Remembering Paul Robeson
By Austin Cooper
In November 2025, an Archiving the Inner City (AIC) symposium took place at UPenn in Philadelphia, chaired by Gareth Millington. The symposium’s two panels generated fascinating discussions about how different artists, business owners, academics, activists, and docents worked in Philadelphia, how the city’s historic and present Black neighbourhoods are remembered and maintained, how memory and heritage work was able to preserve particular elements of these areas, and why other elements have been and might become lost. Irteza Mohyuddin, AIC Philly researcher, spoke on the first panel, and most of the speakers across the two panels had been interviewed by Irteza or Gareth during the course of the AIC project. The symposium was an incredibly interesting and moving experience, drawing together many threads from the AIC project, while also marking its culmination.
This trip to Philadelphia was the counterpart to those we had taken to London’s Brixton in June 2023 and to Paris’ Chateau Rouge in September 2023. As on those trips, in Philly we went on a walking tour, this time around parts of West Philly and the 7th Ward, led by Irteza and Gareth. On West Philly’s 52nd Street we visited Hakim’s Bookstore, the oldest Black-owned bookstore on the east coast; Brown Sugar, an excellent Caribbean restaurant; and the African Cultural Art Forum (ACAF), the oldest community‑based manufacturing business in Philly focused on cultural products and youth job training. In the 7th Ward we saw excellent murals dedicated to Octavius Cato, William Still, and W E B Du Bois. It was a fascinating tour, highlighting many of the artists, businesses, and organisations that Irteza and Gareth had been in contact with over the course of the AIC project.
One of the organisations that Irteza had interviewed during the project that didn’t feature in the tour or the symposium was the Paul Robeson House & Museum in West Philly, which is operated by the West Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.[1] I stayed on in Philly after the symposium and visited the house museum, where I was able to look around the excellent exhibits in the incredibly well preserved former-home of the artist and activist, Paul Robeson. I also had the pleasure of speaking to Azsherae Gary, the interim executive director at the museum, about the museum and how the area had changed since Robeson’s time there. I then travelled up to New York City and eventually back to Glasgow via London, at each stage following in the footsteps of Paul Robeson, and learning more about this iconic 20th century Black Atlantic figure.[2]
Figure 1 (left): Pennsylvania state historical marker outside the Paul Robeson House & Museum in West Philadelphia.
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was born in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1898. His father, Rev. William Drew Robeson, was a minister who had escaped from slavery, while his mother, Maria Louisa Bustill, was from a prominent Philadelphia family. Maria’s great-grandfather, Cyrus Bustill, was a free Black Philadelphian baker and abolitionist, who both co-founded the Free African Society in 1787, one of the first Black mutual-aid societies in the US, and also served bread to George Washington’s army during the Revolutionary War.
Paul Robeson attended Rutgers College, where he excelled in academic subjects, arts, and sports. He went on to study law at Columbia University, during which time he met his future wife, Eslanda Cardozo Goode. Eslanda would go on to become a noted anthropologist, author, and civil rights activist. Following his time at Columbia, Robeson worked at a law firm but left after a stenographer refused to take dictation from him because of his race. Alienated from the racism he received in the law profession, he began working as an actor in theatre and film through which he gained international fame for his performances and his songs. He is regarded as bringing African American spirituals, such as Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, to wider public appreciation outside of African American communities. Robeson went on to perform across the world.
Figure 2 (right): The Paul Robeson House & Museum.
At the peak of his fame in the late 1920s, he lived on Branch Hill in Hampstead, London. The home is now marked with a blue plaque in his honour. While living in London he played Othello at the Savoy Theatre in the West End, to great acclaim.
Robeson also lived in New York City in the 1940s. He spent two years living at 555 Edgecombe Avenue in Harlem, a tall block of flats that has been home to a staggering number of influential Black artists, writers, musicians, and activists, including Count Bassie, Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston. In 1976, the building was declared a National Historic Landmark under the name Paul Robeson Residence.
Figure 3 (left): Signs of the Times Harlem Heritage marker outside the Paul Robeson Residence, New York City.
Also in Harlem, on Malcolm X Boulevard, is the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, part of the New York Public Library. The Center is a research library, archive repository, and exhibition space “devoted to the research, preservation, and exhibition of materials focused on African American, African Diasporic, and African experiences.”[1]
The Schomburg Center has an extensive Paul Robeson collection, which I was also able to visit and explore on my trip. There I found newspaper clippings highlighting the extent of Robeson’s international fame, particularly in London.
There is also extensive evidence of his commitment to civil and labour rights activism, and his commitment to the power of art and performance to channel and elevate the radical politics of Black Internationalism, such as Robeson’s song in support of the labour activist Joe Hill.
Figure 4 (left): The house at Branch Hill, Hampstead, in which Robeson lived in the late 1920s, with the commemorative blue plaque above the door.
A few years after his time in London, in 1934, Robeson visited the Soviet Union, after which he joined the Communist Party. He was an outspoken critic of racism, fascism and colonialism, and an advocate for civil rights and organised labour, both in the US and internationally. This activism meant that he was aggressively targeted by the US government. J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI placed Paul and Eslanda under surveillance, which continued until their respective deaths. In 1950, both of their passports were revoked by the State Department, who informed all US border officials to detain them should they attempt to leave the country. They remained confiscated until 1958, a period during which Robeson suffered many financial and personal hardships. In 1966, Robeson moved to Philadelphia to live with his sister until his death in 1976, in the house that is now the Paul Robeson House & Museum. By the time of his death his fame had declined, and he passed away in relative obscurity.
Figure 5 (above): Newspaper clipping from the Schomburg Center.
Current Political Climate in the US and UK
I had never heard of Paul Robeson before this trip to Philly, but he became a fascinating person to learn about, particularly in relation to the themes of the AIC project, and to the current political climate of the US in particular and Western nations more generally.
While in Philadelphia we visited the President’s House, an exhibit on the site of a house in which Presidents Washington and Adams, and their households, had both lived and worked.[1] This exhibit has been one example of the recent attacks on African American heritage sites and historical monuments by the Trump administration. In February 2026, the exhibits drawing attention to George Washington’s ownership of slaves was removed under order from President Trump to wide public outrage.
While I was in New York there was a large anti-ICE protest, and there was graffiti and posters around the city highlighting a disdain towards ICE. Since then, several people have been murdered by ICE, while many more are continuing to be abducted and deported.
In the UK, mirroring the US, anti-immigration rhetoric and violent deportations are on the rise. In Scotland, this rise in far-right rhetoric is also present, with Reform filling the political void left by floundering SNP and Labour politicians. But there also continues to be signs of hope. On 13th May 2021, hundreds of Glasgow residents organised to stop a dawn raid by the Home Office on Kenmure Street.[1] This might feel like a drop in the ocean, but the events of that day are evidence that community solidarity and action can challenge state bordering practices.
Figure 6 (right): Anti-ICE poster in Brooklyn, New York City.
Paul Robeson also has a history with Glasgow. Once his passport was returned to him, on 1st May 1960, Robeson led the May Day Parade from George Square to Queens Park, where he addressed and sang to a crowd of thousands and received a standing ovation.[1] Again, Robeson’s journeys across the Atlantic produced a sense of global solidarity, connecting struggles in the UK and the US with those of the working-classes across the world.
It is worth remembering the bravery and the impact of iconic activists such as Paul Robeson, Eslanda Cardozo Goode, and Joe Hill, whose names may have been forgotten but whose history can provide an inspirational blueprint during dark times. But even more so, it is worth thinking about the activism of all those whose names were never iconic, perhaps never even recorded, such as those who turned up to Kenmure Street, to May Day Parades, or to anti-ICE protests.
We continue to need activism that is grounded in global solidarity and the freedom of movement for all. Robeson supported this freedom, and his support meant that it was temporarily restricted. It is a freedom that, to this day, continues to be controlled and unequally distributed along lines of race, class, nationality, religion, and political allegiance. It is a freedom without which the AIC project would have been impossible, and it is a particularly poignant time for the project to be coming to an end, with the inner-city cultures of Brixton, Chateau Rouge, the 7th Ward, and West Philly facing a new conjuncture of oppression and erasure. Academic, artistic, and activist work such as that highlighted in the AIC project shows that, despite the inhumanity of current national bordering practices, there will always be cause for hope as long as community solidarity endures.
Figure 7 (left): Mural of Paul Robeson, by Peter Pagast and Ernel Martinez, at 4502 Chestnut Street, West Philadelphia.
[1] https://www.greatergovanhill.com/latest/when-paul-robeson-came-to-queens-park
[1] https://www.greatergovanhill.com/latest/ww68xv1nio90af965fr37g769d1050
[1] https://www.nps.gov/inde/planyourvisit/presidentshousesite.htm
[1] https://www.nypl.org/locations/schomburg
[1] https://paulrobesonhouse.org/
[2] All photos author’s own.