Paul Robeson
When talking about the life of Paul Robeson, it might be easier to list the things he didn’t do. The son of a former slave, born in Princeton, New Jersey in 1898, Robeson was an athlete, singer, stage and film actor, and activist. He had an enormous impact on civil rights and culture in every field he excelled in, and at one time was one of the most famous people in the world. His artistic contributions have largely been forgotten because there was an effort by the government and writers of history to discredit him, due to his political views.
Robeson is best known among Shakespeare scholars and fans for playing the role of Othello - multiple times over the course of his long career, but most famously on Broadway in 1942 with the famous actress and teacher Uta Hagen as Desdemona. The production was the first in the United States to feature a Black lead in the role with a white supporting cast, and Robeson was the first high-profile Black actor to play Othello since Ira Aldridge in the 1800s. Robeson greatly admired Aldridge and even hired his daughter, the music teacher Amanda Aldridge, to help him with his vocal technique for singing and acting. The play was extremely popular with audiences and still holds the record today for the longest-running Shakespeare performance on Broadway. Tory Kittles, an actor who played Robeson in a play about his life, said, "One of the reasons he wanted to do Othello was to show a black man who was dignified and in a position of authority with a full emotional life. To some audiences the very idea of a black man playing a love scene with a white actress was scandalous." These performances were just a single moment in Robeson’s tremendous career.
Later in his life, Robeson was blacklisted and persecuted by the US government for his civil rights activism and sympathies with Soviet Russia. When he asked the State Department why he had been denied a passport, he was told that it was for “criticizing the treatment of Blacks in this country.” Robeson died in 1976, and today he is not nearly as well known as he once was. If you are interested in the work of Black people in the fields of music, sports or politics in a hostile time as well as Shakespeare, check out these places to discover more about Robeson:
https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2021/02/01/paul-robeson-symbol-of-hope/
http://www.cpsr.cs.uchicago.edu/robeson/links/sports.html