chapter 19

arise, triumphant, the laboring folk

—“Border to Border,” a popular Soviet song from the opera Quiet Flows the Don

Robeson linked the cause of Spain with oppressed people everywhere. The Western democracies, he felt, weren’t doing enough to help the Loyalists. But he praised the Soviet Union for supporting the anti-fascist struggle.

Some people wondered if Robeson was secretly a communist since he was seen with friends who belonged to the Communist Party. Those who knew him said, “Robeson was not a joiner and had no time for meetings and studying Marxist texts.” Another said, “Robeson was a free spirit and would not have functioned well within the [Communist] Party.”

Robeson’s London agent warned if he didn’t cut back on speaking out about his political views, he might lose his concert bookings. “It is my duty as your representative,” wrote his agent, “to point out that your value as an artist is bound to be very adversely affected…. You are doing yourself a great deal of harm.”

Robeson ignored the advice and didn’t seem to lose his popularity. When he and Brown gave a concert at Albert Hall in June 1938, the applause lasted so long when he walked onstage that Brown had to play a piano introduction twice, and Robeson gave a short speech thanking the audience before he could begin singing.

Robeson also defied his agent’s warning by singing a popular Soviet song at a huge rally organized by the Emergency Peace Campaign (EPC), a movement that started in America and England and included student volunteers. Its goal was to avoid war and maintain peace. Robeson sang first in English, then in Russian:

From border unto border

From ocean unto ocean

Arise, triumphant, the laboring folk

The brave Russian folk

Yes, ready for sorrow

Yes, ready to suffer

Yes, ready to fight till death.

Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi party, victoriously driving into Vienna in his six-wheeled car on March 14, 1938. Crowds of supporters cheer him and extend their arms in the Nazi salute.

Despite the efforts of the EPC and many others like Robeson, looming war still threatened. Hitler annexed Austria, and on March 14, 1938, triumphantly drove into Vienna. His plan was to to invade Czechoslovakia next. The Czech government appealed to England, France, and the Soviet Union for help, but these countries did nothing to stop Hitler’s progress.

With increasing tensions in Europe, Robeson and Essie didn’t want Paul Jr. and Grandma Goode to be trapped in the Soviet Union, even though they loved living there. At that time, reaching Moscow was difficult, except through German-controlled territory, and Robeson remembered his horrifying experience in Berlin. In the face of imminent war, they sent for their son, who arrived in London. Grandma Goode returned to America.

This was a turning point for Robeson. He recognized the con-nection between international politics and the concerns of working-class people throughout the world. Robeson joined the Unity Theatre, “a people’s theatre,” sponsored by the British trade unions, and performed without pay. When asked why, he said, “I’ve managed to get some success, but there are thousands who haven’t had the chance. It’s not enough for one to be able to do it. I want everyone to have the chance.” Robeson took the part of a union organizer in Plant in the Sun, a play about white and black workers going on strike. Since most members of the cast were actual carpenters and clerks who had daytime jobs, they held rehearsals at night and on weekends.

During the one-month run of the show, Robeson took time to appear at political rallies. At a reception held by the Indian League, he met and became friends with Jawaharlal Nehru, leader of the Indian National Congress, a group committed to breaking away from the British Empire and becoming independent. Nehru had been mentored by Mahatma (“great soul”) Gandhi, an Indian lawyer who had been the leading figure in the Indian Home Rule Movement from 1916 to 1918. In 1929, leadership passed on to Nehru, while Gandhi took on a more spiritual role, fighting for his country’s freedom with nonviolent methods, and protesting the oppression of India’s poorest classes.

Nehru was westernized in his outlook and wanted good relationships with other countries. He went to see Plant in the Sun, and he and his sister had lunch with Robeson and Essie at their home. Paul Jr. remembered that to Nehru’s amazement, Robeson recited some classic Hindu poetry in the original Hindi. Robeson pointed out the similarity in rhythm between Hindu and African American speech patterns. He and Nehru discussed how India might be governed when independence was won.

When Plant in the Sun closed, Robeson and Brown toured the British provinces (Torquay, Swansea, and Eastbourne). More than ever, Robeson wanted to bring his music to working-class people. The duo performed “half”-concerts, three times a day, at movie palaces, charging reduced fees so that more people could afford to attend. No one of Robeson’s stature had ever done that before. People who had low-paying jobs, and those on pensions or welfare, were able to hear Robeson sing in person. In Glasgow, Scotland, the crowd formed a line a quarter of a mile long outside the concert hall. Inside, Robeson “stood with tears in his eyes while the audience rose, clapped and shouted their appreciation of his work for Spain and oppressed humanity,” reported the Scotsman. He started the varied program with “Water Boy” and “soon had everyone laughing with his rollicking rendition of ‘Shortnin’ Bread,’ ” a plantation song that was his son’s favorite:

Put on the skillet, put on the lead

Mammy’s gonna bake a little shortnin’ bread

Mammy’s little baby loves shortnin’, shortnin’

Mammy’s little baby loves shortnin’ bread.

“It was the most successful tour we ever had,” recalled Brown. “The people who formed the backbone of England—those who had kind hearts and were human—had always appreciated Paul. Now they seemed to love him more than ever because of what he was trying to do for the people.”

After the tour ended, Robeson and Essie enrolled Paul Jr. in a London school for Soviet children. Paul Jr., almost eleven, had read about Stalin’s purge trials, in which anyone he suspected of being disloyal was arrested and executed. Paul Jr. asked his father if the executions were justified. Robeson said that “dreadful things” had been done, that “innocent people had been sacrificed to punish the guilty,” and that this was due to a situation in the Soviet Union that was “the equivalent of war.” He said, “Gaining equality for the masses may require some temporary oppression and suppression of freedom” and “Russia was providing equality for all its citizens regardless of race or nationality.”

As news spread about the purges, some people criticized Robeson for his sympathy with the Soviet Union. Even black ministers who were anti-Communistic accused Robeson of expressing communistic views. The director of the Associated Negro Press in Chicago wrote to Robeson and asked him if he was planning to make Russia his home. Robeson’s American concert booking agent said, “The politics threatened his [Robeson’s] business…. We argued about it quite a bit.” But Robeson held firm in his views, and risked traveling down the “lonesome road.”

Meanwhile, Hitler’s anti-Jewish campaign intensified. On November 10, 1938, crowds of Germans roamed the streets, destroying Jewish shops and setting fire to synagogues. So many windows were smashed that the rampage was called Kristallnacht (Crystal Night). Nearly a hundred Jews were killed in twenty-four hours, and more than thirty thousand were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Few knew the horrors that would follow. President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “I myself can scarcely believe that such things could occur in a twentieth-century civilization.”

Now when Robeson sang “Go Down, Moses,” it took on a new meaning. “It is no longer just a Negro song,” he said. “In Germany, today, when the oppressed commit suicide, or try to escape unbearable conditions, their actions cry out against the terrorized land they wish to leave. Our Moses, with its ‘let my people go,’ never meant going to Heaven—the direction was really the North.” Robeson explained that Sojourner Truth, a leader of the Abolitionist Movement to end slavery in America, had used the song when she passed through the woods to a Negro settlement. “And when the Negroes heard it, they knew it was a signal for a meeting,” said Robeson. “When I sing, ‘let my people go,’ I can feel sympathetic vibrations from my audience, whatever its nationality.”

Robeson maintained a hectic pace of political appearances for the causes dear to his heart. In December 1938, he attended the Welsh National Memorial Meeting at Mountain Ash in Wales to remember the Welsh men who had fought and died in the Spanish Civil War. He told the audience, “I am here because I know that these fellows fought not only for Spain but for me and the whole world.” The Spanish Civil War had ended on March 28, 1939, when Madrid surrendered. Franco proclaimed victory three days later. The Loyalists had lost to the fascists, and more than 200,000 people were shot in mass executions. Millions were imprisoned.

The shattered storefront of a Jewish-owned shop in Berlin destroyed during Kristallnacht (the “Night of Broken Glass”). Jewish-owned stores were wrecked and looted all over Germany.

When he spoke at the meeting in Wales, he met the president of the South Wales Miners’ Federation, and the two had formed a bond. His next movie was The Proud Valley, about the miners, and met his standard of social significance. Later he said, “It was the one film I could be proud of having played in.”

Robeson as David Goliath, with a fellow miner, in the movie The Proud Valley. The movie was shot in the Rhondda Valley of south Wales.

Shooting of the film began in August in the Welsh village of Maerdy. Robeson, age forty-one, had put on weight and had to slim down at a “nature-cure” rest home to prepare. During the filming, he and the other members of the cast lived with the villagers. Some of the locals appeared in the movie as supporting cast.

The story was based on an actual event. An American black miner from West Virginia, David Goliath, went to Wales looking for work and became involved with the miners’ struggle for a better life. In an opening scene, Robeson, as Goliath, hears the miners’ choir singing and starts singing along with them. The choirmaster invites Goliath to join them. Soon Robeson winds up helping the poor miners with all their problems. When the choirmaster dies in a mining accident, Robeson sings the spiritual “Deep River” at the funeral:

De-ee-ep river, my home is over Jordan

Deep river, Lord, I want to cross over into campground.

While Robeson was shooting the movie, world events worsened. Germany and the Soviet Union signed a pact on August 23, 1939 agree-ing that the two countries would not fight each other for ten years. In a public statement, Robeson said the pact in no way “weakened or changed” his beliefs or his sympathy with the Soviets. Privately, though, he feared the outbreak of war. His fears were realized on September 1, when Hitler’s troops invaded Poland. Britain and France, honoring a treaty with Poland, declared war on Germany. World War II had begun.

Robeson and Essie quickly decided it was time to go home with Paul Jr. Having completed filming of The Proud Valley on September 25, Robeson was making a recording of “Deep River,” while Essie was busy packing up their belongings. Robeson saw a rough cut of the film and was pleased. He said to reporters, “Having helped on many fronts, I feel that it is now time for me to return to the place of my origin.”