Eslanda “Essie” Cardozo Goode Robeson’s career and commitments took her many places: colonial Africa in 1936, the front lines of the Spanish Civil War, the founding meeting of the United Nations, Nazi-occupied Berlin, Stalin’s Russia, and China two months after Mao’s revolution. She was a woman of unusual accomplishment and an anthropologist, a prolific journalist, a tireless advocate of women’s rights, an outspoken anti-colonial and antiracist activist, and an internationally sought-after speaker.
Yet historians, for the most part, have confined Essie to the role of Mrs. Paul Robeson, a wife hidden in the large shadow cast by her famous husband. In this masterful book, biographer Barbara Ransby explores her influence on her husband’s early career and how she later achieved her own unique political voice. Essie’s friendships with a host of literary icons and world leaders, her renown as a fierce defender of justice, her defiant testimony before Senator Joseph McCarthy’s infamous anti-communist committee, and her unconventional open marriage that endured for over 40 years and all are brought to light in the pages of this inspiring biography. Essie’s indomitable personality shines through, as do her contributions to United States and twentieth-century world history. [Description from the publisher.]
ISBN: 9780300205855 | Haymarket Press
I am an African American man, a father, and a retired federal civil servant. Thank you for the great resource you have here to educate many people about our history, not just where we come from, but what we have done and contributed to humanity, but especially, to this country.
Mr. Paul Roberson exemplifies a great African American of the 20th century. In the Congressional hearing, he effectively, educated and shamed the “inquisitors” to abort their plot and bail ship!! Just one Black man in the 1950’s America! Mr. Paul Roberson was a humble man, but proud of his contributions to humanity, as well he should. Let us keep his memory and legacies, and those of others like him, alive, by embodying them in how we examine issues and contribute to a better society and kinder humanity