THE BEARDED ROBESON

A few years ago, Paul Robeson arrived at an English
port, on his way to his then home in London, without his
American passport. The port authorities admitted him
promptly, with all courtesy for he was esteemed one of the
leading actors and singers of the British Empire. No
wonder he lived in London from 1928 to 1940. He had achieved
his artistic maturity there, had received every possible
honor and recognition, and from the first was accepted as
artist and man, on terms of artistic, social and intellectual
equality. The color line vanished from his daily life, and
the situation he held was comparable to Leslie Howard's here.

Touring Europe, its countries and their learning
languages as if they were his own - for this Negro genius
has a fabulous gift of tongues - and through their tongues
their folk music, Paul Robeson steadily broadened his base
without losing his original determination as an artist to
sing and play in the folk tradition. A group of Czech gypsies,
a group of Russian folk singers, a group of Welsh miners could
understand his Negro Spirituals yet welcome the singers as
"one of ours." The coming to power of Hitler in 1932 affected
him very deeply, strangely enough - or naturally enough for
he was a natural as an Anti Fascist - made him into a still
greater traveler. Now he visited, studied Africa, Spain dur-
ing the terrible war, Russia, his deep instinctive feeling for