title: Paul Robeson

text: He finished university with four annual oratorical triumphs and varsity letters in multiple sports. His play at end won him first-team All-American selection, in both his junior and senior years. Walter Camp considered him the greatest end ever. Academically, he was accepted into Phi Beta Kappa and Cap and Skull. His classmates recognized him by electing him class valedictorian. "The Daily Targum" published a poem featuring his achievements. In his valedictory speech, he exhorted his classmates to work for equality for all Americans. At Rutgers Robeson also gained a reputation for his singing, having a deep rich voice which some saw as bass with a high range, others as baritone with low notes. Throughout his career Robeson was classified as a bass-baritone.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Robeson entered New York University School of Law in fall 1919. To support himself, he became an assistant football coach at Lincoln University, where he joined the Alpha Phi Alpha. However, Robeson felt uncomfortable at NYU and moved to Harlem and transferred to Columbia Law School in February 1920. Already known in the black community for his singing, he was selected to perform at the dedication of the Harlem YWCA.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Robeson began dating Eslanda "Essie" Goode and after her coaxing, he gave his theatrical debut as Simon in Ridgely Torrence's "Simon of Cyrene". After a year of courtship, they were married in August 1921.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Robeson was recruited by Fritz Pollard to play for the NFL's Akron Pros while he continued his law studies. In the spring of 1922, Robeson postponed school to portray Jim in Mary Hoyt Wiborg's play "Taboo". He then sang in the chorus of an Off-Broadway production of "Shuffle Along" before he joined "Taboo" in Britain. The play was adapted by Mrs. Patrick Campbell to highlight his singing. After the play's run ended, he befriended Lawrence Brown, a classically trained musician, before returning to Columbia while playing for the NFL's Milwaukee Badgers. He ended his football career after the 1922 season, and graduated from Columbia Law School in 1923.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Robeson worked briefly as a lawyer, but he renounced a career in law because of racism. His wife supported them financially. She was the head histological chemist in Surgical Pathology at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. She continued to work there until 1925 when his career took off. They frequented the social functions at the future Schomburg Center. In December 1924 he landed the lead role of Jim in Eugene O'Neill's "All God's Chillun Got Wings", which culminated with Jim metaphorically consummating his marriage with his white wife by symbolically emasculating himself. "Chillun's" opening was postponed due to nationwide controversy over its plot.


title: Paul Robeson

text: "Chillun's" delay led to a revival of "The Emperor Jones" with Robeson as Brutus, a role pioneered by Charles Sidney Gilpin. The role terrified and galvanized Robeson, as it was practically a 90-minute soliloquy. Reviews declared him an unequivocal success. Though arguably clouded by its controversial subject, his Jim in "Chillun" was less well received. He answered criticism of its plot by writing that fate had drawn him to the "untrodden path" of drama, that the true measure of a culture is in its artistic contributions, and that the only true American culture was African-American.


title: Paul Robeson

text: The success of his acting placed him in elite social circles and his ascension to fame, which was forcefully aided by Essie, had occurred at a startling pace. Essie's ambition for Robeson was a startling dichotomy to his indifference. She quit her job, became his agent, and negotiated his first movie role in a silent race film directed by Oscar Micheaux, "Body and Soul" (1925). To support a charity for single mothers, he headlined a concert singing spirituals. He performed his repertoire of spirituals on the radio.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Lawrence Brown, who had become renowned while touring as a pianist with gospel singer Roland Hayes, chanced upon Robeson in Harlem. The two ad-libbed a set of spirituals, with Robeson as lead and Brown as accompanist. This so enthralled them that they booked Provincetown Playhouse for a concert. The pair's rendition of African-American folk songs and spirituals was captivating, and Victor Records signed Robeson to a contract in September 1925.


title: Paul Robeson

text: The Robesons went to London for a revival of "The Emperor Jones", before spending the rest of the fall on holiday on the French Riviera, socializing with Gertrude Stein and Claude McKay. Robeson and Brown performed a series of concert tours in America from January 1926 until May 1927.


title: Paul Robeson

text: During a hiatus in New York, Robeson learned that Essie was several months pregnant. Paul Robeson Jr. was born in November 1927 in New York, while Robeson and Brown toured Europe. Essie experienced complications from the birth, and by mid-December, her health had deteriorated dramatically. Ignoring Essie's objections, her mother wired Robeson and he immediately returned to her bedside. Essie completely recovered after a few months.


title: Paul Robeson

text: In 1928, Robeson played "Joe" in the London production of the American musical "Show Boat", at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. His rendition of "Ol' Man River" became the benchmark for all future performers of the song. Some black critics were not pleased with the play due to its usage of the word "nigger". It was, nonetheless, immensely popular with white audiences. He was summoned for a Royal Command Performance at Buckingham Palace and Robeson was befriended by Members of Parliament (MPs) from the House of Commons. "Show Boat" continued for 350 performances and, as of 2001, it remained the Royal's most profitable venture. The Robesons bought a home in Hampstead. He reflected on his life in his diary and wrote that it was all part of a "higher plan" and "God watches over me and guides me. He's with me and lets me fight my own battles and hopes I'll win." However, an incident at the Savoy Grill, in which he was refused seating, sparked him to issue a press release describing the insult which subsequently became a matter of public debate.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Essie had learned early in their marriage that Robeson had been involved in extramarital affairs, but she tolerated them. However, when she discovered that he was having another affair, she unfavorably altered the characterization of him in his biography, and defamed him by describing him with "negative racial stereotypes". Despite her uncovering of this tryst, there was no public evidence that their relationship had soured.


title: Paul Robeson

text: The couple appeared in the experimental Swiss film "Borderline" (1930). He then returned to the Savoy Theatre, in London's West End to play "Othello", opposite Peggy Ashcroft as Desdemona. He cited the lack of a "racial problem" in London as significant in his decision to move to London. Robeson was the first black actor to play Othello in Britain since Ira Aldridge. The production received mixed reviews which noted Robeson's "highly civilized quality <nowiki>[but lacking the]</nowiki> grand style." Robeson stated the best way to diminish the oppression African Americans faced was for his artistic work to be an example of what "men of my colour" could accomplish rather than to "be a propagandist and make speeches and write articles about what they call the Colour Question."


title: Paul Robeson

text: After Essie discovered Robeson had been having an affair with Ashcroft, she decided to seek a divorce and they split up. While working in London, Robeson became one of the first artists to record at the new EMI Recording Studios (later known as Abbey Road Studios), recording four songs in September 1931, almost two months before the studio was officially opened. Robeson returned to Broadway as Joe in the 1932 revival of "Show Boat", to critical and popular acclaim. Subsequently, he received, with immense pride, an honorary master's degree from Rutgers. Thereabout, his former football coach, Foster Sanford, advised him that divorcing Essie and marrying Ashcroft would do irreparable damage to his reputation. Ashcroft and Robeson's relationship ended in 1932, following which Robeson and Essie reconciled, although their relationship was scarred permanently.


title: Paul Robeson

text: In 1933, Robeson played the role of Jim in the London production of "Chillun", virtually gratis, then returned to the United States to star as Brutus in the film "The Emperor Jones"—the first film to feature an African American in a starring role, "a feat not repeated for more than two decades in the U.S." His acting in "The Emperor Jones" was well received. On the film set he rejected any slight to his dignity, despite the widespread Jim Crow atmosphere in the United States. Upon returning to England, he publicly criticized African Americans' rejection of their own culture. Despite negative reactions from the press, such as a "New York Amsterdam News" retort that Robeson had made a "jolly well <nowiki>[ass of himself]</nowiki>", he also announced that he would reject any offers to perform central European (though not Russian, which he considered "Asiatic") opera because the music had no connection to his heritage.


title: Paul Robeson

text: In early 1934, Robeson enrolled in the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), a constituent college of the University of London, where he studied phonetics and Swahili. His "sudden interest" in African history and its influence on culture coincided with his essay "I Want to be African", wherein he wrote of his desire to embrace his ancestry.


title: Paul Robeson

text: His friends in the anti-imperialist movement and his association with British socialists led him to visit the Soviet Union. Robeson, Essie, and Marie Seton traveled to the Soviet Union on an invitation from Sergei Eisenstein in December 1934. A stopover in Berlin enlightened Robeson to the racism in Nazi Germany and, on his arrival in Moscow, in the Soviet Union, Robeson said, "Here I am not a Negro but a human being for the first time in my life ... I walk in full human dignity."


title: Paul Robeson

text: He undertook the role of Bosambo in the movie "Sanders of the River" (1935), which he felt would render a realistic view of colonial African culture. "Sanders of the River" made Robeson an international movie star; but the stereotypical portrayal of a colonial African was seen as embarrassing to his stature as an artist and damaging to his reputation. The Commissioner of Nigeria to London protested the film as slanderous to his country, and Robeson thereafter became more politically conscious of his roles. He appeared in the play "Stevedore" at the Embassy Theatre in London in May 1935, which was favorably reviewed in "The Crisis" by Nancy Cunard, who concluded: ""Stevedore" is extremely valuable in the racial–social question—it is straight from the shoulder". In early 1936, he decided to send his son to school in the Soviet Union to shield him from racist attitudes. He then played the role of Toussaint L'Ouverture in the eponymous play by C.L.R. James at the Westminster Theatre, and appeared in the films "Song of Freedom", and "Show Boat" in 1936, and "My Song Goes Forth", "King Solomon's Mines". and "Big Fella", all in 1937. In 1938, he was named by American "Motion Picture Herald" as the 10th most popular star in British cinema.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Robeson believed that the struggle against fascism during the Spanish Civil War was a turning point in his life and transformed him into a political activist. In 1937, he used his concert performances to advocate the Republican cause and the war's refugees. He permanently modified his renditions of "Ol' Man River" – initially, by singing the word "darkies" instead of "niggers"; later, by changing some of the stereotypical dialect in the lyrics to standard English and replacing the fatalistic last verse ("Ah gits weary / An' sick of tryin' / Ah'm tired of livin' / An skeered of dyin) with an uplifting verse of his own ("But I keep laffin' / Instead of cryin' / I must keep fightin' / Until I'm dyin) – transforming it from a tragic "song of resignation with a hint of protest implied" into a battle hymn of unwavering defiance. His business agent expressed concern about his political involvement, but Robeson overruled him and decided that contemporary events trumped commercialism. In Wales, he commemorated the Welsh people killed while fighting for the Republicans, where he recorded a message that became his epitaph: "The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative."


title: Paul Robeson

text: After an invitation from J. B. S. Haldane, he traveled to Spain in 1938 because he believed in the International Brigades's cause, visited the hospital of the Benicàssim, singing to the wounded soldiers. Robeson also visited the battlefront and provided a morale boost to the Republicans at a time when their victory was unlikely. Back in England, he hosted Jawaharlal Nehru to support Indian independence, whereat Nehru expounded on imperialism's affiliation with Fascism. Robeson reevaluated the direction of his career and decided to focus on the ordeals of "common people". He appeared in the pro-labor play "Plant in the Sun", in which he played an Irishman, his first "white" role. With Max Yergan, and the International Committee on African Affairs (later known as the Council on African Affairs or CAA), Robeson became an advocate for African nationalism and political independence.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Paul Robeson was living in Britain until shortly before the start of the Second World War in 1939. His name was included in the "Sonderfahndungsliste G.B." as a target for arrest if Germany had occupied Britain.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Robeson's last British film was "The Proud Valley" (1940), set in a Welsh coal-mining town. Shortly after the outbreak of World War II, Robeson and his family returned to the United States in 1940, to Enfield, Connecticut, and he became America's "no.1 entertainer" with a radio broadcast of "Ballad for Americans". Nevertheless, during a tour in 1940, the Beverly Wilshire Hotel was the only major Los Angeles hotel willing to accommodate him due to his race, at an exorbitant rate and registered under an assumed name, and he therefore dedicated two hours every afternoon to sitting in the lobby, where he was widely recognised, "to ensure that the next time Black come through, they'll have a place to stay." Los Angeles hotels lifted their restrictions on black guests soon afterwards.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Robeson narrated the 1942 documentary "Native Land" which was labeled by the FBI as communist propaganda. After an appearance in "Tales of Manhattan" (1942), a production which he felt was "very offensive to my people", he announced that he would no longer act in films because of the demeaning roles available to blacks. (See Tales of Manhattan#Controversy surrounding fifth tale upon 1942 release).


title: Paul Robeson

text: According to democratic socialist writer Barry Finger's critical appraisal of Robeson, while the Hitler-Stalin pact was still in effect, Robeson counseled American blacks that they had no stake in the rivalry of European powers. Once Russia was attacked, he urged blacks to support the war effort, now warning that an Allied defeat would "make slaves of us all. Robeson participated in benefit concerts on behalf of the war effort and at a concert at the Polo Grounds, he met two emissaries from the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, Solomon Mikhoels and Itzik Feffer Subsequently, Robeson reprised his role of Othello at the Shubert Theatre in 1943, and became the first African American to play the role with a white supporting cast on Broadway. During the same period, he addressed a meeting with Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis and team owners in a failed attempt to convince them to admit black players to Major League Baseball. He toured North America with "Othello" until 1945, and subsequently, his political efforts with the CAA to get colonial powers to discontinue their exploitation of Africa were short-circuited by the United Nations.


title: Paul Robeson

text: During this period, Robeson also developed a sympathy for Republic of China's side in the Second Sino-Japanese War. In 1940, the Chinese progressive activist, Liu Liangmo taught Robeson the patriotic song "Chee Lai!" ("Arise!"), known as the March of the Volunteers. Robeson premiered the song at a concert in New York City's Lewisohn Stadium and recorded it in both English and Chinese for Keynote Records in early 1941. Robeson gave further performances at benefit concerts for the China Aid Council and United China Relief at Washington's Uline Arena on April 24, 1941. The Washington Committee for Aid to China's booking of Constitution Hall had been blocked by the Daughters of the American Revolution owing to Robeson's race. The indignation was so great that Eleanor Roosevelt and Hu Shih, the Chinese ambassador, became sponsors. However, when the organizers offered tickets on generous terms to the National Negro Congress to help fill the larger venue, both sponsors withdrew, objecting to the NNC's Communist ties.


title: Paul Robeson

text: The song became newly founded People's Republic of China's National Anthem after 1949. Its Chinese lyricist, Tian Han, died in a Beijing prison in 1968, but Robeson continued to send royalties to his family.


title: Paul Robeson

text: After the Moore's Ford lynchings of four African Americans in Georgia on July 25, 1946, Robeson met with President Truman and admonished Truman by stating that if he did not enact legislation to end lynching, "the Negroes will defend themselves". Truman immediately terminated the meeting and declared that the time was not right to propose anti-lynching legislation. Subsequently, Robeson publicly called upon all Americans to demand that Congress pass civil rights legislation. Robeson founded the American Crusade Against Lynching organization in 1946. This organization was thought to be a threat to the NAACP antiviolence movement. Robeson received support from W. E. B. Du Bois on this matter and launched the organization on the anniversary of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, September 23.


title: Paul Robeson

text: About this time, Robeson's belief that trade unionism was crucial to civil rights became a mainstay of his political beliefs as he became a proponent of the union activist and Communist Party USA member Revels Cayton. Robeson was later called before the Tenney Committee where he responded to questions about his affiliation with the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) by testifying that he was not a member of the CPUSA. Nevertheless, two organizations with which Robeson was intimately involved, the Civil Rights Congress (CRC) and the CAA, were placed on the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO). Subsequently, he was summoned before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, and when questioned about his affiliation with the Communist Party, he refused to answer, stating: "Some of the most brilliant and distinguished Americans are about to go to jail for the failure to answer that question, and I am going to join them, if necessary."


title: Paul Robeson

text: In 1948, Robeson was prominent in Henry A. Wallace's bid for the President of the United States, during which Robeson traveled to the Deep South, at risk to his own life, to campaign for him. In the ensuing year, Robeson was forced to go overseas to work because his concert performances were canceled at the FBI's behest. While on tour, he spoke at the World Peace Council, at which his speech was publicly reported as equating America with a Fascist state—a depiction that he flatly denied. Nevertheless, the speech publicly attributed to him was a catalyst for his being seen as an enemy of mainstream America. Robeson refused to bow to public criticism when he advocated in favor of twelve defendants, including his long-time friend, Benjamin J. Davis Jr., charged during the Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Robeson traveled to Moscow in June 1949, and tried to find Itzik Feffer whom he had met during World War II. He let Soviet authorities know that he wanted to see him. Reluctant to lose Robeson as a propagandist for the Soviet Union, the Soviets brought Feffer from prison to him. Feffer told him that Mikhoels had been murdered, and he would be summarily executed. To protect the Soviet Union's reputation, and to keep the right wing of the United States from gaining the moral high ground, Robeson denied that any persecution existed in the Soviet Union, and kept the meeting secret for the rest of his life, except from his son. On June 20, 1949, Robeson spoke at the Paris Peace Congress saying that "We in America do not forget that it was on the backs of the white workers from Europe and on the backs of millions of Blacks that the wealth of America was built. And we are resolved to share it equally. We reject any hysterical raving that urges us to make war on anyone. Our will to fight for peace is strong. We shall not make war on anyone. We shall not make war on the Soviet Union. We oppose those who wish to build up imperialist Germany and to establish fascism in Greece. We wish peace with Franco's Spain despite her fascism. We shall support peace and friendship among all nations, with Soviet Russia and the people's Republics." He was blacklisted for saying this in the mainstream press within the United States, including in many periodicals of the Negro press such as "The Crisis".


title: Paul Robeson

text: In order to isolate Robeson politically, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) subpoenaed Jackie Robinson to comment on Robeson's Paris speech. Robinson testified that Robeson's statements, "'if accurately reported', were silly'". Days later, the announcement of a concert headlined by Robeson in New York City provoked the local press to decry the use of their community to support "subversives". The Peekskill Riots ensued in which violent anti-Robeson protests shut down a Robeson concert on August 27, 1949, and marred the aftermath of the replacement concert held eight days later.


title: Paul Robeson

text: A book reviewed in early 1950 as "the most complete record on college football" failed to list Robeson as ever having played on the Rutgers team and as ever having been an All-American. Months later, NBC canceled Robeson's appearance on Eleanor Roosevelt's television program. Subsequently, the State Department denied Robeson a passport and issued a "stop notice" at all ports. An isolated existence inside United States borders afforded him less freedom to express what some saw as his "<nowiki>extreme advocacy on</nowiki> behalf of the independence of the colonial peoples of Africa." When Robeson met with State Department officials and asked why he was denied a passport, he was told that "his frequent criticism of the treatment of blacks in the United States should not be aired in foreign countries".


title: Paul Robeson

text: In 1950, Robeson co-founded, with W. E. B. Du Bois, a monthly newspaper, "Freedom", showcasing his views and those of his circle. Most issues had a column by Robeson, on the front page. In the final issue, July–August 1955, an unsigned column on the front page of the newspaper described the struggle for the restoration of his passport. It called for support from the leading African-American organizations, and asserted that "Negroes, [and] all Americans who have breathed a sigh of relief at the easing of international tensions... have a stake in the Paul Robeson passport case." An article by Robeson appeared on the second page continuing the passport issue under the headline: "If Enough People Write Washington I'll Get My Passport in a Hurry."


title: Paul Robeson

text: In 1951, an article titled "Paul Robeson – the Lost Shepherd" was published in "The Crisis" and attributed to Robert Alan, although Paul Jr. suspected it was written by "Amsterdam News" columnist Earl Brown. J. Edgar Hoover and the United States State Department arranged for the article to be printed and distributed in Africa in order to damage Robeson's reputation and reduce his popularity and Communism's popularity in colonial countries. Another article by Roy Wilkins (now thought to have been the real author of "Paul Robeson – the Lost Shepherd") denounced Robeson as well as the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in terms consistent with the anti-Communist FBI propaganda of the era.


title: Paul Robeson

text: In December 1951, Robeson, in New York City, and William L. Patterson, in Paris, presented the United Nations with a Civil Rights Congress's petition titled "We Charge Genocide". The document asserted that the United States federal government, by its failure to act against lynching in the United States, was "guilty of genocide" under Article II of the UN Genocide Convention. The petition was not officially acknowledged by the UN, and, though receiving some favorable reception in Europe and in America's Black press, was largely either ignored or criticized for its association with Communism in America's mainstream press.


title: Paul Robeson

text: In 1952, Robeson was awarded the International Stalin Prize by the Soviet Union. Unable to travel to Moscow, he accepted the award in New York. In April 1953, shortly after Stalin's death, Robeson penned "To You My Beloved Comrade", praising Stalin as dedicated to peace and a guide to the world: "Through his deep humanity, by his wise understanding, he leaves us a rich and monumental heritage." Robeson's opinions about the Soviet Union kept his passport out of reach and stopped his return to the entertainment industry and the civil rights movement. In his opinion, the Soviet Union was the guarantor of political balance in the world.


title: Paul Robeson

text: In a symbolic act of defiance against the travel ban, in May 1952, labor unions in the United States and Canada organized a concert at the International Peace Arch on the border between Washington state and the Canadian province of British Columbia. Robeson returned to perform a second concert at the Peace Arch in 1953, and over the next two years, two further concerts took place. In this period, with the encouragement of his friend the Welsh politician Aneurin Bevan, Robeson recorded a number of radio concerts for supporters in Wales.


title: Paul Robeson

text: In 1956, Robeson was called before HUAC after he refused to sign an affidavit affirming that he was not a Communist. In his testimony, he invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to reveal his political affiliations. When asked why he had not remained in the Soviet Union because of his affinity with its political ideology, he replied, "because my father was a slave and my people died to build <nowiki>[the United States and]</nowiki>, I am going to stay here, and have a part of it just like you and no fascist-minded people will drive me from it!" At that hearing, Robeson stated "Whether I am or not a Communist is irrelevant. The question is whether American citizens, regardless of their political beliefs or sympathies, may enjoy their constitutional rights."


title: Paul Robeson

text: Due to the reaction to the promulgation of Robeson's political views, his recordings and films were removed from public distribution, and he was universally condemned in the U.S press. During the height of the Cold War, it became increasingly difficult in the United States to hear Robeson sing on commercial radio, buy his music or see his films.


title: Paul Robeson

text: In 1956, in the United Kingdom, Topic Records, at that time part of the Workers Music Association, released a single of Robeson singing "Joe Hill", written by Alfred Hayes and Earl Robinson, backed with "John Brown's Body". Joe Hill (1879–1915) was a labor activist in the early 20th century, and "Joe Hill" sung by Robeson is the third favorite choice of British Labour Party politicians on the BBC radio program "Desert Island Discs". In 1956, after public pressure brought a one-time exemption to the travel ban, Robeson performed two concerts in Canada in February, one in Toronto and the other at a union convention in Sudbury, Ontario.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Still generally unable to perform abroad in person, on May 26, 1957, Robeson sang for a London audience at St. Pancras Town Hall (where the 1,000 available concert tickets sold out within an hour) via the recently completed transatlantic telephone cable TAT-1. In October of that year, using the same technology, Robeson sang to an audience of 5,000 at Porthcawl's Grand Pavilion in Wales.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalinism at the 1956 Party Congress silenced Robeson on Stalin, although Robeson continued to praise the Soviet Union. That year Robeson, along with close friend W.E.B. Du Bois, compared the anti-Soviet uprising in Hungary to the "same sort of people who overthrew the Spanish Republican Government" and supported the Soviet invasion and suppression of the revolt.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Robeson's passport was finally restored in 1958 as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court's 5 to 4 decision in "Kent v. Dulles" where the majority ruled that the denial of a passport without due process amounted to a violation of constitutionally protected liberty under the 5th Amendment.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Robeson embarked on a world tour using London as his base. In 1958, he gave 28 performances at towns and cities around the UK (see souvenir programme opposite). In April 1959 he starred in Tony Richardson's production of Othello at Stratford-Upon-Avon. In Moscow in August 1959, he received a tumultuous reception at the Luzhniki Stadium where he sang classic Russian songs along with American standards. Robeson and Essie then flew to Yalta to rest and spend time with Nikita Khrushchev.


title: Paul Robeson

text: On October 11, 1959, Robeson took part in a service at St. Paul's Cathedral, the first black performer to sing there.


title: Paul Robeson

text: On a trip to Moscow, Robeson experienced bouts of dizziness and heart problems and was hospitalized for two months while Essie was diagnosed with operable cancer. He recovered and returned to the UK to visit the National Eisteddfod of Wales.


title: Paul Robeson

text: In 1960, in what was his final concert performance in Great Britain, Robeson sang to raise money for the Movement for Colonial Freedom at the Royal Festival Hall.


title: Paul Robeson

text: In October 1960, Robeson embarked on a two-month concert tour of Australia and New Zealand with Essie, primarily to generate money, at the behest of Australian politician Bill Morrow. While in Sydney, he became the first major artist to perform at the construction site of the future Sydney Opera House. After appearing at the Brisbane Festival Hall, they went to Auckland where Robeson reaffirmed his support of Marxism-Leninism, denounced the inequality faced by the Māori and efforts to denigrate their culture. Thereabouts, Robeson publicly stated "... the people of the lands of Socialism want peace dearly".


title: Paul Robeson

text: During the tour he was introduced to Faith Bandler and other activists who aroused the Robesons' concern for the plight of the Australian Aborigines. Robeson subsequently demanded that the Australian government provide the Aborigines citizenship and equal rights. He attacked the view of the Aborigines as being unsophisticated and uncultured, and declared, "there's no such thing as a "backward" human being, there is only a society which says they are backward."


title: Paul Robeson

text: Robeson left Australia as a respected, albeit controversial, figure and his support for Aboriginal rights had a profound effect in Australia over the next decade.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Back in London after his Australia and New Zealand tour, Robeson expressed a desire to return to the United States and participate in the civil rights movement, while his wife argued that he would be unsafe there and "unable to make any money" due to


title: Paul Robeson

text: During an uncharacteristically wild party in his Moscow hotel room, Robeson locked himself in his bedroom and attempted suicide by cutting his wrists. Three days later, under Soviet medical care, he told his son, who had traveled to Moscow at the news, that he felt extreme paranoia, thought that the walls of the room were moving and, overcome by a powerful sense of emptiness and depression, tried to take his own life.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Paul Jr. has said that his father's health problems stemmed from attempts by the CIA and MI5 to "neutralize" his father. He remembered that his father had had such fears before his prostate operation. He said that three doctors treating Robeson in London and New York had been CIA contractors, and that his father's symptoms resulted from being "subjected to mind de-patterning under MK-ULTRA", a secret CIA programme. Martin Duberman wrote that Robeson's health breakdown was probably brought on by a combination of factors including extreme emotional and physical stress, bipolar depression, exhaustion and the beginning of circulatory and heart problems. "[E]ven without an organic predisposition and accumulated pressures of government harassment he might have been susceptible to a breakdown."


title: Paul Robeson

text: Robeson stayed at the Barvikha Sanatorium until September 1961, when he left for London. There his depression reemerged, and after another period of recuperation in Moscow, he returned to London.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Three days after arriving back , he became suicidal and suffered a panic attack while passing the Soviet Embassy. He was admitted to the Priory Hospital, where he underwent electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and was given heavy doses of drugs for nearly two years, with no accompanying psychotherapy. During his treatment at the Priory, Robeson was being monitored by the British MI5.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Both British and American intelligence services were well aware of Robeson's suicidal state of mind: An FBI memo described Robeson's debilitated condition, remarking that his "death would be much publicized" and would be used for Communist propaganda, necessitating continued surveillance. Numerous memos advised that Robeson should be denied a passport renewal, an obstacle that was likely to further jeopardize his recovery process.


title: Paul Robeson

text: In August 1963, disturbed about his treatment, friends and family had Robeson transferred to the Buch Clinic in East Berlin. Given psychotherapy and less medication, his physicians found him still "completely without initiative" and they expressed "doubt and anger" about the "high level of barbiturates and ECT" that had been administered in London. He rapidly improved, though his doctor stressed that "what little is left of Paul's health must be quietly conserved."


title: Paul Robeson

text: In December 1963, Robeson returned to the United States and for the remainder of his life lived mainly in seclusion.


title: Paul Robeson

text: He momentarily assumed a role in the civil rights movement, making a few major public appearances before falling seriously ill during a tour. Double pneumonia and a kidney blockage in 1965 nearly killed him.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Robeson was contacted by both Bayard Rustin and James Farmer about the possibility of becoming involved with the mainstream of the Civil Rights Movement.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Because of Rustin's past anti-Communist stances, Robeson declined to meet with him. Robeson eventually met with Farmer, but because he was asked to denounce Communism and the Soviet Union in order to assume a place in the mainstream, Robeson adamantly declined.


title: Paul Robeson

text: After Essie, who had been his spokesperson to the media, died in December 1965, Robeson moved in with his son's family in New York City. He was rarely seen strolling near his Harlem apartment on Jumel Place, and his son responded to press inquiries that his "father's health does not permit him to perform, or answer questions."


title: Paul Robeson

text: Numerous celebrations were held in honor of Robeson over the next several years, including at public arenas that had previously shunned him, but he saw few visitors aside from close friends and gave few statements apart from messages to support current civil rights and international movements, feeling that his record "spoke for itself".


title: Paul Robeson

text: At a Carnegie Hall tribute to mark his 75th birthday in 1973, he was unable to attend, but a taped message from him was played that said: "Though I have not been able to be active for several years, I want you to know that I am the same Paul, dedicated as ever to the worldwide cause of humanity for freedom, peace and brotherhood."


title: Paul Robeson

text: On January 23, 1976, following complications of a stroke, Robeson died in Philadelphia at the age of 77. He lay in state in Harlem and his funeral was held at his brother Ben's former parsonage, Mother Zion AME Zion Church, where Bishop J. Clinton Hoggard performed the eulogy. His 12 pall bearers included Harry Belafonte and Fritz Pollard. He was interred in the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Biographer Martin Duberman said of news media notices upon Robeson's death:the "white <nowiki>[American]</nowiki> press ... ignored the continuing inability of white America to tolerate a black maverick who refused to bend, ... downplayed the racist component central to his persecution" <nowiki>[during his life, as they] "gingerly" [paid him]</nowiki> "respect and tipped their hat to him as a ‘great American’," while the black American press, "which had never, overall, been as hostile to Robeson" <nowiki>[as the white American press had,]</nowiki> opined that his life " ‘... would always be a challenge to white and Black America.’"


title: Paul Robeson

text: Early in his life, Robeson was one of the most influential participants in the Harlem Renaissance. His achievements in sport and culture were all the more impressive given the barriers of racism he had to surmount. Robeson brought Negro spirituals into the American mainstream. He was among the first artists to refuse to play live to segregated audiences. Historian Penny Von Eschen wrote: "After McCarthyism, [Robeson's stand] on anti-colonialism in the 1940s would never again have a voice in American politics, but the [African independence movements] of the late 1950s and 1960s would vindicate his anti-colonial [agenda]."


title: Paul Robeson

text: In 1945, he received the Spingarn medal from the NAACP. Several public and private establishments he was associated with have been landmarked, or named after him. His efforts to end Apartheid in South Africa were posthumously rewarded in 1978 by the United Nations General Assembly. "" won an Academy Award for best short documentary in 1980. In 1995, he was named to the College Football Hall of Fame. In the centenary of his birth, which was commemorated around the world, he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award, as well as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Robeson is also a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.


title: Paul Robeson

text: , the run of "Othello" starring Robeson was the longest-running production of a Shakespeare play ever staged on Broadway. He received a Donaldson Award for his performance. His Othello was characterised by Michael A. Morrison in 2011 as a high point in Shakespearean theatre in the 20th century. In 1930, while performing "Othello" in London, Robeson was painted by the British artist Glyn Philpot; this portrait was sold in 1944 under the title "Head of a Negro" and thereafter thought lost, but was rediscovered by Simon Martin, the director of the Pallant House Gallery, for an exhibition held there in 2022.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Robeson archives exist at the Academy of Arts; Howard University, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. In 2010, Susan Robeson launched a project at Swansea University, supported the Welsh Assembly, to create an online learning resource in her grandfather's memory.


title: Paul Robeson

text: In 1976, the apartment building on Edgecombe Avenue in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan where Robeson lived during the early 1940s was officially renamed the Paul Robeson Residence, and declared a National Historic Landmark. In 1993, the building was designated a New York City landmark as well. Edgecombe Avenue itself was later co-named Paul Robeson Boulevard.


title: Paul Robeson

text: In 1978, TASS announced that the Latvian Shipping Company had named one of its new 40,000-ton tankers "Paul Robeson" in honor of the singer. TASS said the ship's crew established a Robeson museum aboard the tanker. After Robeson's death, a street in the Prenzlauer Berg district of East Berlin was renamed Paul-Robeson-Straße, and the street name remains in reunified Berlin. An East German stamp featuring Robeson's face was issued with the text "For Peace Against Racism, Paul Robeson 1898–1976."


title: Paul Robeson

text: In 2001, (Here I Stand) In the Spirit of Paul Robeson, a public artwork by American artist Allen Uzikee Nelson, was dedicated in the Petworth neighborhood in Washington, D.C.


title: Paul Robeson

text: In 2002, a blue plaque was unveiled by English Heritage on the house in Hampstead where Robeson lived in 1929–30. On May 18, 2002, a memorial concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of Robeson's concert across the Canadian border took place on the same spot at Peace Park in Vancouver.


title: Paul Robeson

text: In 2004, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 37-cent stamp honoring Robeson. In 2006, a plaque was unveiled in his honor at SOAS University of London. In 2007, the Criterion Collection, a company that specializes in releasing special-edition versions of classic and contemporary films, released a DVD boxed set of Robeson films. In 2009, Robeson was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.


title: Paul Robeson

text: The main campus library at Rutgers University-Camden is named after Robeson, as is the campus center at Rutgers University-Newark. The Paul Robeson Cultural Center is on the campus of Rutgers University-New Brunswick.


title: Paul Robeson

text: In 1972, Penn State established a formal cultural center on the University Park campus. Students and staff chose to name the center for Robeson. A street in Princeton, New Jersey is named after him. In addition, the block of Davenport Street in Somerville, New Jersey, where St. Thomas AME Zion Church still stands is called Paul Robeson Boulevard. In West Philadelphia, the Paul Robeson High School is named after him. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Robeson's graduation, Rutgers University named an open-air plaza after him on Friday, April 12, 2019. The plaza, next to the Voorhees Mall on the College Avenue campus at Rutgers–New Brunswick, features eight black granite panels with details of Robeson's life.


title: Paul Robeson

text: On March 6, 2019, the city council of New Brunswick, New Jersey approved the renaming of Commercial Avenue to Paul Robeson Boulevard.


title: Paul Robeson

text: In 1949, some Chinese editors published children cartoons presenting him as an artistic and revolutionary hero.


title: Paul Robeson

text: In 1954, the Kurdish poet Abdulla Goran wrote the poem ("A Call for Paul Robeson"). In the same year, another Kurdish poet, Cegerxwîn, also wrote a poem about him, ("Comrade Paul Robeson"), which was put to music by singer Şivan Perwer in 1976.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Black 47's 1989 album "Home of the Brave" includes the song "Paul Robeson (Born to Be Free)", which features spoken quotes of Robeson as part of the song. These quotes are drawn from Robeson's testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in June 1956. In 2001, Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers released a song titled "Let Robeson Sing" as a tribute to Robeson, which reached number 19 on the UK singles chart.


title: Paul Robeson

text: In January 1978, James Earl Jones performed the one-man show "Paul Robeson", written by Phillip Hayes Dean, on Broadway. This stage drama was made into a TV movie in 1979, starring Jones and directed by Lloyd Richards. At the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, British-Nigerian actor Tayo Aluko, himself a baritone soloist, premiered his one-man show, "Call Mr. Robeson: A Life with Songs", which has since toured various countries.


title: Paul Robeson

text: World Inferno Friendship Society had a semi biographical song about Paul Robsons' life on their 2006 album Red Eyed Soul.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Tom Rob Smith's novel "Agent 6" (2012) includes the character Jesse Austin, "a black singer, political activist and communist sympathizer modeled after real-life actor/activist Paul Robeson." Robeson also appears in short fiction published in the online literary magazines the "Maple Tree Literary Supplement" and "Every Day Fiction".


title: Paul Robeson

text: Film director Steve McQueen's video work "End Credits" (2012–ongoing), shown at the Whitney, the Tate Modern, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Pérez Art Museum, reproduces Robeson's declassified, although still heavily redacted, FBI files.


title: Paul Robeson

text: On September 7, 2019, Crossroads Theatre Company performed Phillip Hayes Dean's play "Paul Robeson" in the inaugural performance of the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center.


title: Paul Robeson

text: Robeson was widely popular among Indian intellectuals and artists. Noted Indian singer-songwriter, Dr. Bhupen Hazarika met Robeson in 1949, befriended him and participated in civil rights activities. Hazarika based his iconic Assamese song ""Bistirno Parore"" ("Of the wide shores") on Robeson's "Ol' Man River", later translated into Bengali, Hindi, Nepali and Sanskrit. Singer-songwriter Hemanga Biswas sang the Bengali ballad ""Negro bhai amar Paul Robeson"" ("Our Negro brother Paul Robeson"). There were nation-wide celebrations in India on Robeson's 60th birthday in 1958, with the then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru saying "This occasion deserves celebration…because Paul Robeson is one of the greatest artistes of our generation".


title: Adjective

text: In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.


title: Adjective

text: Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the main parts of speech of the English language, although historically they were classed together with nouns. Nowadays, certain words that usually had been classified as adjectives, including "the", "this", "my", etc., typically are classed separately, as determiners.


title: Adjective

text: "Adjective" comes from Latin "", a calque of (whence also English "epithet"). In the grammatical tradition of Latin and Greek, because adjectives were inflected for gender, number, and case like nouns (a process called declension), they were considered a type of noun. The words that are today typically called nouns were then called "substantive nouns" (). The terms "noun substantive" and "noun adjective" were formerly used in English but are now obsolete.


title: Adjective

text: Depending on the language, an adjective can precede a corresponding noun on a prepositive basis or it can follow a corresponding noun on a postpositive basis. Structural, contextual, and style considerations can impinge on the pre-or post-position of an adjective in a given instance of its occurrence. In English, occurrences of adjectives generally can be classified into one of three categories:


title: Adjective

text: Adjectives feature as a part of speech (word class) in most languages. In some languages, the words that serve the semantic function of adjectives are categorized together with some other class, such as nouns or verbs. In the phrase "a Ford car", "Ford" is unquestionably a noun but its function is adjectival: to modify "car". In some languages adjectives can function as nouns: for example, the Spanish phrase "" means "a red [one]".


title: Adjective

text: As for "confusion" with verbs, rather than an adjective meaning "big", a language might have a verb that means "to be big" and could then use an attributive verb construction analogous to "big-being house" to express what in English is called a "big house". Such an analysis is possible for the grammar of Standard Chinese, for example.


title: Adjective

text: Different languages do not use adjectives in exactly the same situations. For example, where English uses """to be "hungry"" ("hungry" being an adjective), Dutch, French, and Spanish use "", "", and "" respectively (literally "to have hunger", the words for "hunger" being nouns). Similarly, where Hebrew uses the adjective (, roughly "in need of"), English uses the verb "to need".


title: Adjective

text: In languages that have adjectives as a word class, it is usually an open class; that is, it is relatively common for new adjectives to be formed via such processes as derivation. However, Bantu languages are well known for having only a small closed class of adjectives, and new adjectives are not easily derived. Similarly, native Japanese adjectives ("i"-adjectives) are considered a closed class (as are native verbs), although nouns (an open class) may be used in the genitive to convey some adjectival meanings, and there is also the separate open class of adjectival nouns ("na"-adjectives).


title: Adjective

text: Many languages (including English) distinguish between adjectives, which qualify nouns and pronouns, and adverbs, which mainly modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. Not all languages make this exact distinction; many (including English) have words that can function as either. For example, in English, "fast" is an adjective in "a "fast" car" (where it qualifies the noun "car") but an adverb in "he drove "fast"" (where it modifies the verb "drove").


title: Adjective

text: In Dutch and German, adjectives and adverbs are usually identical in form and many grammarians do not make the distinction, but patterns of inflection can suggest a difference:


title: Adjective

text: A German word like ("clever(ly)") takes endings when used as an attributive adjective but not when used adverbially. (It also takes no endings when used as a predicative adjective: , "he is clever".) Whether these are distinct parts of speech or distinct usages of the same part of speech is a question of analysis. It can be noted that, while German linguistic terminology distinguishes from , German refers to both as ("property words").


title: Adjective

text: Linguists today distinguish determiners from adjectives, considering them to be two separate parts of speech (or "lexical categories"). Determiners formerly were considered to be adjectives in some of their uses. Determiners function neither as nouns nor pronouns but instead characterize a nominal element within a particular context. They generally do this by indicating definiteness ("a" vs. "the"), quantity ("one" vs. "some" vs. "many"), or another such property.


title: Adjective

text: An adjective acts as the head of an "adjective phrase" or "adjectival phrase" (AP). In the simplest case, an adjective phrase consists solely of the adjective; more complex adjective phrases may contain one or more adverbs modifying the adjective (""very" strong"), or one or more complements (such as "worth "several dollars"", "full "of toys"", or "eager "to please""). In English, attributive adjective phrases that include complements typically follow the noun that they qualify ("an evildoer "devoid of redeeming qualities"").


title: Adjective

text: In many languages (including English) it is possible for nouns to modify other nouns. Unlike adjectives, nouns acting as modifiers (called "attributive nouns" or "noun adjuncts") usually are not predicative; a beautiful park is beautiful, but a car park is not "car". The modifier often indicates origin (""Virginia" reel"), purpose (""work" clothes"), semantic patient (""man" eater") or semantic subject (""child" actor"); however, it may generally indicate almost any semantic relationship. It is also common for adjectives to be derived from nouns, as in "boyish", "birdlike", "behavioral (behavioural)", "famous", "manly", "angelic", and so on.


title: Adjective

text: In Australian Aboriginal languages, the distinction between adjectives and nouns is typically thought weak, and many of the languages only use nouns--or nouns with a limited set of adjective-deriving affixes--to modify other nouns. In languages that have a subtle adjective-noun distinction, one way to tell them apart is that a modifying adjective can come to stand in for an entire elided noun phrase, while a modifying noun cannot. For example, in Bardi, the adjective "moorrooloo" 'little' in the phrase "moorrooloo" "baawa" 'little child' can stand on its own to mean 'the little one,' while the attributive noun "aamba" 'man' in the phrase "aamba baawa" 'male child' cannot stand for the whole phrase to mean 'the male one.' In other languages, like Warlpiri, nouns and adjectives are lumped together beneath the nominal umbrella because of their shared syntactic distribution as arguments of predicates. The only thing distinguishing them is that some nominals seem to semantically denote entities (typically nouns in English) and some nominals seem to denote attributes (typically adjectives in English).


title: Adjective

text: Many languages have participle forms that can act as noun modifiers either alone or as the head of a phrase. Sometimes participles develop into functional usage as adjectives. Examples in English include "relieved" (the past participle of "relieve"), used as an adjective in passive voice constructs such as "I am so "relieved" to see you". Other examples include "spoken" (the past participle of "speak") and "going" (the present participle of "go"), which function as attribute adjectives in such phrases as "the "spoken" word" and "the "going" rate".


title: Adjective

text: Other constructs that often modify nouns include prepositional phrases (as in "a rebel "without a cause""), relative clauses (as in "the man "who wasn't there""), and infinitive phrases (as in "a cake "to die for""). Some nouns can also take complements such as content clauses (as in "the idea "that I would do that""), but these are not commonly considered modifiers. For more information about possible modifiers and dependents of nouns, see Components of noun phrases.


title: Adjective

text: In many languages, attributive adjectives usually occur in a specific order. In general, the adjective order in English can be summarised as: opinion, size, age or shape, colour, origin, material, purpose. Other language authorities, like the "Cambridge Dictionary", state that shape precedes rather than follows age.


title: Adjective

text: Determiners and postdeterminers—articles, numerals, and other limiters (e.g. "three" blind mice)—come before attributive adjectives in English. Although certain combinations of determiners can appear before a noun, they are far more circumscribed than adjectives in their use—typically, only a single determiner would appear before a noun or noun phrase (including any attributive adjectives).


title: Adjective

text: This means that, in English, adjectives pertaining to size precede adjectives pertaining to age ("little old", not "old little"), which in turn generally precede adjectives pertaining to colour ("old white", not "white old"). So, one would say "One (quantity) nice (opinion) little (size) old (age) round (shape) ["or" round old] white (colour) brick (material) house." When several adjectives of the same type are used together, they are ordered from general to specific, like "lovely intelligent person" or "old medieval castle".


title: Adjective

text: This order may be more rigid in some languages than others; in some, like Spanish, it may only be a default ("unmarked") word order, with other orders being permissible. Other languages, such as Tagalog, follow their adjectival orders as rigidly as English.


title: Adjective

text: The normal adjectival order of English may be overridden in certain circumstances, especially when one adjective is being fronted. For example, the usual order of adjectives in English would result in the phrase "the bad big wolf" (opinion before size), but instead, the usual phrase is "the big bad wolf".


title: Adjective

text: Owing partially to borrowings from French, English has some adjectives that follow the noun as postmodifiers, called postpositive adjectives, as in "time immemorial" and "attorney general". Adjectives may even change meaning depending on whether they precede or follow, as in "proper": "They live in a proper town" (a real town, not a village) vs. "They live in the town proper" (in the town itself, not in the suburbs). All adjectives can follow nouns in certain constructions, such as "tell me something new".


title: Adjective

text: In many languages, some adjectives are "comparable" and the measure of comparison is called "degree". For example, a person may be "polite", but another person may be ""more" polite", and a third person may be the ""most" polite" of the three. The word "more" here modifies the adjective "polite" to indicate a comparison is being made, and "most" modifies the adjective to indicate an absolute comparison (a "superlative").


title: Adjective

text: Among languages that allow adjectives to be compared, different means are used to indicate comparison. Some languages do not distinguish between comparative and superlative forms. Other languages allow adjectives to be compared but do not have a special comparative form of the adjective. In such cases, as in some Australian Aboriginal languages, case-marking, such as the ablative case may be used to indicate one entity has more of an adjectival quality than (i.e. "from"—hence ABL) another. Take the following example in Bardi:


title: Adjective

text: In English, many adjectives can be inflected to comparative and superlative forms by taking the suffixes "-er" and "-est" (sometimes requiring additional letters before the suffix; see forms for "far" below), respectively:


title: Adjective

text: Another way to convey comparison is by incorporating the words "more" and "most". There is no simple rule to decide which means is correct for any given adjective, however. The general tendency is for simpler adjectives and those from Anglo-Saxon to take the suffixes, while longer adjectives and those from French, Latin, or Greek do not—but sometimes "sound" of the word is the deciding factor.


title: Adjective

text: Many adjectives do not naturally lend themselves to comparison. For example, some English speakers would argue that it does not make sense to say that one thing is "more ultimate" than another, or that something is "most ultimate", since the word "ultimate" is already absolute in its semantics. Such adjectives are called "non-comparable" or "absolute". Nevertheless, native speakers will frequently play with the raised forms of adjectives of this sort. Although "pregnant" is logically non-comparable (either one is pregnant or not), one may hear a sentence like "She looks more and more pregnant each day". Likewise "extinct" and "equal" appear to be non-comparable, but one might say that a language about which nothing is known is "more extinct" than a well-documented language with surviving literature but no speakers, while George Orwell wrote, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". These cases may be viewed as evidence that the base forms of these adjectives are not as absolute in their semantics as is usually thought.


title: Adjective

text: Comparative and superlative forms are also occasionally used for other purposes than comparison. In English comparatives can be used to suggest that a statement is only tentative or tendential: one might say "John is more the shy-and-retiring type," where the comparative "more" is not really comparing him with other people or with other impressions of him, but rather, could be substituting for "on the whole" or "more so than not". In Italian, superlatives are frequently used to put strong emphasis on an adjective: means "most beautiful", but is in fact more commonly heard in the sense "extremely beautiful".


title: Adjective

text: Attributive adjectives and other noun modifiers may be used either "restrictively" (helping to identify the noun's referent, hence "restricting" its reference) or "non-restrictively" (helping to describe a noun). For example:


title: Adjective

text: Here "difficult" is restrictive – it tells which tasks he avoids, distinguishing these from the easy ones: "Only those tasks that are difficult".


title: Adjective

text: Here "difficult" is non-restrictive – it is already known which task it was, but the adjective describes it more fully: "The aforementioned task, which (by the way) is difficult"


title: Adjective

text: In some languages, such as Spanish, restrictiveness is consistently marked; for example, in Spanish means "the difficult task" in the sense of "the task that is difficult" (restrictive), whereas means "the difficult task" in the sense of "the task, which is difficult" (non-restrictive). In English, restrictiveness is not marked on adjectives but is marked on relative clauses (the difference between "the man "who recognized me" was there" and "the man, "who recognized me", was there" being one of restrictiveness).


title: Adjective

text: In some languages, adjectives alter their form to reflect the gender, case and number of the noun that they describe. This is called agreement or concord. Usually it takes the form of inflections at the end of the word, as in Latin:


title: Adjective

text: In Celtic languages, however, initial consonant lenition marks the adjective with a feminine singular noun, as in Irish:


title: Adjective

text: Here, a distinction may be made between attributive and predicative usage. In English, adjectives never agree, whereas in French, they always agree. In German, they agree only when they are used attributively, and in Hungarian, they agree only when they are used predicatively:


title: Adjective

text: Semanticist Barbara Partee classifies adjectives semantically as intersective, subsective, or nonsubsective, with nonsubsective adjectives being plain nonsubsective or privative.


title: Emasculation

text: Emasculation is the removal of both the penis and the testicles, the external male sex organs. It differs from castration, which is the removal of the testicles only, although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably. The potential medical consequences of emasculation are more extensive than those associated with castration, as the removal of the penis gives rise to a unique series of complications. There are a range of religious, cultural, punitive, and personal reasons why someone may choose to emasculate themselves or another person. Consensual emasculation may be seen as a form of body modification that enhances a recipient's identification with their community or sense of self. By comparison, non-consensual emasculations, such as those performed punitively or accidentally, may constitute genital mutilation. The medical treatment for an emasculated person differs depending on whether the procedure was consensual.


title: Emasculation

text: The term "emasculation" may be used metaphorically to refer to the loss of a man's masculinity. A man is said to be emasculated when he loses, or is deprived of, a characteristic traditionally associated with being a man, such as power or independence.


title: Emasculation

text: There are several different methods of emasculation. Both the penis and testicles may be removed simultaneously using a sharp instrument, such as a knife or razor or swords. Non-crushing vascular clamps may also be used in medical surgery to cut off blood circulation and reduce bleeding.


title: Emasculation

text: Alternatively, the penis and testicles may be removed at different stages in time. Medical surgeons use this method when performing surgery on trans women who want their genitals removed over multiple sex reassignment surgeries (male-to-female), rather than in a single sitting.


title: Emasculation

text: Short term consequences of emasculation include bleeding and infection. Historically, death was also a potential complication, although the prevalence is disputed.


title: Emasculation

text: Long term complications include incontinence, urethral stricture, urine retention, urinary tract infection, urine extravasation and bladder stones. Some studies have found that emasculation may cause a range of physiological changes, such as a shortened torso, widened stomach and hips, increased height, bowed legs, and an elongated skull. Additionally, emasculates typically have less or no facial and body hair, increased fatty tissue or gynecomastia, and a feminine fat pattern distribution. The physiological effects of emasculation are more severe for people who undergo the procedure before the onset of puberty.


title: Emasculation

text: Emasculation was performed in China on men to create palace eunuchs for the Imperial court. The practice dates back to the Shang dynasty (1600–1046 BC) and continued up until 1924, when the eunuch system was abolished by the last emperor of China, Puyi. The last living palace eunuch, Sun Yaoting, died in 1996.


title: Emasculation

text: Originally, palace eunuchs were prisoners who were involuntarily emasculated. In the Qing dynasty, men began volunteering to undergo the procedure in order to gain employment, although instances of forced emasculation still occurred. One reason why recipients willingly underwent emasculation is that they saw employment as a palace eunuch as a way to acquire wealth and power. Alternatively, poverty was a reason why fathers forced their sons to undergo emasculation, and the desire for financial benefit motivated human traffickers to force emasculation on their victims.


title: Emasculation

text: There were several reasons why the Imperial court required its civil servants to be emasculated. Emasculation was thought to ensure a recipient's undivided loyalty to the emperor, as it severs the recipient's existing familial or social bonds and destroys their ability to produce future heirs. The choice to hire emasculated eunuchs also ensured the legitimacy of the emperor's lineage. The choice to emasculate, rather than merely castrate, was motivated by a desire to protect the chastity of women in the court, as emasculation rendered a recipient physically incapable of having sex. While emasculation was a pre-requisite for gaining employment as a palace eunuch, it did not guarantee employment.


title: Emasculation

text: The emasculation procedure was typically performed by a trained 'knifer', or 'knife expert'. To prepare for the operation, the recipient was bathed in cold water to numb his senses and, in some instances, his genitals were twisted to reduce blood flow. The recipient was then asked if he consented to the procedure, and if he answered yes the knifer excised the genitals with a single cut. Styptic powder was then applied to the wound to stop bleeding, and a pewter needle or spigot was inserted into the urethra to prevent stenosis (narrowing).


title: Emasculation

text: Some Chinese emasculates were the great historian Sima Qian, Cao Teng, the grandfather of Cao Cao, Zheng He, a Ming dynasty admiral of the imperial navy who sailed to Africa, and the surviving sons and grandson of rebel Yaqub Beg.


title: Emasculation

text: To create eunuchs for the Arab slave trade, young black boys from East Africa typically had their penis and scrotum completely amputated. White boys, by comparison, were usually only castrated.


title: Emasculation

text: Emasculation was one form of genital mutilation practiced by the Skoptsy, a Russian Christian sect. For males, the other form of mutilation available was castration. Females could remove their nipples, breasts, labia majora, labia minora or clitoris. These practices may have begun sometime during the 1760s, after the sect was founded by Kondratii Selivanov, although they were only discovered by the broader community in 1772. They continued up until the 1930s, when the sect was destroyed and its members sentenced.


title: Emasculation

text: The Skoptsy practiced genital mutilation because they believed the genitals were the source of original sin, and that by removing them, they could attain salvation. The aim of removing the offending genitalia was to purify the body. Their belief was based on a literal reading of the verse of , which states: "There are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake." In addition, the verses of Matthew 18:8,9 and Luke 23:29 were also cited as support. Of the two types of genital mutilation available to men, emasculation was called the Greater Seal. Castration, by comparison, was called the Lesser Seal. Emasculation was preferable because it rendered a recipient physically incapable of engaging in sinful sexual conduct, allowing them to attain a higher level of purity.


title: Emasculation

text: Originally, the emasculation procedure was performed by burning the testicles off with an iron. Later, the genitals were tied at the base and removed using a knife or razor blade. The wound was then cauterised, or a salve was applied, to prevent bleeding. Many Skoptsy were peasants and were familiar with animal husbandry, which meant their emasculation procedures were often performed with "surgical precision." In some instances, members of the Skoptsy would perform the emasculation on themselves, in an act of self-surgery, though it was more typical for the procedure to be performed by an elder during a ceremony.


title: Emasculation

text: Throughout the Indian subcontinent tradition, including India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, some members of the Hijra community reportedly undergo emasculation, or "nirvan."


title: Emasculation

text: Traditionally, emasculation was a rite of passage into the Hijra community. Today it remains an important ritual, though is not mandatory or universally practiced. When it is performed, it typically occurs several years after an individual has already participated within the Hijra community. While some Hijra are emasculated, others are intersex, undeveloped in puberty or impotent.


title: Emasculation

text: Whether or not a Hijra undergoes emasculation is influenced by a range of considerations. Some people are not emasculated because they are fearful of surgical complications, are under financial constraints, or merely as a matter of personal choice. For Muslim Hijra, emasculation may be avoided due to the belief that genital mutilation goes against Allah's will.


title: Emasculation

text: Others see emasculation as necessary in order to be 'reborn' as a Hijra. In this view, emasculated Hijra are seen as more 'real' than those who are not. The decision to be emasculated may also be motivated by personal beliefs about whether a Hijra can have spiritual powers without undergoing the procedure. Amongst members of the Hijra community, this issue is subject to considerable debate.


title: Emasculation

text: In the past, the emasculation procedure was performed by barbers or by the individual themselves (i.e. self-emasculation). Nowadays, the operation is performed by a Hijra elder, also called a "dai ma" (midwife). They have no medical training, but believe they operate with the power of the patron goddess, Bahuchara Mata. The operation takes place early in the morning, around 3 am or 4 am. Anesthesia is not administered. The penis and testes are tied together with a string, and the elder then makes two diagonal cuts with a sharp surgical knife to completely excise the organs. The elder allows the blood to gush from the wound, which is considered necessary to completely cleanse the recipient of their male parts. This is one reason why the procedure is performed by an elder rather than a medical professional, who might try to stop the haemorrhage, thus interfering with the ritual's cleansing effect. Afterwards, no stitches are taken and the wound is left exposed, although a small stick is inserted into the urethra to prevent urethral stricture.


title: Emasculation

text: For the Hijra, emasculation does affect a recipient's gender identity, with some identifying as female, non-binary or a third gender.


title: Emasculation

text: Emasculation was one of the Five Punishments used in ancient China. It was the prescribed punishment for people who engaged in licentious conduct, such as infidelity or rape. The first evidence of its use dates to the Shang dynasty (1700-1100 BC), when the characters for a knife and male genitalia were carved into oracle bones. It continued up until the Sui dynasty (581-618 CE), when it was formally abolished.


title: Emasculation

text: Emasculation occurs voluntarily within the transgender community as a form of gender reassignment surgery, allowing recipients to renounce their masculine characteristics and bring their body into closer alignment with their identified gender. It may be sought by trans women (those born male who identify as female), who wish to assume their femininity, or by non-binary transgender individuals (those born male who identify as neither male nor female), who want to locate themselves outside of traditional gender categories.


title: Emasculation

text: For trans women, emasculation surgery may be performed with or without the creation of a vagina. When a vagina is created, the procedure is called a vaginoplasty, and where it isn't, the procedure is called a cosmesis or cosmetic vulvoplasty.


title: Emasculation

text: For non-binary transgender persons, the purpose of emasculation is to make the body less congruent with one's biological sex without the subsequent assumption of femininity. These individuals may identify as non-binary, a third-sex, eunuch, or another gender. Some adopt the term 'nullo,' meaning someone whose gender has been nullified.


title: Emasculation

text: In some instances, transgender persons may seek emasculation outside of medical facilities (i.e. self-emasculation).


title: Emasculation

text: Occasionally self-emasculation is practiced by transgender persons. When compared with the general population, transgender persons are at a higher risk of engaging in acts of genital self-mutilation, including self-emasculation. The inability to acquire gender-affirming surgery by a medical professional has prompted people to resort to self-emasculation.


title: Emasculation

text: There are reports of self-emasculation cases resulting from mental disorder. Some academics claim that a majority of self-emasculations are a result of psychosis, although this finding has been challenged. Nonetheless, there are several reported cases of people with schizophrenia engaging in self-emasculation.


title: Emasculation

text: , or Klingsor syndrome, is a condition where people mutilate their genitals as a result of psychotic religious delusions. For example, a person with Skoptic syndrome is reported to have mutilated his genitals after experiencing auditory hallucinations telling him he would only be allowed into the Kingdom of Heaven if he emasculated himself.


title: Emasculation

text: "Body integrity dysphoria", or xenomelia, is another mental disorder that may drive a person to seek emasculation. People with this disorder are distressed by the presence of a limb that they don't identify as part of their body, including the genitals. Emasculation in this context alleviates their distress, enabling them to become 'whole'. However, the amputation of healthy limbs by medical professionals is highly controversial. The inability to acquire medically administered emasculation has driven some to self-emasculation.


title: Emasculation

text: In some circumstances, a person may be emasculated involuntarily as the result of an accident, as part of a ritual attack, or due to poor circumcision practice.


title: Emasculation

text: In these cases, the objective of medical treatment is different than for cases of voluntary emasculation. The goals of treatment are to either reattach the severed genitals or to reconstruct an artificial penis and testes.


title: Emasculation

text: From 1960 to 2000, involuntarily emasculated infants were surgically reassigned female, similar to the treatment received by David Reimer after his penis was burnt off during a circumcision procedure. It is now understood from cases like Reimer's that gender reassignment surgery in infancy can interfere with gender identity formation. Therefore, gender reassignment is no longer the standard practice for involuntarily emasculated infants.


title: Emasculation

text: By extension, the word "emasculation" has also come to mean rendering a male less masculine, including by humiliation. It can also mean to deprive anything of vigour or effectiveness. This figurative usage has become more common than the literal meaning. For example: "William Lewis Hughes voted for Folkestone's amendment to Curwen's emasculated reform bill, 12 June 1809 ... "


title: Emasculation

text: In horticulture, the removal of male (pollen) parts of a plant, largely for controlled pollination and breeding purposes, is also called emasculation.


title: Corinne Foxx

text: Corinne Foxx is an American actress. She is the daughter of actor and singer Jamie Foxx. She has attended Sierra Canyon High School, University of Southern California (USC) and various acting and improv schools.


title: Corinne Foxx

text: Foxx was born in Los Angeles. She is the daughter of Jamie Foxx, and his ex-girlfriend Connie Kline. In high school, she attended Sierra Canyon School where she was a cheerleader and was featured on the cover of "American Cheerleader" in 2011. She attended the University of Southern California, where she was a member of the class of 2016. She studied public relations, was a cheerleader, and was a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority. After college, she attended Howard Fine Acting Studio and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.


title: Corinne Foxx

text: At age six, she made a cameo in "The Jamie Foxx Show" and regularly served as her father's date on the red carpet growing up. She has appeared on "Sweet/Vicious" and served as Miss Golden Globe in 2016. She was announced as the DJ for the second season of "Beat Shazam" (on which her father is host) in 2018 and has a role in her father's directorial debut, "All-Star Weekend". She returned to her DJ role on "Beat Shazam" for its third season debut on May 20, 2019.


title: Corinne Foxx

text: She made her formal modeling debut at the Bal des débutantes in November 2014. She began modeling in 2014, and she has represented brands such as Ralph Lauren, Dolce & Gabbana, Kenneth Cole, and Wet 'n' Wild cosmetics. She made her New York Fashion Week debut in 2016, walking for Kanye West's Yeezy line, and walked New York Fashion Week for Sherri Hill's Spring 2018 line in September 2017.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: Gerald Arthur Sandusky (born January 26, 1944) is an American retired college football coach and convicted serial child molester. Sandusky served as an assistant coach for his entire career, mostly at Pennsylvania State University under Joe Paterno, from 1969 to 1999, the last 22 years as defensive coordinator. He received "Assistant Coach of the Year" awards in 1986 and 1999. Sandusky authored several books related to his football coaching experiences.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: In 1977, Sandusky founded The Second Mile, a non-profit charity serving Pennsylvania's underprivileged and at-risk youth. After Sandusky's 1999 retirement as assistant coach at Penn State, he continued working with The Second Mile at Penn State, maintaining an office at the university until 2011.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: In 2011, following a two-year grand jury investigation, Sandusky was arrested and charged with 52 counts of sexual abuse of young boys over a 15-year period from 1994 to 2009.<ref name="NYT 2011/11/06"></ref> He met his molestation victims through The Second Mile; they were participating in the organization. Several of them testified against Sandusky in his sexual abuse trial. Four of the charges were subsequently dropped. On June 22, 2012, Sandusky was found guilty on 45 of the 48 remaining charges. Sandusky was sentenced on October 9, 2012, to 30 to 60 years in prison. On October 18, 2012, Sandusky's lawyers appealed his conviction in Centre County Court in Pennsylvania. They claim that they did not have enough time to prepare for their client's case. On October 31, 2012, Sandusky was moved to Pennsylvania's SCI Greene "supermax" prison to serve his sentence. On January 30, 2013, Pennsylvania Judge John Cleland denied Sandusky's request for a new trial.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: Sandusky was born in Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1944, the only son of Evelyn Mae (née Lee), an Irish Catholic homemaker who came from a small Pennsylvania coal-mining town, and Arthur Sandusky, whose parents, Edward and Josephine Sendecki, were immigrants from Poland who moved to East Vandergrift, Pennsylvania. His father Arthur served in the field of youth service programs for over 30 years, mostly as director of the Brownson House in Washington, Pennsylvania, a community recreation center for children. There, he founded the Pennsylvania Junior Wrestling program and created junior basketball, volleyball, boxing and football programs for the Brownson House. He improved the facilities there by adding a new playground, gym, outdoor basketball court, and a renovated football field. He managed the 1955 Washington baseball team that won the Pony League World Series championship, the only team from Washington to win that championship. Arthur was inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame in 1989.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: At home, Jerry Sandusky adopted his own personal code called "Jer's Law" that he observed for many years. The rules adopted were that Sandusky could be mischievous but not to the point where someone could be intentionally hurt; he also vowed to not be disrespectful to his teachers; and he swore to himself that he would tell the truth if he was caught breaking any rules. Sandusky is a fan of the 1994 film "Forrest Gump", confiding to one of his victims that he identifies with the title character. Sandusky signed off at least one of his letters to his victim as "Forrest Jer."


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: Sandusky attended Washington High School, where he was a good student and standout athlete, playing baseball, basketball, and football. He was a leader on his junior high basketball team that went undefeated through the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League playoffs in his final season there. His classmates have described him as a studious "loner" who "never dated in high school" but was a popular and handsome athlete.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: Sandusky married Dorothy "Dottie" ("née" Gross) in 1966, and together they have six adopted children. Sandusky and his wife have also served as foster parents. One of Sandusky's sons, Jon Sandusky, was Director of Player Personnel for the Cleveland Browns from 2010 to 2014. Another son, E. J. Sandusky, is an assistant football coach at West Chester University. Sandusky described his family as "old fashioned", with Dottie being the leader.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: Matt Sandusky, adopted son and former foster child of Sandusky's, released a statement through his attorneys saying that Sandusky had sexually molested him as a child. Matt Sandusky's statement was released on the day the jury began deliberations in the sex abuse trial against Sandusky.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: On February 13, 2017, Sandusky's adopted son Jeffrey (Jeff) was arrested and charged with sexual assault of a child and possession of child pornography, and entered a plea deal while awaiting trial in September 2017, with sentencing scheduled for December 2017. On December 8, 2017, he was given a sentence of three-and-a-half to six years in prison after "pleading guilty to pressuring a teenage girl to send him naked photos and asking her teen sister to perform a sex act."


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: Sandusky played for Rip Engle at Penn State, starting at defensive end from 1963 to 1965. He graduated first in his class with a B.S. in health in 1966 and physical education in 1970.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: Sandusky served as a graduate assistant under Paterno at Penn State in 1966. He was the assistant basketball and track coach at Juniata College in 1967 and the offensive line coach at Boston University in 1968.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: He returned to Penn State in 1969 and remained there as an assistant coach until his retirement at the end of the 1999 season. Sandusky served as defensive line coach in 1969, became linebacker coach in 1970, and was promoted to defensive coordinator in 1977, holding that position until his retirement. In his years as a linebacker coach and defensive coordinator, he coached many defensive squads, and Penn State gained a reputation for outstanding linebacker play, producing 10 first-team All-Americans at that position, and acquiring the nickname "Linebacker U". Jack Ham and LaVar Arrington were two of the noted pro football greats to emerge from his teams.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: Upon his retirement, Sandusky was awarded "both an unusual compensation package and a special designation of 'emeritus' rank that carried special privileges, including access to the university's recreational facilities." Spanier approved a lump-sum payment to Sandusky of $168,000.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: His final game coaching at Penn State was a notable game for Sandusky. Penn State faced Texas A&M in the 1999 Alamo Bowl in San Antonio, Texas. The Nittany Lions' defense shut out Texas A&M, 24–0, the only bowl game shutout victory for Penn State under Paterno.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: After retirement, Sandusky hosted many summer football camps and was active in The Second Mile, a children's charity he founded in State College, Pennsylvania, in 1977.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: President George H. W. Bush praised the group as a "shining example" of charity work in a 1990 letter, one of that president's much-promoted "Thousand points of light" encouragements to volunteer community organizations.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: Citing Sandusky's work with The Second Mile charity to provide care for foster children, then U.S. Senator Rick Santorum honored Sandusky with an Angels in Adoption award in 2002. On November 15, 2011, the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, a non-profit adoption awareness organization, rescinded its 2002 Angels in Adoption award to Jerry and Dorothy Sandusky. Santorum, then running for the Republican nomination for President, said he was "devastated" by the scandal.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: Former Eagles head coaches Dick Vermeil and Andy Reid, former Phillies owner Ruly Carpenter, Matt Millen from ESPN, actor Mark Wahlberg, Arnold Palmer, and football player Franco Harris, among others, served on the Honorary Board of Second Mile.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: During the time period that Sandusky was being investigated by the Office of the Attorney General, investigators served subpoenas on the Second Mile to get records of boys who had been through the program as well as Sandusky's travel and expense records. As it turned out, the records from 2000 to 2003 were missing. Record keepers later found files for one year, but the records for the other three years were never found.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: An investigation was initiated by the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office into sexual abuse allegations against Sandusky in 2008. The charges were initiated at Central Mountain High School, where a student made allegations of abuse against Sandusky. The investigation reached a new level of urgency when it became apparent that the allegations were not an isolated set of incidents, but that Sandusky had a strategy to abuse vulnerable boys. Through his Second Mile organization, Sandusky would first approach potential victims, typically boys without a father living at home, when they were 8–12 years old; subsequently, Sandusky employed classic child grooming strategies such as offering trips to football games or bestowing gifts, which would lead to incremental touching. This form of manipulation is generally the "modus operandi" of pedophiles as a ploy to build trust while invading personal boundaries—all part of instilling confusion, leading up to the sexual abuse. Eventually, Sandusky often initiated overtly sexual behavior in the locker room showers. "The testimony of one victim, who said he was forced to play with Sandusky's testicles and erect penis when he was 8 to 10 years old, particularly outraged investigators. 'The poor kid was too young to even understand what an erect penis means,' one said."


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: On November 4, 2011, a grand jury that had been convened in September 2009, or earlier, indicted Sandusky on 40 counts of sex crimes against young boys. The indictment came after a three-year investigation that explored allegations of Sandusky having inappropriate contact with an underage boy over the course of four years, beginning when the boy was ten years old. The boy's parents reported the incident to police in 2009. The grand jury identified eight boys who had been singled out for sexual advances or sexual assaults by Sandusky, taking place from 1994 through 2009. At least 20 of the incidents allegedly took place while Sandusky was still employed at Penn State.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: According to the first indictment, in 2002 assistant coach Mike McQueary, then a Penn State graduate assistant, said he walked in on Sandusky anally raping a 10-year-old boy. The next day, McQueary reported the incident to head coach Joe Paterno. (Later while testifying during the Sandusky trial, McQueary spoke about what he had relayed to Paterno: "I told him and I want to make sure I'm clear. I made sure he knew it was sexual and wrong. There was no doubt.") Paterno told McQueary at the time, "You did what you had to do. It is my job now to figure out what we want to do." At the Preliminary Hearing for Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, McQueary testified that Paterno was "shocked and saddened, kind of slumped back on his chair." He said that Paterno told him: "'I'm sorry you had to see that. It's terrible.' And he said, 'I need to think and tell some people about what you saw and I'll let you know what ... what we'll do next.'" Paterno then informed Penn State athletic director Tim Curley. At the Preliminary Hearing, McQueary also testified that he "believed" Sandusky was having "some type of intercourse" with the boy. He said that this was based on "the positioning" of Sandusky and the boy, but that he never saw "insertion" or "penetration" and is not "100 percent sure" that intercourse was occurring.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: Curley and senior vice president for finance and business Gary Schultz (who oversaw the Penn State police department) called McQueary to a meeting a week and a half later. In McQueary's testimony he stated that during the meeting he relayed in "graphic detail" what he had witnessed in the locker room showers at the Lasch Building. At the Preliminary Hearing of Curley and Schultz, McQueary testified that he would have given Curley and Schultz a "rough idea" of the body positions of the individuals in the shower, and would have described the activity as "extremely sexual and I thought some kind of intercourse was going on."


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: The indictment accused Curley and Schultz not only of failing to tell the police, but also of falsely telling the grand jury that McQueary never informed them of the alleged sexual activity.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: On November 5, 2011, Sandusky was arrested and charged with seven counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, eight counts of corruption of minors, eight counts of endangering the welfare of a child, seven counts of indecent assault, and other offenses.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: The prosecution charged Curley and Schultz with perjury and failure to report suspected child abuse by Sandusky.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: On November 6, 2011, Penn State banned Sandusky from campus. His bail conditions did not include restrictions on his travel.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: In December 2011, Sandusky was charged with an additional 12 counts of sexual crimes against children. The grand jury's second presentment charged Sandusky with an additional count of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and two additional counts of unlawful contact with a minor. The additional victims, known only as "Victim 9" and "Victim 10," were participants in Sandusky's youth program and were between the ages of 10 and 12 at the time of the sexual assaults.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: On December 7, 2011, Sandusky was arrested for a second time based on the additional sexual abuse charges. Sandusky was released on $250,000 bail and placed on monitored house arrest while he awaited trial. Sandusky chose to waive his preliminary hearing that took place in mid-December.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: On November 14, in a televised phone interview on NBC's "Rock Center with Brian Williams", Sandusky admitted to correspondent Bob Costas to having showered with underage boys and touching their bodies, as he described it "without intent of sexual contact." Sandusky denied being a pedophile. The interview received substantial coverage in the media, particularly regarding the manner in which Sandusky answered Costas when asked if he is sexually attracted to young boys:


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: In the days following the interview, several potential victims contacted State College lawyer Andy Shubin to tell their stories, with one claiming Sandusky had abused him in the 1970s.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: In a taped interview with Jo Becker of "The New York Times" on December 3, 2011, Sandusky and his lawyer, Joe Amendola, attempted to clarify the remarks he made in the November 14 interview:


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: During the same interview, Sandusky responded to the initial 40 charges of sexual crimes against children:


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: The trial, for 52 charges of sexual crimes against children, started on June 11, 2012, at the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. State Deputy Attorney General and former homicide prosecutor Joseph E. McGettigan III, led the prosecution team for the Commonwealth; defense attorney Joseph Amendola was Sandusky's lead attorney for the defense team; and Senior Judge John Cleland presided.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: Over the course of the trial that lasted eight days, jurors heard from eight witnesses who testified that Sandusky sexually abused them. Jurors also heard testimony about assaults committed against two other victims who were never identified. Of the eight males who gave testimony, each explained that they met Sandusky through The Second Mile organization; their individual accounts spanned from the mid-1990s until 2009. The witnesses testified to similar stories of being abused in the football locker room showers or in the basement of Sandusky's home.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: The first prosecution witness, identified in media reports as "Victim 4," described detailed accounts of many instances of sexual abuse, including forced oral and anal sex, by Sandusky while the witness was a participant in Sandusky's Second Mile charitable organization. According to "Victim 4," he was sexually abused by Sandusky as many as three times a week for three years, beginning when he was 13 years old. The witness further testified that when he attempted to distance himself from Sandusky, Sandusky offered the boy a contract for money to continue spending time with him.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: On the second day of trial, "Victim 1", the youngest of Sandusky's alleged victims, testified to over 20 incidents of abuse, including forced oral sex, by Sandusky during 2007 and 2008 while the boy was a participant in Sandusky's Second Mile program. The boy was 11 or 12 years old when the sexual abuse started. Mike McQueary, former Penn State graduate assistant football coach, testified that in 2001 in a Penn State locker room, he heard "skin on skin" slapping sounds coming from the showers. McQueary testified that he then saw Sandusky naked behind a 10- to 12-year-old boy propped against a shower wall, with "Sandusky's arms wrapped around the boy's midsection in the closest proximity that I think you could be in."


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: Sandusky's defense attorneys argued that the accusers were driven by financial motives. The defense also pointed out some of the accusers had changed their stories and that some of them continued a relationship with Sandusky after the alleged abuse (one went to a football game with Sandusky shortly before his arrest, another brought his girlfriend to meet Sandusky). A psychiatrist testifying for the defense, Dr. Eliot Atkins, diagnosed Sandusky with histrionic personality disorder, a disorder characterized by attention-seeking behavior and exaggerated emotions. Atkins testified that the letters written by Sandusky to the accusers were consistent with this disorder, rather than "grooming" behavior as alleged by the prosecution.


title: Jerry Sandusky

text: On June 18, 2012, it was reported that during the full-day court recess the previous Friday, prosecutors had contacted NBC "asking the network to re-authenticate a full unedited transcript" of the Bob Costas interview from November. An unaired portion of the Costas interview featured Sandusky saying, "I didn't go around seeking out every young person for sexual needs that I've helped". Legal analysts explained that this could be used by the prosecution to cross-examine Sandusky if he were to take the stand.