Born in Princeton on April 9, 1898, the son of an ex-slave, Paul Robeson became a world-renown scholar, actor, athlete and singer. At the pinnacle of his artistic career in the 1940s, Robeson turned his attention to human rights, becoming an eloquent, often controversial spokesperson against racism and discrimination. After a background report, Phil Ponce discusses Robeson's legacy with two men who knew him well.

PHIL PONCE: For more we turn to writer, actor, and director Ossie Davis, who knew Robeson. Mr. Davis has been in more than 30 films and also wrote the play, "Paul Robeson, All American," and Martin Duberman, professor of history at Lehman College at the City University of New York, he wrote a biography about Paul Robeson. Gentlemen, welcome both.

Mr. Davis, how would you describe Paul Robeson's legacy?

OSSIE DAVIS, Actor/Writer: Well, for me, Paul was a mountain of joy, an explosive personality that always made me feel greater in his presence than I felt before. You notice, he mentions dignity a great deal. That was a key part of who he was and what he meant to us, we, youngsters, following in his path, you know, and looking upon him as a giant and as an example. We blacks need so much to be reminded of something great. We have heroes that we worshiped and they made a great difference, like Joe Lewis, for example, or Marion Anderson, and to top it all, Paul Robeson, just to look at him, to be in love with him was to be alive in a different kind of way.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Duberman, Mr. Robeson's legacy maybe in a bigger context?

MARTIN DUBERMAN, Robeson Biographer: To me, his legacy is his insistence, especially after he became politicized, that there simply need not be as much suffering in the world as there currently is. The few need not have so much and the many need not have so little. He didn't talk a great deal about means, but he was very insistent on ends. And the end that he was insistent on was the good things of life, the opportunities have to be opened up to many more people and the wealth has to be considerably distributed, redistributed.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Davis, before we get into some of Mr. Robeson's political and social beliefs, talk about his talent, the range of his ability as a performer.

OSSIE DAVIS: Well, he was extraordinary, and this was one of the things that was almost shocking about the man. In so many departments he was a super hero--an athlete, you know, beyond all the others, a singer, an actor, and of course a fighter for the cause of freedom. So in so many ways Paul was extraordinary, and in each of these ways, you know, we found that he made a contribution to our lives. For black people, you know, to insist that we had a dignity and that, therefore, that we should fight for what was our right about the Constitution granted us as citizens certain rights which we should not see aggregated, you know. His leadership, his quality to inspire action, activity, you know, even suffering and defense was remarkable. Nobody came close to him in that regard.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Duberman, was there an event, or was there a series of events that "radicalized" Paul Robeson, that made him such a "militant?"

MARTIN DUBERMAN: There was a long evolutionary process, I think. During the 1920's, at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, like so many, Robeson believed that art would be the solvent to racism. In other words, a significant number of individuals, the talented tenth, would prove through their distinctive contributions that, of course, blacks had all the gifts and capacities of whites. But by the 1930's, when he was living in London, he came into contact with a number of people who later became leaders of their own nations in Africa. They had a profound influence on him, as did the trade union movement, and then subsequently, with the rise of fascism, Robeson saw socialism and the Soviet Union, which in those years for so many seemed to be the embodiment of socialism. He saw socialism as the one true possible bulwark against the rise of fascism.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Davis, tell us about how well you knew Mr. Robeson and, if you would, talk about these political concerns that he had.

OSSIE DAVIS: Well, Paul visited Ruby and me--Ruby Dee is my wife--on one occasion. And when I was an actor working on a film in London in 1964, he gave me the keys to his apartment, so Ruby and I stayed there for some time. But I knew Paul best as one of those young actors coming into the profession and being in the circle that was around him, you know. He'd led us; he taught us; he encouraged us; and you must remember that in the beginning of World War II, one of the things that agitated us most was the treatment of Hailie Selassie in Ethiopia, you know, by Mussolini. And so there was Paul from that area of the world who could sort of explain to us what the deeper meanings of this were, you know, how they fitted into his world view, and his belief that America had a great deal of changing to do before it would be able to treat justly with us as black people.

PHIL PONCE: So he saw his art directly connected with his social beliefs, and what--he passed that on to his colleagues?

OSSIE DAVIS: Yes. He saw--songs, for example, to him were not only songs of joy but there were messages in songs, sometime even revolutionary messages, and he believed that all of the people of the world, the folk music, had a kind of common undertone, a common sub-structure, and he delighted in going from one to the other finding what was golden and good and bringing that and sharing it with us, explaining where it came from, explaining its importance, and pointing--using the songs as a cultural way of reaching out and touching people in their lives where they lived.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Duberman, just how big of an irritant or how big of a threat did he come to be to the status quo?

MARTIN DUBERMAN: Oh, an enormous threat because Paul Robeson had been viewed for a number of decades as the symbolic, "good Negro," as proof that the system worked, as proof that there was no significant prejudice in this country. But Paul Robeson not only stepped over the line of being the good representative Negro, but he strode across the line. He insisted on being openly political and insisted on remaining true to his principles, even after the world shifted and changed around him.

OSSIE DAVIS: And, remember, there is in our culture a sort of Messiah expectation. Paul's capacity to excite admiration in large groups of people, black and otherwise, here, in Africa, and over the world, made him constitute a real threat to the powers that be. You know, his leadership posed to them potentially a great danger. He could call on the masses to rise in their opinions and the masses would rise, and God knows what that could lead to. So they feared him as they feared no other leader.

PHIL PONCE: Mr. Davis, in the short time we have left, why do you think there's renewed interest in Robeson? Is it just his 100th anniversary of his birth, or is there something else going on?

OSSIE DAVIS: No. I think there is a dearth of information, a hunger. We feel that something important in our lives has been pushed aside or attempted to be erased. It is our need to know the truth, and Paul represents that to us. We want him back. We want him put back into his proper place in the picture of what an American is supposed to be.

PHIL PONCE: Thank you, gentlemen. I'm afraid we're out of time. I appreciate your being with us.