretation of Othello on Broadway. One cannot fully understand the New York Othello without considering his political involvement, and any investigation of his politics must examine the transformative decade of the 1930s.
What were the principle influences on Robeson’s life during this period? First, he resided in London for most of this decade, although he did travel to the U.S. for a few projects, like the film version of Show Boat in 1935. Robeson also journeyed throughout the U.K. and across Europe on concert tours, which broadened his perspective on folk music and introduced him to the working classes, left-wing artists, and intellectuals in a number of regions. Of great import was his first visit to the Soviet Union in 1934. Robeson referred to this trip often in speeches and interviews throughout his life, for he truly felt emancipated by the lack of racism he experienced there. Robeson was not alone in this regard. The welcome extended to African Americans by the Soviet Union offered a stark juxtaposition to the skyrocketing unemployment and discrimination New Deal programs dealt to African Americans back in the U.S. Other African Americans, like Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Claude McKay, who traveled there in the 1930s felt unshackled by the antiracism of the Soviets and some, like William Patterson, James Ford, and Harry Haywood, believed that Communism could be a progressive force in the United States.
Robeson was impressed that the Soviet Constitution outlawed discrimination. This would have been particularly poignant to Robeson because his senior thesis at Rutgers, “The Fourteenth Amendment, The Sleeping Giant of the American Constitution,” focused on citizenship rights in the U.S. Constitution. Robeson also decided to send his son to a Russian school in 1936 to protect him from the shroud of bigotry during his formative years. It was in Moscow that Robeson interacted with African American attorney William Patterson, who became a leader in the U.S. Communist Party and a friend of Robeson’s. They worked together with the Civil Rights Congress in the late 1940s and early 1950s. One of their most significant collaborations was on the petition We Charge Genocide that both men, Robeson in New York and Patterson in Paris, presented to the United Nations in 1951. Robeson’s visit to Spain during the civil war also heightened his regard for the troops there, especially the African American volunteers in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and bolstered his resolve against fascism.
This chapter will focus on a few key episodes in the evolution of Robeson’s posture as a politically engaged artist. First, the years in London were crucial in his political development. While there, Robeson read voraciously and studied world language families at the London School of Oriental Languages. This intense study influenced Robeson to expand his concert repertoire of African American spirituals to include folk songs from a variety of countries, including Scotland, England and Russia. Robeson’s decision was well received by audiences and prompted one British reviewer to assert that “if he adheres to his stated policy of singing nothing in the future but the folk songs of the world, he should become the greatest of the interpreters of folk music. …”2 Moreover, in this period, Robeson also began to articulate his views on black culture in articles that were published in a number of periodicals. This section will examine a few of the major themes regarding African culture that he pursued in these essays.
Second, Robeson’s interaction with the diverse community of West Indians, African Americans, and Africans in London was also vital to his intellectual development. For instance, Robeson met African American activist Max Yergan during these years in London. At that time, Yergan was affiliated with the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and had been working in South Africa. He wanted to establish an organization to inform the African American public about contemporary issues in Africa. Together, in 1937, Yergan and Robeson founded the International Committee on African Affairs, which would later be known as the Council on African Affairs. Robeson was also involved with London coalitions such as Harold Moody’s League of Coloured Peoples and the West African Students Union, who made him an honorary member in 1933. Through such groups, he networked with future African leaders like Jomo Kenyatta and Kwame Nkrumah. Robeson strove during this period to fuse his artistic work with his blossoming political engagement. The best example of his synthesizing of politics and art during this decade was as the lead in C. L. R. James’s play on the Haitian revolution, Toussaint Louverture, though it only enjoyed a short run on London’s West End in March of 1936. This section will focus on James’s play as an important precursor to Robeson’s Broadway Othello.
Finally, in the late 1930s, Robeson made his commitment to utilize art in the fight against fascism explicit in a famous 1937 speech at London’s Albert Hall. This section will examine that speech along with Robeson’s hiatus from film work and his visit to the front of the Spanish civil war to sing for the troops fighting against Franco’s regime. These elements in Robeson’s life were situated against the backdrop of fascist rule that was spreading across Europe and which meant, in Robeson’s view, that “the artist must take sides” in the contemporary struggle.
During the 1930s, after his debut in Othello, Paul Robeson substantially honed his position regarding African American culture by maintaining that African Americans suffered from an inferiority complex because they were attempting to emulate white culture. Instead, he declared, “What he [the African American] should do is try for ‘black greatness’ and not an imitation of ‘white greatness.’”3 Robeson believed that it would be through their distinctive traits that African Americans would make their most valuable contribution to American culture. Significantly, these characteristics were directly linked to their African lineage. Robeson posited that the African American “believes himself to have broken away from his true origins; he has, he argues, nothing whatever in common with the inhabitant of Africa today—and that is where I believe he is wrong.”4
Robeson theorized that a fundamental divide existed between Eastern (i.e., Africans, Asians, and other so-called “primitives”) and Western cultures. This divide was exemplified by the overreliance on intellectualism exhibited in the West. Intellectualism has led to technological advancements in applied science, but these have been attained at a great price. Robeson explained, “[T]he cost of developing the kind of mind by which the discoveries of science were made has [come] … at the expense of his creative faculties.” Additionally, “In the West it [creativity] remains healthy and active only amongst those sections of the community which have never fully subscribed to Western values—that is, the exploited sections, plus some rebels from the bourgeoisie.”5 Thus, Robeson postulated, in American culture, specifically, African Americans possessed a greater capacity for creativity because they had not fully assimilated.
In Robeson’s view, creativity was also linked closely to emotional depth, which he found to be lacking among westerners and highly developed in the darker races. He proposed, “No matter in what part of the world you may find him the Negro has retained his direct emotional response to outside stimuli … the Negro feels rather than thinks, experiences emotions directly rather than interprets them by roundabout and devious abstractions. …” As a result of this intuitive nature, “His soul contains riches which can come to fruition only if he retains intact the full spate of his emotional awareness, and uses unswervingly the artistic endowments which nature has given him.”6 In sum, “His immense emotional capacity is the Negro’s great asset.” Robeson ruminated, “Given guidance and an outlet who can say what it might not achieve?”7
These elemental differences between Eastern and Western culture, therefore, should not be shunned but embraced in the black community for, as Robeson proclaimed, “It is not as imitation Europeans but as Africans, that we have a value.”8 How might these African traits be employed? Robeson asserted, “Now, as to the most important part which, in my opinion, the Negro is qualified to play in the American scene. I would define it as ‘cultural,’ with emphasis upon the spiritual aspect of the culture.”9 Cultural forms, then, would be of particular importance when considering the contributions of African Americans to American society. For example, unique cultural manifestations, such as the spirituals, were created as a result of the vital emotional qualities preserved in the African American community even through the most oppressive circumstances. Robeson explicated the emotional characteristics of black Americans: “They have been unhappy and badly treated, but they have retained (though they have not been fully able to express) their best and most characteristic qualities: a deep simplicity, a sense of mystery, a capacity for religious feeling, a spontaneous and entirely individual cheerfulness; and these have found expression in the only culture which Americans can point to as truly belonging to their country.”10 Spirituals, then, were manifested out of a deep reserve of emotion which emerged from the slave experience in the United States. This music was a uniquely American creation because it was not a musical form that emulated European art but was organic to the particular condition of African enslavement in the United States.
Robeson’s analysis was illuminating for several reasons. First, he was addressing African American traits that were commonly exploited by the white community as evidence of inferiority. Yet, Robeson did not subscribe to the inferiority theory because, he argued, the white community perceived these traits through the lens of a Western worldview. Because they were preoccupied by the logic of scientific thought and out of touch with emotion or creativity, the white community misinterpreted the gifts of African Americans. Sterling Stuckey has contended that Robeson’s thesis was evidence of his African nationalism. Stuckey pointed out, “Robeson, remarkably, did not hesitate to affirm without a trace of shame, in fact with great pride, some of the very qualities which whites thought stamped blacks as inferior: with pleasure he referred to the African’s rich emotional heritage, his genius for music, his religiosity—traits from which many black intellectuals recoiled.”11 Richard Dyer has also argued, “Robeson represents the idea of blackness as a positive quality, often explicitly set over against whiteness and its inadequacies.”12 Robeson’s perspective, then, privileged the emotional capacity of blackness as an antidote to the inherently reserved quality of Western art.
C. L. R. James has noted that during the production of Toussaint Louverture in 1936 Robeson “used to speak to me quite often about this type of what I may call the psychological personality of the Black man.” Robeson, then, did not merely pursue his cultural analysis in essay form but continued to subject it to further explication in discussion with members of the Pan-African community such as James. When recollecting Robeson’s cultural argument, James raised an important point. He observed that “while Paul was insisting that the Black man had special qualities which were the result of his past in Africa and his centuries of experience in the Western world, he was equally aware of the fact that this Black man was able to participate fully and completely in the distinctively Western arts of Western civilization.”13 Thus, Robeson maintained that the unique characteristics of people with African heritage did not preclude their ability to fully participate in Western art in a meaningful way. Robeson’s own success in cherished Western art forms, such as Shakespeare, reinforced this idea. Robeson did not want to be excluded from Western art but believed that his cultural heritage could add emotional depth and enhance existing forms. An actor who was not black, for example, could not interpret Othello with the same qualities of emotional expression as Robeson.
Robeson’s analysis, though primarily developed in England in the 1930s, underscored many of the ideals of the New Negro Renaissance (also known as the Harlem Renaissance) in the United States in the 1920s. African American art and social thought flourished during this cultural movement. For example, Alain Locke’s foundational 1925 collection, The New Negro, paid tribute to the significance of African American cultural forms. Locke observed in his opening essay, “Recall how suddenly the Negro spirituals revealed themselves; suppressed for generations under the stereotypes of Wesleyan hymn harmony, secretive, half-ashamed, until the courage of being natural brought them out—and behold, there was folk music.”14 Similarly, in his essay “Negro Art and America,” Albert Barnes postulated, “That there should have developed a distinctively Negro art in America was natural and inevitable.” He continued, “It is a great art because it embodies the Negroes’ individual traits and reflects their suffering, aspirations and joys during a period of acute oppression and distress.”15
These ideas resembled Robeson’s position pretty closely. Yet, it was not surprising that Robeson’s views on black culture overlapped with those of the New Negro Renaissance since he came of age as a performer in Harlem in the 1920s. He gave his first recital of spirituals in 1925 when that music was in vogue and critically acclaimed. During that time, other vocalists, such as Roland Hayes, were also performing programs entirely of spirituals. Interestingly, African American spirituals remained essential to Robeson’s repertoire for the next three and a half decades long after their heyday in the Harlem cultural scene. By maintaining his repertoire of folk music, which expanded to include folk songs from around the world, Robeson’s vocal career helped demonstrate Barnes’s conception that “[t]hrough the compelling powers of his poetry and music the American Negro is revealing to the rest of the world the essential oneness of all human beings.”16
In addition, W. E. B. Du Bois theorized analogous ideas on black culture, especially concerning the spirituals. Du Bois, like Robeson, regarded the spirituals as a unique example of a truly American cultural form. In chapter fourteen of his landmark 1903 text, The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois considered the spirituals to be evidence of “a gift of story and song” contributed by African Americans. One cannot avoid being moved by his heartfelt query: “Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood brotherhood. Are not these gifts worth giving? Is not this work and striving? Would America have been America without her Negro people?”17 Du Bois expanded on the notion of gifts advanced by the black community in his 1924 volume, The Gift of Black Folk. After outlining African American contributions in many fields of endeavor, Du Bois concluded that black Americans brought a “peculiar spiritual quality” to American civilization. This quality “though hard to define” possessed a “certain spiritual joyousness; a sensuous, tropical love of life” as well as an “intense sensitiveness to spiritual values.” Indeed, such a characteristic revealed “the imprint of Africa on Europe in America.”18 Du Bois’s and Robeson’s theses were quite similar, especially when one considers Robeson as a practitioner of the spirituals and Du Bois a scholarly proponent of them. However, it did not appear that Du Bois’s work was a direct influence on Robeson. Sterling Stuckey deduced, “Though both men were concerned with problems of cultural transmission, and though both respected each other long before eventually joining forces in the same organization, they appear to have arrived at their cultural positions, as closely related as they are, independently.”19
Other artists and intellectuals developed similarly nuanced positions on culture during the Harlem Renaissance. Author Claude McKay, a West Indian, emphasized a common African heritage and was “keenly conscious of being a child of the diaspora” as articulated by St. Clair Drake in the introduction to McKay’s autobiography A Long Way From Home.20 McKay noted in his autobiography that while the white community had given the Negro race the benefits of modern civilization, they could not “give Negroes the gift of a soul.”21 He was, however, critical of the black middle class whom he viewed as a pitiable imitation of the white middle class because they lacked wealth and property. In his novels Home to Harlem and Banjo, McKay focused on the experience of the lower classes who still “enjoyed a more direct, vital, and realistic relationship to life” because they had not lost their “spontaneity” and “happiness” as had their middle-class counterparts in their attempt at assimilating to Western culture.22 Interestingly, in 1937, Robeson starred in a film adaptation of McKay’s Banjo titled Big Fella. Robeson’s cultural theory was somewhat akin to McKay’s although Robeson did not emphasize a class analysis in his writing on African culture in the 1930s. His class analysis, later in his Freedom column in the early 1950s, underscored the need for interracial unity among the working classes.
Robeson’s essays on the centrality of black cultural forms were vital to examining his artistic career because Robeson took his inheritance of African identity to heart. In 1935, he decreed that “for the rest of my life I am going to think and feel as an African—not as a white man.”23 Furthermore, this commitment directly impacted his artistic productivity. The following year he announced, “Meanwhile, in my music, my plays, my films, I want to carry always this central idea—to be African. Multitudes of men have died for less worthy ideals; it is even more eminently worth living for.”24
How then did Robeson’s perception of African culture relate to Othello? First, and perhaps most obviously, playing Othello fulfilled Robeson’s ambition to maintain ties to African culture since Othello was an African character. This also spoke to the question of why Robeson returned to this particular role more than any other in his career. In addition to being an African role, it was a Shakespearean role that was respected in the Western canon, the combination of which was extremely rare. Despite his critique of much of Western culture, Robeson felt an affinity for Shakespeare’s English. In the same article where he proclaimed that he would think and feel as an African, he also wrote, “I found that I, who lacked feeling for the English language later than Shakespeare, met Pushkin … on common ground.”25 Shakespeare’s English probably felt familiar to him because it was the language of the King James Bible to which Robeson was exposed from an early age in the A.M.E. Zion church. It was through Shakespeare that Robeson also had his introduction to oratory in high school. Thus, Robeson was attracted to the role of Othello because he felt comfortable with Shakespeare’s language and because it was an African character.
Robeson’s analysis of African culture was also vital to understanding why he would not be offended by the qualities that Shakespeare endowed in the Moor of Venice. In fact, the traits which some might read as demeaning stereotypes, especially in the twenty-first century, would have been embraced by Robeson as highlighting Othello’s African sensibilities. For example, Othello clearly possessed a deep reserve of emotion, especially regarding his love of Desdemona. Othello remarked, in act III, scene 3, “Perdition catch my soul, / But I do love thee! And when I love thee not, / Chaos is come again.” His love was so encompassing that if anything were to impinge on it, it would throw Othello’s entire world into chaos. This, of course, was exactly what happened in the play. Moreover, several of Robeson’s postulates on African traits were directly applicable to Othello. First, Robeson wrote that the African “feels rather than thinks,” which perfectly described Othello’s jealousy. Next, he maintained that the African “experiences emotions directly rather than interprets them,” which demonstrated how Othello played precisely into Iago’s scheme. Third, Robeson felt that the African possessed a “deep simplicity,” which illustrated how Othello could trust Desdemona’s love so implicitly one moment and yet immediately believe Iago’s suspicions the next moment. Finally, according to Robeson, the African embodied a “sense of mystery,” which was one of the primary reasons Desdemona fell in love with Othello in the first place.
Thus, Robeson did not perceive Othello’s character traits as inherently negative or inferior but as African. Locke evocatively described coming to such a realization as “shaking off the psychology of imitation and implied inferiority.”26 Robeson did not aim to imitate a white interpretation of Othello onstage but to explore his uniquely African character traits. These characteristics which, some might claim, exemplified Othello’s inferiority actually made him, according to Robeson’s analysis, more authentically African. In this way, Othello was Robeson’s consummate opportunity to “be African” onstage.
With this in mind, the appraisals of Robeson as Othello can be interpreted in a completely new manner. The reviews from all three of Robeson’s productions were replete with references to his “simplicity” or “naturalness” as Othello. Such comments can be construed, especially in hindsight, as degrading to Robeson, and some very well may have been written in that spirit. However, according to Robeson’s analysis, such reviews were not essentially negative. If he came across onstage as simple and natural, then he had portrayed Othello effectively, since Robeson viewed such as traits as intrinsically African. Robeson might have thought to himself, “Of course I look natural portraying an African because I am an African!”
One important question remained: if Robeson did most of his theorizing on African culture in the 1930s, did he change his position later? The centrality of the Afro-American and African freedom struggles to all of his endeavors, artistic and political, from the late 1930s to the end of the 1950s demonstrated that he maintained his commitment to “think and feel as an African.” Furthermore, Othello was probably the best example that he did not alter his view of African culture. It was the only role he played onstage from 1943 to 1959. He could have accepted other parts, especially in the 1940s when his popularity was at its height. However, Robeson must not have been offered any other roles that met his expectations for portraying African culture with dignity. That was why he left the film industry in 1942. The most compelling evidence, however, was Robeson’s landmark comeback concert at Carnegie Hall in May of 1959, just a few months prior to his final production of Othello. Before reciting Othello’s final monologue, Robeson firmly emphasized Othello’s African heritage: “Othello came from a culture as great as that of ancient Venice. He came from an Africa of equal stature. …”27 The conviction in Robeson’s commanding baritone when underscoring the term “equal” was unmistakable that night. Othello’s African origin remained central to his assessment of the character through the late 1950s. Furthermore, the opportunity to portray Shakespeare’s Moor in the mid-1940s and again in the late 1950s allowed Robeson to sustain the connection between his cultural theory and his artistic career.
“I ‘discovered’ Africa in London,” recalled Paul Robeson in a 1953 article in Freedom newspaper.28 London’s diversity stemmed primarily from immigrants who left British colonies for jobs and education in the metropolis. During the 1930s, Robeson interacted with future leaders of Africa, and he became acquainted with C. L. R. James, a scholar from the West Indies. In 1932, James had sailed from his home in Trinidad to the United Kingdom. While there, he ghostwrote an autobiography of the famous cricketer Learie Constantine. The prolific Trotskyist remained busy throughout the thirties, publishing several more volumes during that decade including The Case for West Indian Self Government, Minty Alley (a novel), and World Revolution 1917–1936. James also met with Leon Trotsky in Mexico, and the exiled leader regarded James as a leading expert on the “Negro question.” In addition, James completed the archival research for his groundbreaking monograph on the San Domingo revolution of 1791–1804, The Black Jacobins, published in 1938. Audiences, however, got a sample of James’s scholarship on Haiti in 1936 when he fashioned the historical data into a play, Toussaint Louverture, starring Paul Robeson as the black revolutionary hero.
In 1926, Robeson disclosed to an interviewer that he dreamed of doing “a great play about Haiti, a play about Negroes, written by a Negro, and acted by Negroes.”29 Then, in 1934 while visiting Russia, Robeson had discussed making a film about Haiti and Toussaint L’Ouverture with Soviet film director Sergei Eisenstein. This film was never produced so it was C. L. R. James’s interpretation of Toussaint onstage that ultimately fulfilled Robeson’s desire. James’s play was most definitely “a play about Negroes, written by a Negro, and acted by Negroes.” It embraced the black man as a dramatic hero while inserting him directly into the current political discourse. Toussaint was an important precursor to Robeson’s Broadway Othello on several levels. First, it gave Robeson the opportunity to portray another dignified black leading character. In doing so, Robeson also challenged James’s conception of black masculinity and had a lasting impact on James’s view of black leadership. Second, the Toussaint play offered vital commentary on the current political climate, including the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, just as Othello on Broadway was produced against the critical backdrop of World War II. Arguably, more than any other piece prior to Robeson’s New York debut in Othello, Toussaint Louverture in 1936 reflected his progression toward becoming a more politically astute performer and provided a vehicle that merged a growing radical Left sensibility with an anticolonial consciousness.
Why did James choose to present the narrative of the Haitian revolution as a play prior to its release as a historical monograph? A talented writer, James produced a novel, literary criticism, history, social commentary, political theory, and an array of letters over the course of his lifetime. Why, then, choose to tell the specific story of Toussaint in the theater? In part, James wanted to ensure that this particular narrative was accessible to the general public. James believed that two of the great periods of classic drama occurred in ancient Greece when Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus produced their great works and in Elizabethan England when Shakespearean drama was at its height. The medium of drama, according to James, aimed to “attract the attention of the masses.” He explained, “As among the Greeks, the whole nation from the highest to the lowest was represented in the Shakespearean audience.”30 James viewed the theater as a means of expression that could attract a mass audience. People who might not have access to or be inclined to read a history like The Black Jacobins might take advantage of an opportunity to see a dramatization of historical events. James felt strongly about conveying this narrative to the broadest possible audience. Also, the impact of drama could be greater than that of a monograph. James elucidated this idea when discussing the pace of Shakespeare’s plots. He observed that drama opened a “new world of movement” that could bring to life “the clash of social forces.”31
How better to convey the drama of Haiti’s revolution to a mass audience than by having Paul Robeson, star of stage, films and concert hall, portray the hero? In fact, James later recalled that the Stage Society in London agreed to mount the production if Robeson could be cast as the lead.32 In one of his letters to literary critics, James offered a definition of a great artist as “an individual who embodies in himself some mighty social current of thought and feeling.”33 James must have sensed Robeson’s greatness coming to fruition for, in 1936, Robeson was on the cusp of embodying the social currents of his era. This idea was not lost on the reviewers of Toussaint, for several of them noticed that the dignified revolutionary leader was a character after Robeson’s own heart. It was not until the late 1930s that Robeson forthrightly proclaimed his political views. At that point, he became a great artist according to James’s conceptualization. For the rest of his career, Robeson’s art embodied some contemporary social current, whether it was antifascism, peace with the Soviets, or self-determination for African colonies.
Robeson’s and James’s interaction was significant to Robeson’s career because Toussaint provided him with a unique opportunity to play a dignified black hero as written by a black playwright. Getting to know Robeson also impacted James greatly. For example, Robeson’s physical presence made a lasting impression on James. In 1970, James still recalled with detail Robeson’s “magnificent self,” from his height and proportions to his obvious strength and the “litheness of a great athlete” which Robeson possessed.34 Robert Hill has commented on the effect which working with Robeson had on James, saying that “at a very fundamental level, Robeson as a man shattered James’s colonial conception of the Black Physique.”35 Robeson’s dignified carriage, his larger-than-life bearing coupled with supreme self-possession forced James to rethink the inheritance of British colonialism which decreed the inferiority of black masculinity.
The Toussaint project also afforded James the chance to build a friendship with a man whom he later described as “one of the most remarkable men of the twentieth century.” Because Robeson and James migrated to opposing ends of the socialist spectrum, their direct interaction did not last long beyond the play’s production. However, Robeson’s character and charisma clearly had a long-term influence on James. He came to believe that Robeson could have personally led a social movement for black civil rights. He surmised that “if Paul had wanted to he would have built a movement in the United States that would have been the natural successor to the Garvey movement.” Instead, Robeson committed himself to the possibility of a world revolution led by the Communist Party that could “save society from the evils of imperialism and capitalism … and could assist Black people in the United States to gain freedom and equality. …”36 To James, Robeson could have been an important leader of black people in the tradition of West Indians like Marcus Garvey and Toussaint L’Ouverture. It was powerful, then, for James to have had the opportunity to cast Robeson as Toussaint, a historical figure who helped begin and lead a revolution. However, though he was a significant force for the revolutionary movement, Toussaint was not present for the formation of the independent black republic. It was Dessalines who ultimately established the independent black government in Haiti. As Michelle Stephens has posited, it was Toussaint’s absence in this final step toward freedom that manifested the tragedy in James’s drama.37 Similarly, reflecting in 1970, James conceived of Robeson’s absence from the consciousness of the contemporary civil rights leadership as tragic. He lamented, “The present generation of militant young Blacks have not merely forgotten him. It is worse. They never knew him. …”38 The legacy of Robeson’s foundational activism went largely unacknowledged by the generation which took the reins of the freedom struggle in the 1960s.
While James aimed to reach the masses through the medium of drama, he also intended that the play express his commentary on the current political circumstances of the Pan-African world. James once asserted that in order to assess a noncontemporary author, a critic “must get into his own head what were the social and political assumptions of the work he is studying.”39 What, then, was the political premise which James was addressing through Toussaint in the 1930s? James was exploring the possibilities for resisting colonization and pursuing self-government in a postcolonial context. There existed a clear link between the timing of the 1936 production of James’s play and the invasion of Ethiopia by Mussolini’s fascist troops the previous year. One perceptive theater critic summed up the political context of Toussaint, saying that “it is a great romance that at a time when Italy is crushing out Abyssinia with gas bombs and aeroplanes [sic] and tanks, there has been produced in London … a play by a coloured man in which he pleads for his people.”40
Anna Grimshaw explicated this connection further in her introduction to The C. L. R. James Reader. She pointed out that Toussaint had been planned as a response to the debates concerning intervention in the Ethiopian crisis. Grimshaw noted that James “hoped to make his audience aware that the colonial populations were not dependent upon leadership from Europe in their struggle for freedom, that they already had a revolutionary tradition of their own.”41 She asserted in another essay that the play “had considerable impact in left wing circles.”42 One of James’s primary concerns as a theorist was the form that the world revolution would take, and he proposed that it could begin in Africa. James believed that “the future is not born all at once. It exists in the present.” The key was to “know where to look.”43 By demonstrating the revolutionary tradition of Haiti through Toussaint and later the monograph The Black Jacobins, James hoped to illustrate “how the African revolution would develop.”44 Thus, out of the present circumstance of crisis in Africa the future anticolonial struggle could be born.
Through this play, James implored the current and future leaders of anticolonial revolutions in Africa (several of whom he knew personally) not to make the same misjudgment as Toussaint, who had not relied on the instincts of the masses once the revolution was in motion. Toussaint misplaced his hope on the idea of fraternity with the French. However, his aspiration of inclusion in the French empire was erroneous. Michelle Stephens observed that a vision of fraternity on equal terms with the French was not possible because of Toussaint’s race and his previous condition of enslavement.45 James was suggesting through the illustration of Toussaint’s miscalculation that future anticolonial leaders, instead, should aim for self-determination within a theoretical Pan-African empire rather than looking to Europe and the United States for alliances. Black self-government in a postcolonial context would be most successful within the framework of a black empire so that black leaders would not feel compelled to rely on fraternal relationships with their former colonizers. Stephens explained that James invoked the trope of the black empire because “[t]he dream of a black empire is a necessary fiction for the maintenance of an internationalist vision of black freedom embodied in the autonomous black state.”46 Thus, whether or not the notion of a black empire was feasible, the timing of James’s play was intended to provide an analysis of the contemporary battle against fascist forces in Ethiopia and the wider question of independence for all African colonies. James must have been heartened if he read the theater review that remarked, “During a meeting of Negroes which I attended as a protest against Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia, I heard speakers refer with pride to the inspiring life of Toussaint, a great man of color.”47
For Robeson, the opportunity to portray Toussaint fulfilled his commitment to work on projects that presented African characters and themes with dignity. Additionally, the political implications of Toussaint Louverture foreshadowed the Broadway Othello. The stand against segregation taken by the New York Othello cast was part of the larger framework of activism during World War II that included the double victory campaign waged in the black community for victory over discrimination at home after the victory over fascism abroad. The political context of Toussaint also corresponded well with Robeson’s growing antifascism and anticolonialism. Not until he broke the color barrier on Broadway in Othello would Robeson again have the chance to perform in a production which fully animated both his artistic and his political aims. The potency of Othello would be much greater, however, due to its unprecedented success, the fact that it was performed in his native land, and because Robeson had made his commitment to being a politically engaged artist more explicit in the late thirties.
The critical reception of Toussaint also predicted that of the Broadway Othello. Reporters emphasized traits like “dignity,” “nobility,” and “naturalism” that were also underscored in the commentary on Robeson’s Othello portrayals. These were characteristics that Robeson highlighted in his essays on African culture. Thus, like Othello, Toussaint was a role that animated Robeson because it illuminated his theoretical vision of African characteristics. His excitement was certainly reflected in his stage performance, given the glowing reviews. Robeson’s embrace of the role was observed by M. Willson Disher: “Mr. Paul Robeson found a hero after his own heart.” He added that “it was good to see Mr. Robeson’s wholehearted response to his part. …”48 General accolades for Robeson were not in short supply. For example, one reviewer summarized that Robeson “is one of the most impressive actors alive.”49 A writer for Drama noted that “Robeson moves through [the play] with that easy grace and sincere conviction that belong to anything he does.”50
However, it was the reviewer for the organ of the League of Coloured Peoples, The Keys, who captured the particular context of Toussaint. This black periodical in London had been especially critical of Robeson’s 1934 film Sanders of the River and, thus, found Toussaint to be a refreshing addition to Robeson’s repertoire. The reviewer of Toussaint was most pleased to finally see Robeson in a play “worthy of his powers” and asserted that Robeson “does not fail to show what a great Negro actor can do, given the scope.”51 The scope, in this case, was portraying a dignified, heroic black lead character written by a black playwright, who specifically aimed to reach a broad audience and illuminate the future implications of the current Ethiopian crisis.
In 1937, Paul Robeson inaugurated a fund to aid African Americans fighting for democracy in the Spanish civil war. The Negro Worker reported, “In making his contribution of $250, Mr. Robeson said that he believed that there were hundreds of Negroes in the theatre and musical life who would understand that a hunger for equality for all oppressed mankind impelled him to take this step.” Robeson commented on the severity of the Spanish crisis: “The freedom of all Peoples of the world is at stake in the conflict in Spain.”52 This action was indicative of Robeson’s public stand against fascism in the late 1930s. Two significant events near the close of this decade demonstrated that Robeson’s political conscience was increasingly influencing his artistic life. First, he took a hiatus from film work because he could not control the demeaning images of people of color that were continually projected through this medium. Second, his public stand as an artist against fascism culminated in one of his most celebrated speeches in London in June of 1937. The next year, Robeson confirmed his commitment by singing to the troops at the front in Spain. Thus, when Robeson returned to the United States in 1939, it was after having witnessed the proliferation of fascism across Europe and having made a pledge, as an artist, to support the cause of freedom and democracy. When, in 1942, his Othello premiered in the United States, Robeson’s fame was based not solely on his artistic merit but also on his being a politically engaged performer.
In a 1937 interview with the London Daily Worker, Robeson explained his current position regarding the film industry: “I shan’t do any more films after the two that are being made now. … I thought I could do something for the Negro race on the films: show the truth about them—and about other people too. I used to do my part and go away feeling satisfied. … [However] [t]hings were twisted and changed—distorted. … That made me think things out. It made me more conscious politically. One man can’t face the film companies. They represent about the biggest aggregate of finance capital in the world: that’s why they make their films that way. So no more films for me.”53 The Keys celebrated Robeson’s choice: “We congratulate Mr. Paul Robeson on his decision not to act in any more films until he can get a ‘cast-iron’ story—one that can’t be distorted in the making.”54 Actually, Robeson did not break from the film industry permanently until 1942, but he stated similar reasons for doing so at that point. Still, this hiatus from film work in the late 1930s underscored his growing mistrust of and frustration with capitalist-driven art production. Robeson’s attempts to fuse his political convictions with his artistic work were successful on the concert stage as a solo vocalist because within that framework he had total control of the presentation. His disappointment with film as a progressive medium meant that the stage would become a crucial vehicle for his artistic expression. This was especially true with Othello because it would be, as it turned out, the only character he played onstage from 1942 to 1959.
In his 1958 memoir, Robeson reflected upon Europe in the 1930s. He ruminated, “The years that I lived abroad witnessed the rise of fascism: the crash of martial music and the sound of marching jackboots drowned out the songs of peace and brotherhood.” He was discouraged that Western nations had failed to act decisively against Franco and Mussolini. Robeson charged, “The Western powers were calm and unmoving in the face of the agony of Ethiopia and Spain.” It was significant that Robeson linked Ethiopia, an important symbol for African nationalists, and Spain, an icon for the Left. This illustrated that the antifascist struggle, in Robeson’s view, was a global, interracial movement. Robeson had also observed trade unions and coalitions within the British middle class mobilize against fascism. He then concluded, “And so it was that I, as an artist, was drawn into that movement and I came to see that the struggle against fascism must take first place over every other interest.”55
In joining this broad-based campaign against fascism, Robeson elucidated his position at a rally sponsored by the National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief of the Basque Refugee Children at the Royal Albert Hall on June 24, 1937.56 Robeson was initially scheduled to broadcast a radio address from Moscow but, when asked by the committee, he traveled to speak in London personally. This accentuated his commitment to the message he delivered that night. He began by highlighting his belief that art should be rendered in service to the people. Robeson opened by saying, “Like every true artist, I have longed to see my talent contributing in an unmistakably clear manner to the Cause of Humanity. I feel that tonight I am doing so.” He stressed that every person “must decide now [his emphasis] where he stands” with regard to the antifascist cause. No matter what one’s profession might be, one must support the opposition because “through the propagation of false ideas of racial and national superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged.” Specifically, Robeson emphasized the role of the artist and his personal commitment to stand against fascism. He forthrightly affirmed the role of the artist in a time of political crisis: “The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for Freedom or for Slavery. I have made my choice. … Not through blind faith or coercion, but conscious of my course, I take my place with you. I stand with you in unalterable support of the Government of Spain … because the liberation of Spain from the oppression of Fascist reactionaries is not a private matter … but the common cause of all advanced and progressive Humanity.” Robeson stressed that he reached this decision “not through blind faith or coercion” but through careful rumination that made him conscious of his course. His pledge was thoughtful and certainly not a decision that he had reached overnight. This statement represented the culmination of years of study, observation, and dialogue throughout the 1930s. Robeson’s deliberate pronouncement to stand, as an artist, with the forces of democracy against fascism influenced the path of his political and artistic career for the rest of his public life. Robeson believed passionately that there would be no progress toward full citizenship for African Americans or independence for colonized and oppressed people if fascism was allowed to spread unabated. On these grounds, he classified himself as antifascist throughout World War II and into the cold war era.
This decision compelled Robeson to visit the Spanish front in 1938 and it was, as he remembered later, “a major turning point in my life.” There, he saw firsthand “that it was the working men and women of Spain who were heroically giving ‘their last full measure of devotion’ to the cause of democracy in that bloody conflict. …” Moreover, Robeson was impressed that the working classes from other countries responded to the call to aid the Spanish freedom fighters. Included in these forces were the American volunteers serving in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, which was an interracial group organized through the Communist Left at a time when the armed forces in the United States were still strictly segregated. Robeson encountered these troops and recalled feeling “a sense of great pride in my own people when I saw that there were Negroes, too, in the ranks of the Lincoln [Brigade]. …” Ultimately, Robeson asserted, “Spain—the antifascist struggle and all that I learned in it—brought me back to America.”57 Upon returning to the United States, Robeson immediately became identified with progressive and antifascist coalitions. He continually strove to wed his political beliefs with his artistic endeavors. Nowhere would those two forces in Robeson’s life be more successfully conjoined than during the run of the Othello from its debut in 1942 until its final curtain in New York in 1945.