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REMEMBRANCES OF ESLANDA

ALICE CHILDRESS

THE LAST TIME I saw Eslanda Goode Robeson she was standing before a microphone at the Hotel Americana during the FREEDOM-WAYS tribute to her husband, Paul Robeson. The platform was in the very center of a large crowded room and Mrs. Robeson slowly circled the mike as she told us how she first met Paul in Harlem, New York 
City; she circled as she spoke in order not to turn her back on any section of the audience. She wore a simple velvet evening dress, circling, arms outstretched, speaking to the crowd as though we were one close, dear friend.

Eslanda Robeson had a beautiful and remarkable sense of inner freedom, sure of her role as woman, wife, mother and author. Such self-assurance is unusual within a racist society where the myth of white "supremacy" tends to destroy the self-confidence of the oppressed and always destroys the moral fibre of the oppressor. She 
was a proud woman in the best sense of the word. Through her inherent and acquired knowledge of world history, the arts, anthropology, community, country and world politics, she was able to rise above the anti-Negro legislation in this her native land, laws conceived and calculated in order to limit the length and breadth 
of her life experience and that of all other peoples subjected to only partial recognition as United States citizens.

Despite the daily struggle for liberation, or perhaps because of it, she was filled with the joy of working and generously poured out what seemed an inexhaustible supply of dedicated energy. Her days were freely given to building toward that peace based upon the fact of the brotherhood of man. She was ever proud of being Mrs. Paul Robeson, and yet standing beside her renowned husband, 
in the midst of the beloved family, the children and the grandchildren, she was a complete and separate woman unto herself, writing, lecturing, using the fullness of each day with little, if any, time for retreat or despair. Life was an enjoyable challenge and she bravely and eagerly met and dealt with every test or barrier placed 
in her path. Essie was a gentle lady and a scholar, even illness could not vanquish that heroic spirit.

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