Teacher’s College in 1920. She promptly became
the first African American hired by the city’s Pres-
byterian Hospital when she was employed to over-
see the Surgical Pathological Laboratory. Robeson
earned a B.S. from the UNIVERSITY OFCHICAGOin
- From 1937 to 1938 she studied at the Univer-
sity of London and at the London School of Eco-
nomics. She earned her Ph.D. in anthropology from
the Hartford Seminary in Connecticut in 1945.
Robeson met her future husband, Paul Robe-
son, in New York City. The couple, who married in
August 1921, had one child, Paul Jr. In 1925 she
left her job at the Presbyterian Hospital to become
her husband’s business manager. It was she who
urged Paul Robeson to accept the leading role in
SIMON THECYRENIAN,one of three plays in a series
by RIDGELYTORRENCE. That debut represented the
successful beginning of Robeson’s lengthy and im-
pressive career as a performer. The couple lived
abroad in England for 11 years, and while there, Es-
landa Robeson published Paul Robeson, Negro,a bi-
ography of her husband. When the couple returned
to the United States, they settled in Enfield, Con-
necticut, at a rural home that they named “The
Beeches.”
In the latter years of the Harlem Renaissance,
Robeson intensified her profile as an international
activist. She published African Diaryin 1936, an
account of her time in Africa.
In the years following the Harlem Renais-
sance, she continued to play an instrumental role
in international, especially African, affairs. In 1941
she was a cofounder of the Council on African Af-
fairs. A decade later, in 1951, she and two other
activists protested the United Nations post-World
Genocide Conference. In 1958 she attended the
All-African Peoples Conference in GHANA. Tar-
geted by Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-
American Activities Committee in the early 1950s,
she refused to cooperate when called to testify.
Robeson, suffering from breast cancer, passed
away in December 1965.
Bibliography
Boyle, Sheila Tully, and Andrew Buni. Paul Robeson: The
Years of Promise and Achievement.Amherst: Univer-
sity of Massachusetts Press, 2001.
Duberman, Martin. Paul Robeson.New York: Knopf,
1989.
Robeson, Paul Jr. The Undiscovered Paul Robeson: An
Artist’s Journey, 1898–1939. New York: J. Wiley,
2001.Robeson, Paul(1898–1976)
The versatile and talented actor, singer, linguist,
and activist whose public career made unprece-
dented advances for African Americans in the arts
and whose political persecution brought much at-
tention to the plight of oppressed peoples in the
United States and around the world.
Paul Robeson was born in Princeton, New Jer-
sey, in April 1898. He was the son of William, a
self-emancipated, formerly enslaved man and Lin-
coln University graduate, and Maria Bustill Robe-
son, a noted schoolteacher and descendant of
abolitionists. He married ESLANDA CARDOZO
GOODEROBESON, a gifted scholar, in 1921. The
couple had one son, Paul Robeson, Jr.
Robeson completed high school with honors
and after beginning college at his father’s alma
mater, he became the third African American to at-
tend the school now known as Rutgers University.
There, he excelled in academics and in athletics.
He earned a stunning 17 varsity letters, won the
class prize for oratory every year, and gained admis-
sion to PHIBETAKAPPA. Robeson, who became the
first African American recognized as an all-Ameri-
can in football, was the valedictorian of his class
and was admitted into the honorary Senior Society
of Cap and Skull. After graduating from Rutgers, he
began law school at COLUMBIAUNIVERSITY.
Robeson made his theatrical debut with the en-
couragement of his wife. In 1921 he appeared in the
production of SIMON THE CYRENIANby RIDGELY
TORRENCE at the 135th Street YOUNG MEN’S
CHRISTIANASSOCIATION. Still in law school at the
time, he began to develop his skills as a performer
and soon left the law to immerse himself fully in the
world of theater. He joined the PROVINCETOWN
PLAYERSand became familiar with EUGENEO’NEILL,
one of the group’s most prolific members. Robeson’s
professional debut came in 1922 in Taboo,a play by
Mary Hoyt Wiborg. Subsequent appearances in-
cluded leading roles in ALLGOD’SCHILLUNGOT
WINGSand THEEMPERORJONESby Eugene O’Neill,
PORGYby DUBOSEand DOROTHYHEYWARD, The
Hairy Ape, Basilisk, Toussaint L’Ouverture, Black Boy,456 Robeson, Paul