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Freedomways   Third Quarter 1969

Robeson's school.'"6

In 1944, one William Hunter Maxwell was moved to pay tribute to Paul Robeson's break-throughs. His verse is cited here to show how widespread and continuing has been the admiration for Paul Robeson's role. The verse, in part, follows:

ROBESON OF RUTGERS
"With high-powered brain, he has made his mark, Winning nobly...under a skin proudly dark, He has broken down barriers and climbed over hate. Where the sign said 'Unwelcome,' he opened the gate."7

In turning the racist confrontation into break-through and advance, Paul Robeson derived strength from his insight that he was fighting not only for his own rights, but also for the rights of his people. He himself said, as reported in the New York Times: "...my father was born into slavery in 1843 down in North Carolina-no education*-and all his life he'd worked hard-was a good man and a strong man. He had impressed on me that when I was out on a football field or in a class-room or anywhere else, I wasn't there just on my own. I was the representative of a lot of Negro boys who wanted to play football and wanted to go to college."8

Thus Paul Robeson's achievements as a student were breaking ground, directly or indirectly for black people to follow. And what achievements; they included being:
On varsity football team, four years.
On varsity baseball, basketball and track.
Winner, extemporaneous speaking contest, four years.
Member Literary Society.
Phi Beta Kappa.
Member debating team.
Member Cap and Gown Honor Society (one of four graduating seniors invited to join).
Valedictorian, graduating class, 1919.
Each achievement was a break-through. What an example for youth has been Paul Robeson! What a refutation of racism is the life of Paul Robeson! Understandably, organized black students in Rutgers have coupled demands around enrollments, representation, curriculum

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*Paul Robeson in his autobiography Here I Stand (Othello Associates, N. Y., 1958) indicates his father ran away from slavery in 1860 and by 1976 had worked his way through Lincoln University, p.14.

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