PAUL ROBESON: HIS MOVIES. HIS MUSIC. HIS MESSAGE. (Welcome America 2021)

Enter the doors of the charming rowhouse at 4951 Walnut Street, be still for a moment and feel the presence of Paul Robeson nestled in its walls, its floorboards and the second-floor bedroom where he rested.

For a decade, it was his place of respite from years of triumphant and pain. He found solace here in the caring embrace of his sister Marian. For 40 decades before, he had sung his way into the hearts of people in America and all over the world. They loved him. The U.S. government did not. His passport was seized; his records were removed; rioters attacked him and his supporters.

A man who had been favored for his beautiful voice as champion of oppressed people was silenced - merely because he demanded that the United States live up to its ideals of freedom. He didn’t lay low, though. He returned with the resilience of the people from whom he had come.

The Robeson House & Museum is a testament to the man and his cause for justice. It bears witness to his relentless drive to make people “see” what the world was destined to be:

“Through my singing and acting and speaking,” Robeson said, “I want to make freedom ring. Maybe I can touch people’s hearts better than I can their minds, with the struggle of the common man.”

This new exhibit explores how Robeson deliberately used his bass-baritone voice to broadcast his message. The exhibit is set up as a movie theater where visitors can walk a red carpet to take a photo with a Robeson cutout, watch movie excerpts from his career and see a sampling of his albums ranging from spirituals to patriotic to labor songs.

Through photographs, visitors will see how Robeson connected to people, packing venues around the world. The government ban did not deter him: From New York, a defiant Robeson sang through a transatlantic radio cable to excited audiences in London. At Peace Arch Park in Blaine, WA, he sang to thousands across the Canadian border.

The exhibit shows Robeson the artist as political and social activist. One of the best examples was “Showboat,” where he played the character Joe as a man of dignity. He sang “Ol’ Man River” on stage and in the movie with so much soul and integrity that it became his trademark.

Robeson sang the lyrics as they were written in the song but changed some in subsequent recordings. He made them into words of resistance rather than compliance. It was Robeson at his truest.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Paul Robeson House, 4951 Walnut St., Philadelphia, United States