Tale Of A Haunting: Jeff Sparrow’S Search For Paul Robeson

As is the illustration alongside hence many populace figures, the network offers no shortage of data on the life of Paul Robeson. Exhaustive in addition to painstakingly annotated biographical wikis, in-depth artistic in addition to political examinations in addition to and hence – via YouTube in addition to Google’s peculiar might to skirt modern copyright police – tens of hours of principal in addition to secondary material: non merely inward the shape of samples of the man’s art, or full-length documentaries on his life, but also of his populace interventions, including his testimony of May 1948 inward front end of the US Senate against the passing of the anti-communist Mundt-Nixon Bill, in addition to – fifty-fifty to a greater extent than notably – the sound of his June 1956 hearing inward front end of the House Un-American Activities Committee. All of these documents are remarkable in addition to interesting, merely equally their availability to anyone alongside a basic network connector is an undoubted populace good. Yet relevance in addition to important don’t arise out of a majority of records. They require a thread, a role in addition to a direction. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 way to orient ourselves out of the maze that is the story of anyone’s life – allow lonely a life equally large equally Paul Robeson’s.

Jeff Sparrow’s No Way But This: In Search of Paul Robeson is an endeavor to offering i such thread, out of the many possible ones. To the extent that it is a biography, it proceeds along a double, parallel track, recounting Robeson’s life at the same fourth dimension equally Sparrow’s ain encounters alongside people who either remembered him or – to a greater extent than often – helped the author empathize the historical in addition to social circumstances inward which he lived. While Sparrow’s admiration for his dependent plain is palpable (and amply justified), the volume is never triumphalist or hagiographic – or, worse still, nostalgic – nor are the key claims concerning the relevance of Robeson’s political idea uncomplicated. The volume reads rather similar the story of a haunting. What is it that moved a white Australian author to move the basis inward search of the ghost of a dark American artist? And what did he learn?

Any cite of Paul Robeson, including inward a volume review, must live on dutifully accompanied past times a potted listing of his achievements: that he was a star athlete inward college football game in addition to a champion orator; that he graduated alongside a police grade from Columbia solely to go i of the virtually pop recording artists of his generation, in addition to hence a cinema in addition to theater thespian whose credits include revolutionising the role of Shakespeare’s Othello; that he was a polyglot in addition to a self-taught scholar of folk music amid other subjects; that he was a champion of civil rights, of socialism, of the struggle against international fascism. That he achieved all of this inward spite of existence born inward dire poverty, in addition to of the horrific levels of racial discrimination that accompanied him fifty-fifty at the peak of his fame; in addition to in conclusion that these odds were made fifty-fifty to a greater extent than insurmountable past times the political persecution he suffered during the McCarthy era, culminating inward calls for his internment, a de facto ban on his might to perform in addition to earn a living, in addition to the refusal past times regime to number him alongside a passport, making him a prisoner of his ain Blue Planet for nearly a decade.

This is Sparrow’s subject: larger than life, barely contained past times history. The events that propel him dorsum into our plain of vision accept to hit virtually right away alongside the ascent of Trump in addition to a novel moving ridge of explicitly racist in addition to supremacist political projects (besides those that never went away), which inward plough seat a renewed laid of questions on the availability of radical alternatives, in addition to on the political role of fine art in addition to artists. The echoes are eerie, such equally when Robeson was asked to trouble concern human relationship for his political sympathies inward front end of Francis H. Walter – the Democratic congressman who drafted the Immigration in addition to Nationality Act of 1952 allowing the US to ban immigrants on the grounds of their political affiliation, to the eventual inclusion of many prominent intellectuals. On this occasion, Robeson refused on regulation to deny belonging to the Communist Party, of which he wasn’t inward fact a member, in addition to delivered a thunderous answer to the enquiry of why he would non seek asylum inward the Soviet Union, since he idea hence rattling highly of it:

Because my begetter was a slave, in addition to my people died to laid upwardly this country, in addition to I am going to remain here, in addition to accept a business office of it merely similar you. And no fascist-minded people volition drive me from it. Is that clear?

As this episode exemplifies, Robeson’s story is i of unwavering commitment, a taking of sides that led him to lose his freedom, his fortune in addition to rattling nearly his life. Yet its lessons aren’t completely straightforward, equally the strategic conclusion past times many socialists non to disavow Stalinism – argues Sparrow – produced just the number that Robeson had sought to prevent: the ‘erosion of the American Left’s moral authorisation in addition to influence’. This arc mirrors the decline inward Robeson’s wellness – both mental in addition to physical – which resulted inward his ultimate withdrawal from populace life afterwards i terminal menses abroad, including a tour to Commonwealth of Australia in addition to New Zealand; equally good equally the transition into a novel stage inward the struggle for civil rights inward the United States, to which Robeson was to a greater extent than a witness than a protagonist. But this ending, spell sad, was past times no agency a defeat.

No Way But This grapples alongside Robeson’s contradictions equally good equally alongside the enduring, vehement urgency of his message: that telephone telephone he made fourth dimension in addition to i time again for working people of all races to live on allowed to alive an ‘abundant in addition to dignified life’. The solidarity that Robeson works life exterior of the US – amid the miners of Wales in addition to Scotland, or the Republican fighters of Spain, in addition to everywhere he travelled thereafter – forged his mature political consciousness, expanding the worldview of that ‘son of a slave’ born during the Jim Crow era to comprehend a vision of global emancipation. Told sensitively in addition to often movingly past times a author awake to the nuances of the political in addition to social contexts inward which Robeson moved, it is a story that reverberates today, total of tragedy but also exhilaration in addition to promise. It is the story nosotros demand to hear.


This review was showtime published at Overland.

No way but this: inward search of Paul Robeson is published through Scribe Publishing.