In
spring of 2023, browsing on Google, I found this article that
mentioned me in the Lambda Philatelic Journal (LPJ) for March 2011
(v.30, #1)
“Paul
LeRoy Bustill Robeson (1898 –1976) Robeson was a multi-lingual
American actor, athlete, Basso cantante concert singer, writer, civil
rights activist, fellow traveler, Spingarn Medal winner, and Stalin
Peace Prize laureate.
“In
1921 Robeson married Eslanda Cordoza Goode. The couple had one child.
Robeson would not play a significant role in Gay and Lesbian history
was it not for the fact of rumors concerning his bisexuality. In a
1981 issue of the left-wing magazine WIN (now defunct), an article on
Robeson had referred to his bisexuality as if it were a
well-established fact. Some years later The Advocate (a national gay
magazine) printed the claim that Robeson had 'recently [been]
revealed to have been gay.' Again in a 1990 article by Hugh Murray,
the author insisted that the matter of Robeson's bisexuality remained
'an open question.' His biographer, Martin Duberman, an American
historian, playwright, and gay-rights activist and himself openly
gay, insists adamantly he had evidence to the contrary and that 'he
found absolutely no evidence of Robeson's erotic interest in men.'
and that Robeson was 'singularly, rigorously, contentedly
heterosexual.' Duberman did find that Robeson had many sexual
liaisons and that his most intense, long-lasting affairs were nearly
all with white women and that Robeson’s wife seemingly accepted
these extramarital sexual adventures. So the rumor of Robeson’s
bisexuality appears to be just a rumor started and continued, but
also seems to have been disproved by an openly gay scholar who was
chosen by Robeson’s own son to complete the biography of the
father.”
I
was NOT convinced by this article, especially as relatives of the
person in question, especially a wife and/or children, might be the
least willing to admit that their husband or dad was bi-sexual. But
I decided to make some further inquiries to see if it could be
settled to the satisfaction of most.
How
did I get into this dispute? I had read Duberman's biography of
Robeson and was quite impressed. I wanted to review the book, as I
had reviewed many others, publishing them mainly in academic
journals. This was before the days of Amazon, where I have now
reviewed another 80 books or so. Though much of Duberman's
biography of Robeson was terrific, I was convinced Duberman had not
properly assessed Robeson's political activities while the black
celebrity resided in Britain. I began my review with criticism of a
guest on Leonard Lopate's WNYC radio talk show, an NAACP spokesman
who declared that Robeson was not involved in the American civil
rights movement, and Lopate dropped the topic, allowing that
distortion to stand unchallenged.
My
review was intended to refute the view of the NAACP, which was so
critical of Robeson. I am not going to repeat the bulk of my lengthy
review here, but will give one example: the most famous civil rights
case of the 1930s was the Scottsboro rape cases, in which 8 teenaged
blacks were sentenced to death for raping 2 young white women aboard
a freight train near Scottsboro, Alabama. The 14-year-old, also
found guilty, was given a light sentence because of his age, - a
light sentence of life in prison.
When
Robeson was in the UK, the Scottsboro rape case continued as a prime
example of American racism and injustice. The NAACP and the
Communist-front International Labor Defense fought each other to
control the defense; the NAACP lost; the ILD appealed all the way to
the very conservative US Supreme Court, and won new trials; major
civil right legal victories.
The
Comintern, that is the international communist movement, had made
this a global effort, like the Sacco-Vanzetti case of the 1920s. The
Scottsboro case was the cause celebre of the early-mid 1930s. It was
the first time since the American Civil War that America's race
problems were a major world-wide issue. And domestically it was
important because of the contrasts between policies of the NAACP and
the ILD. The NAACP sought to provide the attorneys so it could and
plead its cases in court. The ILD believed in that too, but equally
important, the ILD also sought to mobilize popular opinion through
plays, poems, protests, marches, telegrams to officials. The ILD
even sent the mother of two of the Scottsboro boys to present the
case of her boys, the background of racism in Alabama and in America,
and to urge support as she spoke to audiences in London, Moscow,
Amsterdam, and pre-Hitler Berlin. Support for Scottsboro defendants
came from South Africa, Mme Sun Yat Sen, widow of China's first
President, many of the literary figures of the era, and Einstein.
The NAACP could not have conducted such an international campaign to
save the young blacks, even if it had wantted to.
My
purpose here is not to detail all the ups and downs of the Scottsboro
case, but a few more should be mentioned. The case was appealed to
the US Supreme Court a 2nd time, and again the “horrible
9 old men” ruled in favor of the defendants in a 2nd
major civil rights case victory. FDR, the great liberal, was no fan
of the Court he tried to pack. Failing that, Roosevelt finally had
his chance to “improve” the court. Might Roosevelt choose a most
courageous Alabama former jurist, Judge Horton, who heroically threw
out a Scottsboro guilty verdict by the jury of Decatur, Alabama,
causing him to lose re-election as a judge; might Judge Horton be the
President's pick for the Supreme Court? Close, because FDR's first
pick for the high court opening was an attorney from Alabama, but
Roosevelt chose instead Hugo Black, an attorney for the Alabama Ku
Klux Klan. But the liberal wing of the Klan. If there is some
question re FDR's racial views, following the 1936 Olympic Games in
Berlin, the President never invited to the White House Jesse Owens
who won 4 gold medals, and who had been cheered in the huge Olympic
stadium in Berlin. Nor were the other black atletes invited. Owens
later complained, that Hitler did not snub him, but Roosevelt did. I
mention this because academia and the historical profession are
overwhelmingly Democratic, and for them FDR is a near god. America
was not merely racist, it had provided inspiration for some early
Nazi racial laws. It is noteworthy that Scottsboro earns some
discussion in the new book by British critic Kenan Malik, Not So
Black and White: A History of Race from White Supremacy to Identity
Politics, in which Malik even contrasts the racial implications
of the philosophies of Immanuel Kant and his pupil Johann Gottfried
Herder. Not the typical work on race, but a fascinating,
thought-provoking one nonetheless.
While
this was occurring in the US, Robeson was in mainly in Britain,
making films that could be shown throughout Africa – half of which
was part of the British Empire. (He was in the US to be featured in
Hollywood's 1936 version of “Show Boat,” singing Ole Man River.)
Robeson in Britain and America was often on stage in plays and
singing. He was aware of America's race problems too, and so it is
no surprise noting the 2 co-chairs of the British Scottsboro Defence
Committee were Paul Robeson and a university student from east
Africa. Johnstone Kenyatta. On the set of some films Robeson, a
star, met and befriended some of the extras who were African
students. Here, for example Robeson met Nnamdi Azikiwe, who would
later become the first President of Nigeria. Robeson surely
conversed with the Africans and gained a more comprehensive notion of
events in the British Empire, which in the 1930s ruled a quarter of
the earth. It should be no surprise that when Robeson returned to
the US, he became a leader of the Council on African Affairs. And
when one student returned to his homeland, Johnstone became better
known as Jomo Kenyatta, led the Mau Mau insurrection against the
British, and evertually became the first president of Kenya.
No
mention of Kenyatta in Duberman's book. Robeson was aware of race
problems in the US and in Africa related to colonialism. The common
view now is that Robeson was NOT involved in the American civil
rights movement, when he lived abroad, AND when he returned to the
US. Most historians follow the lead of the NAACP officials in their
hostility both to Communism, front groups, and Robeson, and anyone to
their Left. Not only do I disagree with this view, I see it as
propaganda of the Truman Democrats and their deal with the NAACP,
which would soon include creating new intelligence agenciesfor the
Cold War and a Democratic Party McCarthyism before McCarthy..
During
his fight to change the Supreme Court, when Roosevelt sought to pack
the court with his ideological friends, VP John Nance Garner of
Texas opposed his boss. When war in Europe erupted in September
1939, Roosevelt had other worries than the Great Depression to
consider. And should he defy convention and run for a 3rd
term as President? If he did, Garner had to go. There was no great
support for him, and the party was satisfied to dump Garner. FDR
decided to replace him with his Sec. Of Agriculture, Henry Wallace.
The news of spring 1940 was dominated by the swift German victories
over Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium and then spectatularly
over France. Europe's news brought change to the Republicans, with
the nomination of a former Democrat whose foreign policy was closer
to that of FDR than to the isolationist Republicans. In 1940
Congress finally passed an anti-lynching bill, but FDR chose NOT to
sign it. Ending lynching was too controversial for the great
liveral Democrat. Roosevelt was re-elected for an unheard of 3rd
term.
A
Soviet agent in the American Treasury Dept. would play an important
part in events of 1941. He was assigned to draw up terms to which
Japan would have to agree so that the US would not cut off oil and
metal shipments to Japan. The agent basically demanded that Japan
withdraw all troops from China, which it could not do and remain a
major power. It promised to let us know its answer in December 1941.
Stalin knew that Japan would not attack Siberia, so he could then
release troops from the Far East to defend Moscow, which was under
attack by the Germans by winter 1941. The fresh troops from Siberia
helped save Moscow, the USSR, and Stalin. Spies can make a
difference.
Democratic
President Woodrow Wilson had segregated the American armed services
as he segregated the Federal Civil Service. One of his progressive
reforms. Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt kept the segregated
armed services and Civil Service all through WWII.
An
NAACP official on WNYC radio in New York asserted that Robeson did
not partake in the American Civil Rights movement. Everyone knows,
the CR Movement began in the 1950s, usually with the arrest on the
bus of seamstress Rosa Parks. I contend that this version of history
is distorted for political reasons, and as most historians and media
folks are liberal Democrats, they prefer this version. I contend,
the first major post-WWII Civil Rights movement began in 1947-48, it
was closely allied with the Henry Wallace Progressive Party, and Paul
Robeson was a co-chair of that party. Most Americans have never
heard of those civil rights efforts BECAUSE it was a movement
destroyed by Harry Truman and the Democrats, with the collaboration of
the NAACP.
When
Robeson returned to the US, he was involved in civil rights.
Moreover, I contend that the real post-WWII civil rights movement
began not in the 1950s, but in 1947-48 with the founding of the Henry
Wallace Progressive Party, especially with its efforts in the South.
Robeson was a co-chair of the PP, and while the Wallace campaign tour
of the South got some attention, the attempts by Robeson to hire
civic halls for the Party and songs were usually dismissed for
various reasons, but the real reason, these were to be racially
integrated events. Names of Progressive supporters like Daisy Bates
and Buford Posey and Floyd Mc Kissick would pop up later,(Bates
during the Central High integration in Little Rock, Posey in exposing
the locals in Philadelphia, Miss. who contended that the 3 missing
civil rights workers were alive and well and had secretly gone to
Cuba, Moscow, or New York; and Floyd Mc Kissisk who in the mid-1960s
headed the CORE organization). The Progressive Party activists were
in the struggle against the one-party Democrats' misrule in the
South. Robeson was Co-Chair or the PP. Even in 1949-50 a 4-year old
Carl Bernstein (you may have heard of the Watergate scandal) was
involved in restaurant sit-downs (later called sit-ins) in the
Baltimore/DC area, thanks to his Progressive mother. The Progressive
Party WAS the Civil Rights movement following WWII. And it was
smashed by Harry Truman, the Democrats, and the NAACP. Most liberal
histories present Truman as a civil rights President, the first to
address the NAACP, the first to push for integration of the military.
But his Atty. Gen. List of subversive organizations meant that any
who had been members of the International Labor Defense, the National
Negro Congress, the Civil Rights Congress, or the Council on African
Affairs might lose their jobs and suffer other consequences. Robeson
stood against the Truman Doctrine on the domestic as wall as the
foreign fronts. I hope some day someone will write the history of
that earlier civil rights movement. Unfortunately, some of that
history, is crumbling, on local newspapers that can fall apart as you
turn a page and are then lost, unless also on microfilm. There was
an earlier civl rights movement that the Democrats seek to deny. I
hope some younger historians can become archiologists of that now
hidden movement of about 75 years ago. (There was an early Freedom
Ride sponsored by the Fellowship of Reconciliation) in 1947 but its
participants were arrested in North Carolina, and it was forgotten
until revived in the early 1960s by James Farmer of CORE. (Jim Peck,
who had partaken in the earlier ride, was among the first to ride in
the 60s and was severely beaten by the segregationists in the South.
On some of Robeson's efforts to desegregate auditoriums in the
Progressive campaign, see,
https://specialcollections.buncombecounty.org/2017/11/09/baritone-singer-paul-robeson-and-the-segregation-policies-of-the-asheville-auditorium/
I hope some younger historians will shake the Democrati/liberal
blinders from their eyes and research the earlier civil rights
struggle in the South by the Left. The Truman/NAACP deal was clear.
When Du Bois, and employee of the NAAACP refused to support Truman,
and was openly for Henry Wallace, he was promptly fired. That was
the kind of freedom offered by the Democrats. Robeson was against
colonialism; why would he support Truman? Happily, the Trumanites
did not resort to Stalin's methods of dealing with opponents.
Radicals were not executed, (unless they were convicted spies). But
it was not an easy time for civil liberties, or civil rights..
When
I became aware of the LPJ article years after its publication, I
realized my charge about Robeson being bi-sexual was still out there.
I then thought, can this be cleared, one way or another before we
all die?
In
my review of Duberman's biography of Robeson, published in the
Journal of Ethnic Studies (Summer, 1990), most of my lengthy
review concerned Robeson's politics. However, I added a few pages at
the end when I included information of a different sort, based on a
source whom I thought would have expert, but rather hush-hush
allegations. I first met Eric Gordon in the summer of 1969 in my
home town of New Orleans. Eric Gordon, then a graduate student at
Tulane U., in New Orleans was organizing the Students for a
Democratic Society in the South, and the first such meeting was
being conducted at the Tulane student center. I had been teaching
the university year at Southern U. in N. O., basically the black
branch of the state's black university. Once LSU had a New Orleans
branch, then called LSUNO, Southern U. in Baton Rouge would get a
branch too, SUNO. I had also been among several faculty members
fired for supporting a lengthy student strike that began with pulling
down the American flag and replacing it with a black nationalist one
– black, red, and green. Of course, in the spring of 1969 many
campuses throughout the nation erupted, as at Cornell U. in New York.
Eric hoped the new SDS would supplant the less radical SSOC, the
Southern Students' Organizing Committee. I remember that
organization best for its button, - in the foreground a black hand
and white hand shaking in friendship, background, the Confederate
battle flag (the rebel flag) SNCC and CORE had generally expelled
all their white members in the early-mid 60s, so SSOC was mainly for
white Southern lefties and liberals. It was also before politically
correct madness that would stigmatize as “racist” any symbol of
the South, and later, any symbol of America in general. Ironically,
the model for the black hand on the button was John Lewis, who became
an elected Representative from Georgia. He would later have to give
his denunciation of the rebel flag to satisfy the new intolerance of
our times.
After
being fired at SUNO, I left for Europe. In New York City in the
1980s I encountered Eric Gordon again. We were both singing in the
Gay Men's Chorus. I have an extremely nasal, and limited voice, but
the chorus invited all. Eric however could really sing, and we stood
next to each other, sang and chatted. When he heard I planned to
review the book on Robeson, he wanted to give me important
information. He assured me that Robeson had a male lover. His lover
lived in a separate home; it was all kept secret, but Eric was
emotional in asserting that it was true. I asked the name of his
lover; but Eric was not at liberty to provide that. If you check
Eric's name on google, you will see he is an expert on music, and
radicals, so I assumed his story was true. I also assumed that with
his radical background he had inside information.
In
the concluding pages of my review in the J. of Ethnic Studies
(Summer 1990, pp. 125-42), I criticize Duberman for not probing into
the possibility that Robeson was bi-sexual.(136) For that, Duberman
would denounce me in print, and even the stamp world would read of
our dispute.
Interestingly,
I made another error in the final “musical “ pages of my review.
I accused the wrong Robeson accompanist of being gay. Eric Gordon
caught the error, wrote to the journal, and Gordon's letter criticizing
me was published, along with my acknowledgement of my error. That was
published a year after my article. But Gordon did NOT criticize what
I had written about Paul Robeson possibly being bi-sexual.(See
Journal of Ethnic Studies, Winter 1991, p. 142)
When
I read the LPJ article, I thought we should settle this before we
die. I wrote to an old acquaintance, and she kindly gave me Eric
Gordon's address. I wrote to him, in part here is the email -
> Hello Eric,
...
> I recall that you knew much more about his male lover. Not only is he dead,
but our time is running out. If you know, I urge you to reveal pertinent material and
end the debate. Of course, I would like to claim Paul as one of ours, but truth is what
is important. Can you settle the issue one way or the other?
and Eric responded:
Sent to me March 3, 2023
I'm not sure I can settle this one way or another. I heard a story third hand that
intrigued me but with no substantiation I have long since concluded that it was either a
fantasy or perhaps my informant’s memory was faulty. So I have not put much stock in it
ever since. I trust Duberman to have the final answer to your question.
In the 1990s I encountered a man who had been a paper boy in his youth for radical publications.
He delivered to the elderly Roberson, and on one occasion, thought Paul was coming on to him. He
said Paul invited him for some green tea, and that in the gay community, that was an “invitation.”
As someone who has resided in Asia, I know that many Asians believe green tea is healthy, and green
tea is added to many items. In Saigon I had green tea cheese cake at Starbucks. I think you can find it
in toothpaste. The man who had been a paper boy, never said there was sex, just that he thought
Paul was inviting him. I think he was mistaken. Moreover, IF Paul Robeson had been bi, surely over
the years someone would have come forward with their more elaborate stories. The absence of
more allegations over time, basically confirms what Duberman wrote.
I apologize. I was wrong. I have no evidence that Paul Robeson
was bi-sexual. I apologize to the Paul Robeson family and
to Martin Duberman. Hugh Murray
