Paul Robeson Remembered

...Nevertheless, Robeson retained the respect and affection of many Americans, who will have an opportunity this year to show their admiration for the courage that cost him a great deal...

...Robeson presents a problem for those who applauded his artistic achievements and supported many of the causes in which he enlisted his memorable baritone, yet recoiled at his steadfast loyalty to the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin...

...Fine, but the education would be incomplete if it failed to mention that Robeson was the American who predicted before World War II that black citizens would not fight for the United States, and who reported from the Soviet Union how much better life there was for a black man, at least one with a great voice and an international reputation...

...They promoted the interests of a state where democracy and liberty had no meaning, and where peace meant repression of tens of millions of people who were never acknowledged in Robeson performances...

...The situation must be painful for Robeson fans who have some acquaintance with the nature of Stalinist rule and his silence about it...

...Nobody, after all, wants to rain on the May black-tie dinner dance at the Waldorf-Astoria by stopping the music to say, "Yes, he was a defender of one of the more murderous regimes of our century, but he spoke out against racism...

...Falsifying or ignoring or softening a crucial aspect of an icon's career only insults the man...

...Hundreds of other exhibits, concerts and festivities, climaxing in November with a salute at Carnegie Hall, are on the way...

...Surely Paul Robeson, whatever his silences and other sins, wouldn't ask anybody to lie for him...

...Robeson's life does not admit of that sort of distinction: His art and his cause were inseparable, and the celebrations are bound to make much of Robeson's political ideals, cleansed to seem like good old liberal ideals...

...Just the contrary...

...Such was the language of his speeches and his songs, and there is no doubting his efforts in the cause of civil rights in the United States...

...Still, they may be tempted to forgive or rationalize or just shrug off such embarrassments to make the centennial go down more smoothly...

...Yet what sort of tribute is it to someone who paid a high price to be, as he must have believed, true to himself, not to tell the whole truth...

...The New-York Historical Society's tribute runs through July 12...

...The United States Postal Service, though, fearful of a Congressional commotion, has declined to honor him with a commemorative stamp...

...A Grammy lifetime achievement award has been made, and Rutgers University, where Robeson distinguished himself in academics and sports, is sending forth exhibitions recalling his remarkable career...

...In this year's tributes he will assuredly be proclaimed, to borrow from the language of Rae Alexander-Minter, director of Rutgers' Paul Robeson Cultural Center, as a symbol of "brotherhood and humanity...

...They are unlikely to be esthetes who take the position that art pardons ideology...

...But they could not forget that although never a member of the Communist Party, he was long a model fellow traveler...

...Few of the celebrants could have comfortably accepted the International Stalin Peace Prize, as he did...

...yes, he had no unkind word for the suppression of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, but he sang songs of liberation in many languages...

...Sponsors of the celebrations hope to pass on their admiration to new generations...

...and American Movie Classics has already run its Robeson retrospective...

...All those folk songs about Peace, The People, The Workers, Liberty, Democracy, Equality, Anti-Fascism, however, were also code words for world Communism's anti-American campaign...

...These admirers were appalled at his treatment when his passport was revoked in 1950, most of his concerts were canceled and he went into exile...