Book Review

Paul Robeson was a New Negro exemplar of the Harlem Renaissance. He was breathtakingly handsome and brainy. He had a mellifluous voice, a commanding stage and screen presence, a magnetic personality, and an easy manner. Robeson began his "years of promise and achievement"—the biography ends in 1940, just as Robeson readies to make artistic and political waves in the United States—as a "striver." Apolitical to the point of indifference for much of that period, he concentrated on his acting and singing career, believing that individual achievement was the best way to advance his race. To advance his career and because of his unrelenting need for adulation, he avoided conflict. Inwardly he may have fumed at the steady stream of racial insults—some collegiate football teams would not play against him, other opposing players inflicted cheap shots on him, hotels and restaurants refused him service—but outwardly he remained equanimous. This posture helped him to create opportunities. White classmates, teammates, and professional acquaintances could salve their guilt at "Robey's" predicament because he appeared to shrug it off; when his wife, Eslanda Goode, whom he married in 1921, spoke her mind about racial discrimination, those same whites called her bitter and a nuisance.

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