465 Shares 447



18

0







In my idea of heaven Paul Robeson is centre stage with Jesus and the Prophets singing Old Man River or That lucky Old Sun as indeed all of us lucky enough to be in their company roll around heaven all day....

There have been few greater men to have walked God's earth than Paul Leroy Robeson 1898-1976 and it is difficult to come up with a greater American even in the land of Malcolm, the Rev King, Bobby Kennedy and his brothers, Bob Dylan even Lincoln himself.

An All-American star footballer who played in the Rutgers team yet was white-washed out of the game's history as if he'd never played.

An ace Law student at Columbia University who for years was embroiled in legal efforts to stop him travelling, stop him speaking, stop his films from being shown his records being bought and forced him to sing to thousands of his fans in the UK down a telephone line because US Law had sequestered his passport.

The son of a slave Robeson achieved worldwide fame and reached mountain tops few could have scaled. And did so as both a Red and a Black. Despite the blandishments of a rich if quixotic existence in Hollywood and on Broadway Robeson raised his fist to the racist imperial power in America and dared them to do their worst.

When the red-baiters of the House Un-American Activities Committee at the height of McCarthyism asked him to recant his socialist faith he defied them. He refused to name names he refused to kow-tow telling the now forgotten witch-hunters "Some of the most distinguished and brilliant Americans are preparing to go to prison rather than answer your questions. I am prepared to join them if necessary".

When they asked him "Why don't you just go and stay in Russia"? Robeson answered "because my father was a slave and my people died to build up this country. I'm going to stay here and demand a part of it just like you".

By "my people" Robeson didn't just mean the sons and daughters of slaves like him. He meant the workers of all colours too. One of my favourite pictures Robeson standing like a black giant in a sea of striking trades unionists of every colour and hue.

But of course his work for black rights first in America where even as a film and recording star and All-American sports icon he was colour barred from almost every hotel and restaurant was elemental. He held court in Harlem just like Malcolm and indeed his coffin was carried out of there in 1976 by, among others, Harry Belafonte.

His role as Othello in the longest running Shakespeare production in history, on both sides of the Atlantic won him legions of fans in Britain. He could've just basked in it in London's West End. Instead he toured the distressed areas of Britain, hooked up with militant trades unionists, stood with the Miners who's super-hero he became. When the took his passport Robeson sang down a phone line to Cardiff as he did in London too to huge audiences of workers, intellectuals, everyone who had a heart and a brain wanted to be in the company of Paul Robeson even if only on the phone.

It is a controversial point to make and I freely concede I don't, can't have the evidence to prove it. But I believe the strongly held opinion at the time that US imperialism effectively murdered Paul Robeson to be highly likely. Just like Hugo Chavez Fidel Castro and others Robeson was chopped down at the height of his physical and mental powers by mystery ailments, inexplicable conditions and subjected including here in England to equally inexplicable treatments.

Robeson's work for Black and other minorities in the US, his trailblazing efforts in support of anti-colonial freedom struggles in Africa and around the world, his mass appeal in the Soviet Union and his refusal to countenance a war against Russia and China, his solidarity with striking workers wherever they were all constituted a clear and present danger to the power that then as now represented the greatest threat to the mankind of whom Paul Leroy Robeson was such a towering example and role model.

If I am elected as Mayor of London in May I intend to mark Robeson's time and footprints in London, which stretched from the West End to the East End, from Hampstead to the Dockers Rows. I intend to name a significant landmark in his honour and I am open to public suggestions as to what and where.

For now, I salute his memory. He was a man. We shall not look upon his likes again.