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That Ol’ Man Robeson
I can’t help thinking about Paul Robeson while I try to sleep.
Born in 1898, the literal Son of a Preacher Man, Paul Robeson earned a four-year scholarship to Rutgers. Recognized as Phi Beta Kappa, he was also valedictorian of his class at Rutgers while simultaneously earning 15 letters in track, baseball, basketball, and football. As if this wasn’t enough, Robeson was also an *All-American* footballer in his college years.
He played professional football on the weekends while attending Columbia law school but dropped out as he saw no future in the racially tainted New York Bar Association. His education continued, as he would master more than 20 languages in his lifetime.
Forsaking his love for law for a future on stage and screen, his silky bass, charismatic performances and educated theatrics quickly catapulted Robeson into the world’s biggest Black superstar to-date. His outspoken voice drew attention to injustices not just at home, but around the world. But his communist worldview put him on the FBI watchlist, and that gatherered over 3,000 pages on the man. His reputation, tainted by these associations, resulted in him having his passport revoked for much of his life. Though he was barred from traveling internationally, Robeson should be remembered as a hero for the everyman.
Though he may best be known for his rendition of Ol’ Man River from the classic musical Showboat, Robeson’s unique and troublesom life experiences conspire to make, perhaps, the most influential and poignant American of all time. While historians, and even the State department, are finally coming around to recognizing Robeson’s tremendous contribution to the human race, we are deeply in danger of glossing over his mistreatment.
What Paul Robeson accomplished in his limited capacities is beyond extraordinary. He is truly the finest breed of man, a humanist, a dissident, a global citizen able to communicate at both the most intellectual and primal levels. A hero.
For me, the most powerful clip I’ve ever heard is Robeson performing Zog Nit Keynmol, a Yiddish song about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. He says:
‘Never say that you have reached the very end
When leaden skies a bitter future may portend;
For sure the hour for which we yearn will not arrive
Arid our marching steps will thunder: we survive’.
Robeson singing in Chinese:
Robeson singing in Czech:
Mar
This deeply personal short was produced while a student at UCLA. It chronicles my inner challenges related to my Jewish identity as expressed through my facial hair.
Concerning the Tumultuous Future of the UCLA Arts Library
As a student leader in the push to save the UCLA Arts Library from dismemberment, actions including a petition signed by 4,000 people, coverage in the Daily Bruin {not once, but twice} and an outpouring of Social Media hits, we were successful in keeping the library in tact with full operating hours. Below is the open letter I wrote to the University President…
There are many things that college has taught me and a great things I am yet to learn. As a World Arts and Cultures major, I am no stranger to outrage at the disintegration of the arts in our modern society. Indeed, a core principle of my education thus far has been towards sensitivity to the frailty of the arts. Yet, I am not so oblivious to believe that the building of great monuments to the arts in LA such as the New Getty, Walt Disney Concert Hall or the new Kaufman and Broad buildings would not, in time, render other venues in the city inauspicious at best, or frivolous at worst. With every great achievement, previous greatness becomes yesterday’s news. With the crowning achievements that the internet has achieved in the past two decades, the written word, the printed book or the writing on the wall has been rendered sub-par. And it comes with deep regret and sadness that I hear news of the tumultuous future of our arts library here at the University of California, Los Angeles. (more…)
Wesley Ryan Pinkham is known among some circles for having reasonably good taste, an idea of what's going on and the ability to make things that look good. He resides in Echo Park, close to his beloved Dodgers, the excitement of Downtown and the deliciousness of Koreatown.