Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was born on April 9, 1898 in Princeton, New Jersey. He was the fifth and last child of his parents Maria Louisa Bustill and William Drew Robeson. He faced many problems as a kid such as at the age of six, he and his siblings lost their mother to a household fire. A couple years later his father lost his pastorate at Princeton and they were move around until they finally settled in Somerville, New Jersey in 1909. There Mr. William Robeson was appointed as pastor of St, Thomas AME Zion Church.
In Somerville, he was enrolled in Somerville High School where he was one of only two black students He was very active in high school activities and excelled academically. He was a part of his school’s football team as a dedicated player. He participated in many different debates and oratorical contest with successful outcomes. He also took on his first role of acting in Shakespeare’s Othello. He graduated with honors and dared to be different by attending Rutgers, a majority white school, in 1915 after placing first in a competitive examination for the scholarship. At Rutgers he experienced the bitter sweet or attending a white school, which was fame as a football player and racism as a black young successful man.
Paul Robeson was a very successful man after college graduating with a law degree, the ability to speak 15 different languages, and he also became a singer, actor, and political activist. He went abroad on concert, television, and theater engagements, during the time of World War II he spent his time entertaining soldiers and laborers in the war industries and on camps. After the war was over he began to work full-time campaigning for the rights of African Americans around the world. He received numerous honors and awards such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's (NAACP) Spingarn Medal, several honorary degrees from colleges, the Diction Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters,...