THE TALLEST TREE IN OUR FOREST

[Music] this is the Paul robon archives office it was established in 1973 to collect and organize all of the available information on the late Paul Robeson the prime responsibility for cataloging this sea of documents writings music scores photographs books recordings and film lies in the hands of his son Paul Robson Jr his is a truly singular task and a most difficult one because there is so much material to gather from all over the world it is also a labor of love this documentary film is about the life of Paul Robson it was begun several months before he passed away in January of 1976 much of the visual material came from this archive many hours were spent here pouring over the material on this unusual man there has unfolded the story of a man of prodigious abilities and not just in drama film singing and sports but in scholarship profoundly so and also there has emerged the story of a man of extraordinary principal who refused to bend even one inch away from his convictions no matter what the price this then is the extraordinary story of an extraordinary man Paul Robson We Are Climbing Jacob ladder We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder we Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder we're [Music] soldiers I started as an actor you know as an artist in the provinc toown theater with Mr Eugene O'Neal way back in the 20s I did the emperor Jones and all those children got wings with the distinguished I did in London with the distinguished English actress for Robson years ago I came over way back in uh 1922 not only came over but had the privilege and great pleasure of playing a whole summer with Mrs Patrick gell in the play uh which was about the Negro South and then going back to Africa I was to be some kind of a a Chieftain I fall asleep at the end of the first the first act uh and sort of in the dream I sort of fall asleep as supposed to I Whistle and being very gay and uh and before you know I'm back in Africa and I tried my best falling as sleep to to whistle and I still can't whistle as you can hear me right now I just can't whistle to this day and so I broke out into a sort of Israel was in Egypt's land let my people grow into a very beautiful spiritual that I remembered as a child and as I sort of hum this uh I Heard a Voice uh from this the from the wings sing it louder sing it sing it louder as if it were part of the play and Miss wiborg finally saw the play later in the in the week in Liverpool the play had really turned into a musical uh luckily for me I got very nice reviews from it and found out that I was a singer finally went I remember to study with Madame Sher Renee a great singer at the at jard a great singing teacher but it was very clear to me even in those days that I wanted to be a singer of the folk songs of my people and uh I did just did not want to become a vagian opera singer because I wanted my voice to come from inside me I first met that great artist kind generous and gentle man Paul rson in 1922 in London I never realized then that I would uh pay for him uh dear Larry one of the great uh authorities on our folk music and one of the great arrangers of our folk songs uh just to master the rhythm of our of our music and uh our early programs which more or less for 5 years were devoted specifically to the folk song of our own people it was a m accident I met him on the corner of 135th Street and 7th in March 1925 and he asked me sa what are you doing tonight I said I'm not doing anything he says will you go down into the village with me James light who had uh directed him in the emperor Jones and in All God's Children both O'Neal plays and so uh we went down in the village and by share accident he decided to sing some of my arrange which I had arranged in London and I happened to join him with him and James light was so excited think you two guys give a program together he says I can arrange it for you at the gr Village Theater well that's the way it happened we were fighting to death is a witness music critics were overwhelmed one said that Robson had a voice in which deep Bells rang out of Paul Robson rolled the rich Heritage of his church experience with his beloved father Reverend William Drew Robson with whom he was especially close and my father was in that tradition every Sunday morning he it would be a rolling out of a great sermon and now it bowed down on bended KNE Lord and it became like an opera goodness we know the Holy Bible tells us so shaved off his head just as clean as your hand strength became just like any other man now that's another weakness yes that's another weakness oh that's another weakness yes that's another weakness I was quite astonished that people were willing to come and pay to hear me swing sing swing M we Chariot and nobody knows the trouble I see which I had just sung in church I think uh his interesting folk song is the fact that he had a a great love for human beings and for Humanity I would say therefore he wanted to sing the songs of the folk the ordinary person perhaps The Peasant or even the down TR it was awesome uh it was constant it wasn't just into the centers of uh of uh uh uh literary material wherever he went in the country wherever he I don't care what country he was in he found himself among the artists he found himself among the people who sang songs or sang chants he constantly wanted to know what everything meant he wanted to know where it all came from and then pretty soon this enormous Cranium of his this genius that house his head that house so much genius he would go to Czechoslovakia or he' go to the Soviet Union or he go to England or whatever and he would hear a song and he would immediately translate that song to something that had to do with a tribe in Africa or hear a Melody somewhere in Africa and he would remember that he heard it being sung by the Welsh Miners and he'd want to know how the hell did it all get there did the sailors bring it was it just a was it just a coincidence what has been going on in this byway of life and he sang in almost every language he spoke many languages but phonetically those languages he didn't speak he was able to learn phonetically and learn them meticulously he was he was conscious about the highest form of the art and he didn't want to be just an American singing a song of someone in another country he wanted to get the nuances he wanted to get the absolute he wanted the people when they heard him sing it for them to assume that he came from that part of Ireland that part of Wales that part of Germany so he was and he drove me crazy because having set this standard I then said well that's the only way to really find out what a song is all about you got to get into that I've gone from my own songs uh to the songs of many peoples of the world songs that I find very similar to my own incidentally all the folk music of the world might interest you very are very similar in in one respect not only because we have the same peoples have the same aspirations and feelings but even technically use the same scales one scale of our music which is predominant is the as a so-called five tone scale sort of a big word for it pentatomic that can be played on the five Black Keys of the piano which form a natural ftone scale and uh for example two groups of songs mostly in this scale and very similar to my own are the songs are Chinese folk songs and Scotch hi c and d [Music] flat and extremely interesting again will be that what you call the disjunct form and add let's take the conjunct form which would be begin with the with the say the fourth on B [Music] flat the study of the Negro spiritual has now characterizes my programs which uh most of the critics have have uh characterized as a program showing the unity the relation of negro music to all the music of the world for example in my program I start with uh with an Old English song like over the mountains over the mountains and over the waves Under The Fountains and under the graves under floods that are deepest which Neptune obey over rocks that are steepest love will find out no we very nice idea as a matter of fact so the so the so the idea of my concert is one suggestion that all men are brothers because of their music and in my first group I do an Old English song I do an old song from about the 11th or 12th century from Czechoslovakia the Moravian corals of about the 13 11th and 12th centuries preceded the corals upon which Johan Sebastian Bach based his music so I take this and then I do a coral and then I created slight Confusion by doing a Negro spiritual right in the middle because it belongs there and I found that out by going back to Africa for example uh there was an old in in East Africa there is a a coral form that reached a form just preach in Europe very interesting and uh [Music] [Music] the first was African almost and you see they're very similar the first was African the second is from the 11th century in Czechoslovakia with a coral that just preceded bak and so a young and magnificently gifted Paul Robson was on his way in a career that would make him the best known man in the world within 15 years Paul Robson the Son of a Preacher who was once a slave Paul robon who grew up in Princeton New Jersey and from the very start exhibited the promise of greatness everyone in town his neighbors teachers classmates just knew that Paul was going to be somebody but who would have guessed how much of a somebody he'd become he was always big for his age but as fast and agile as a cat he was always involved in some sport or another right through these early school days then as he entered College his body began to really develop and so did his mind staggeringly so he was a near perfect student he attended Rutter's college on a scholarship from 1915 through 1919 he amassed five beta kapper honors he was elected to the cap and skull Society was debating champion and was valedictorian of his graduating class and bear in mind that the racist climate in America was never more intense Robson didn't fit into the typical Bookworm mold he now stood well over 6 feet and had muscles for day is he took that magnificent physique and he used it to win himself 13 Varsity letters however he wasn't exactly welcomed with open arms by his fellow students he was barred from singing in the campus glee club and when he tried out for the football team his teammates broke his nose and deliberately stomped on his hand tearing every fingernail off of his hand years later the memor still lingered he became one of the greatest football players of all time a great pass receiver overwhelming offensive blocker tackle and the best defensive linebacker of his era he was Rutter's University's first All America football player [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the sports headlines of the day tell it like it was as great as he was however Paul Robson was not great enough to be listed in the College Football Hall of Fame even though the hall was at one time located right on the Rutter campus when he graduated ruter with high highest academic honors he enrolled in the Columbia University law school the campus overlooked Harlem where he moved into an apartment here the relatively unworldly young law student was exposed to a harlem that was in the midst of its fabulous Renaissance Era it all had its impact on Paul politically the Marcus gari African nationalist movement with a following of tens of thousands emphasized africanness for afro-americans it was in full swing [Music] and then culturally artists like Duke Ellington had become a regular at the Cotton Club Duke's early compositions also stressed [Music] africanness in the field of Education colum proferred the intellect of web duo in short Harlem was booming with activity and young Paul Robson fresh out of quiet New Jersey drank it all in conversely Harlem threw her arms wide open to him he was drawn into film acting in the Black produced film of Oscar Micha he was also invited to sing with a number of groups on weekends football all this while doing brilliantly at ibia law school oh and uh by the way he managed to find time to fall in love and marry a striking young Anthropologist esanda cordoza good [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] he graduated Columbia with his law degree but he met biased in the law firm he was working for and eventually quit the profession of law young Paul Robson set his sights elsewhere armed with Talent brain Brawn a brilliant and talented wife at his side Paul Robson was ready to take on the world but was the world ready for him in n