BHS Day 5: Paul Robeson

Hi! At first, this category was going to focus on just activists in Black history, but there have also been some notable accomplishments in the political field so I wanted to combine them. Both of these fields share a common goal of bringing awareness to issues that affect the Black community, and even though I'm not focusing on the familiar faces of Black history, I'd still like to focus on people who were active in both industries. On to today's Spotlight!

Source

Name: Paul Robeson, 1898-1976

Profession: Actor, singer and activist

Why is the Spotlight on him today? For his contributions to the entertainment industry and his efforts in activism 

Accomplishments:

--Was the third African-American to win a scholarship to Rutgers University

--Was the first Black Hollywood star

--Was the first man since the 1800s to play Othello among an all-White cast

--Helped to popularize the usage of African-American spirituals into classical music performances

--The first Black actor to gain the right of having final say with all of his films

--Was one of the first mainstream actors to refuse to perform in front of segregated audiences

--Helped bring about the Parisian Negritude movement of the 1930s

--Served on multiple councils and boards geared toward the African-American community in politics, culture and civil rights

--Consistently and publicly vocalized his beliefs on various racial laws, including the anti-lynching law, class lines and labor union laws

--Was one of the only Black performers to publicly state his political beliefs

--Was the first Black performer to have their career destroyed by the US Government following the Cold War due to his political beliefs and allegiances

Further reading links:

Wikipedia | Biography

If you've been following along with the BHS posts since I started this, you'll see that I got rid of the biographies yesterday. As I was putting together the information for the posts, I realized that I was taking away the need to check out the 'Further reading' sources. There was really no point in posting the links if when you visit the page, you realize I'd already included most of the important details of the person's life. To be honest, it was hard to condense someone's life into a couple of paragraphs, and every time I came across something interesting, I'd put it in the biography. Eventually they were reading like a Wikipedia Mini, which wasn't what I wanted. The purpose of these small Spotlights was to inform you of the person and allow you to educate yourself, which is why I'd initially included the 'Further reading' links. With that said, I hope you enjoy these posts and take advantage of the links because each of these people did something amazing with their lives and it's been a ton of fun to read about all of it. See you tomorrow!