885: Bless This Mess

885: Bless This Mess - This American Life
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Episode #885
|
April 10, 2026
885: Bless This Mess
Note: This American Life is produced for the ear and designed to be heard. If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page. Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.
Prologue: Prologue
Emanuele Berry
From WBEZ Chicago, it's
This
American
Life.
I'm Emanuele Berry sitting in for Ira Glass.
As a middle schooler, there was always one channel I wanted to watch-- TCM, the Turner Classic Movie channel, an entire channel dedicated to old movies from Hollywood's golden age. I loved these films--
The
Lady
Eve,
On
the
Town,
Mr.
Smith
Goes
to
Washington--
shout-out to my boy, Jimmy Stewart. I was fascinated by the dramatics, the over-the-top slaps, the sultry looks, the glamorous makeup and hairstyles.
To my delight, I recently learned that I was not the only Black middle schooler spending her spare time glued to this channel. Nichole Hill was also sat.
Nichole Hill
Anything with Bette Davis, I was like, her eyes are so big, and she's so bad, and I, like, need to watch everything that she does. Marlon Brando was my first really big crush, and
Guys
and
Dolls
was my obsession.
And I used to, every Friday night-- God bless my mom and my aunt. I would invite them up to my room, and we would do a viewing of
Guys
and
Dolls,
like, every single Friday. And I would share new facts that I had learned about--
Emanuele Berry
Like what?
Nichole Hill
OK, so I mean, this is a very basic fact, but Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra hated each other. And there's this scene where Frank Sinatra has to eat cheesecake, and he really hates cheesecake. And so Marlon Brando keeps messing up the scene so that Frank Sinatra has to keep eating the cheesecake. And I was like, oh, they are so dramatic. Oh, my god, the behind the scenes.
Emanuele Berry
Whenever I talk with Nichole, she always has some fact like this. You mention some historical figure, an actor, heck, even a mutual friend, and she'll tell you some obscure detail that you've never heard before. She's always clocking these things. I think it's why, as a kid, she noticed something about these movies that I never did.
Nichole Hill
I remember the first time I noticed that I didn't want to see a Black person in the films because of the way they were going to show up, which was
Gone
With
the
Wind.
And I remember not knowing anything about Hattie McDaniel's history.
Emanuele Berry
Hattie McDaniel plays Mammy, an enslaved house servant.
Nichole Hill
I just remember feeling really ashamed of, that's what I would have been. I was going to these movies as a form of escapism. And then whenever Black people showed up in the movies, they were always serving. They were always poor. They were always versions of myself that maybe I feared. I was like, I don't-- no, no, no, no, I don't want to grow up and be that.
Emanuele Berry
That's not-- well, that's not-- you want to be out on the town with Marlon Brando. You don't want to be Scarlett O'Hara's maid. Yeah.
Nichole Hill
Exactly. That's exactly it. So I was sort of like, oh, man, I see them in the background being, like, porters and maids and things. And I would sort of picture, like, them getting on a train. They're in New York City. They get on the train, they go home, and then I was like, and then what?
Emanuele Berry
"And then what?" became this question that drove Nichole. It stayed in her mind for years. What would it look like if you got on the train and followed those characters home, and went with those actors into their real lives off stage, and the lives of their families, their community? What was the Black version of the diva-on-diva cheesecake showdown? Whose passions and jealousies were people gossiping about? Where could she find those details, that drama?
A couple years ago, Nichole was searching through Black newspapers from the 1930s through '60s, researching for her job at the time. And Nichole, being Nichole, ended up deep in online news archives and in backrooms of university libraries-- looked at all the microfiches, tried to get her hands on any and every archival Black paper, from the
Chicago
Defender
to the
Detroit
Tribune
to the
Washington
Afro-American.
And this is where she got the answer to her question, "and then what?" It was all in there-- the drama, the details, the lives. Like this, from a 1938 paper.
Nichole Hill
I will always remember the first thing I noticed is a woman in a bathing suit. And they're saying, pretty hot, eh? or something like that. And then, on the side, they're talking about this baseball player that they'd run out of town because he'd been talking wild, and they're talking about voting. And then I keep flipping through, and they're talking about dating, and they're talking about-- people are giving one another advice.
Emanuele Berry
The paper had an advice column. It was called the "Court of Afro Relations."
Nichole Hill
And they have a picture of a judge. And so you write in, and then the judge tells you-- like, gives you advice for how you should handle it. And so there's a woman, and she is married, and her sister is in town. And her sister is seeing a married man.
Emanuele Berry
OK.
Nichole Hill
I might be conflating two stories, but there was some type of confrontation at church between the mistress and the wife, and it involved an umbrella.
Emanuele Berry
Oh, my goodness, an umbrella at church?
Nichole Hill
At church. And like, a love triangle. And there was another one where it was-- this guy wanted to marry this girl, but she loved to spend money, and she likes the fancier things in life. And he's like, oh, my gosh, what should I do? And they were just like, she needs to get it together. Why is she spending all that money?
[LAUGHTER]
I'm like, oh, my gosh. This is what they were doing when they went home.
Emanuele Berry
Almost every country everywhere has argued about its history at some point. We are certainly in one of those moments right now.
A couple of months after Trump entered office, he issued an executive order called Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. The order basically says, stop disparaging America. Focus on its achievements, its greatness. Or, as I read it, just get rid of all the mess. So like, George Washington? He's great, but maybe don't mention the Black people he enslaved.
Personally, I want to know about that kind of mess-- not just the fact that Washington enslaved Black people. I want to know who those people were and the details of their lives. I want to know about all of our ancestors' mess.
So that's what we're going to do today, and there's no one I'd rather do this with than Nichole Hill-- detail hunter, amateur historian, renowned gossip. She is going to take us inside a very big American life, a man who became one of the most famous people in the world, and then all of a sudden, was not. This story is hilarious and moving, and it is very messy. Stay with us.
Act One: The Was-It Couple
Emanuele Berry
It's
This American
Life,
Act 1, "The Was It Couple."
So Nichole Hill has a podcast that I love called
Our
Ancestors
Were
Messy.
Every show is a true-life saga that she tells someone. And there's, of course, drama, and glamour, and heartbreak, and poor judgment-- all the best ingredients.
Some of these stories are about capital F Famous people-- Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston-- and Paul Robeson. Paul Robeson exists in this weird twilight, right? I think he's still famous enough that a lot of people know his name, but probably in a way that's like, oh, yeah, he sang that song, right? "Old Man River."
And it is shocking, as you'll see, that this is all that's left, because Paul Robeson was so famous. Like, I can't even think of a modern celebrity to match how big he was. He was an athlete, an actor, a singer. It's like, he would have sung the National Anthem at the beginning of the Super Bowl, played in the football game, and then performed the halftime show.
He was also a lawyer and spoke a bunch of languages, including Russian, Greek, Swahili, and French. His wife, Eslanda Robeson-- Essie for short-- was also famous, and also an "everything-at-once" type person-- scientist, writer, anthropologist.
So what the hell happened to these two superstars that now, America barely knows who they are? Well, you will find out not just what happened, but also how and why, and you'll see what a marriage between two superstars looks like, inside and out. Basically, we're going to kiki and catch up on all the drama of the Robesons.
Here's Nichole and her guest, author Jason Reynolds, with her show,
Our
Ancestors
Were
Messy.
Chioke I'anson
The Secret Adventures of Black People presents,
Our
Ancestors
Were
Messy.
Today, witness a roaring '20s meet cute.
Jason Reynolds
You didn't tell us she had a boyfriend.
Nichole Hill
She had a boyfriend, a doctor.
Jason Reynolds
He was dirty macking.
Chioke I'anson
This episode stars novelist, poet, and bona fide genius, as in MacArthur Genius, Jason Reynolds, and your host, Nichole Hill. Live in front of a studio audience in a living room in Washington, DC, this is
Our
Ancestors
Were
Messy--
Jason Reynolds
I feel like this is a setup.
[LAUGHTER]
Chioke I'anson
--a show about our ancestors and all their drama.
[APPLAUSE]
Nichole Hill
OK, hi, everyone. Welcome to the salon recording of
Our
Ancestors
Were
Messy.
Thank you so much for being here. Oh, my god, I'm so excited. I just had, like, 10 thoughts run through my head. OK, so this is Jason Reynolds.
Jason Reynolds
Hi, everybody.
Nichole Hill
This is my guest for today. You have a beautiful and very impressive resume.
Jason Reynolds
Thank you.
Nichole Hill
I'm not going to-- I won't do that to you. So I'm going to tell Jason a story. I want you to imagine-- we're going to just do this little exercise here. If somebody were to be given a Black history report, like the average American on the street, any age, you give them a Black history report. You say, I want you to do it on Paul Robeson. What do you think that they would say?
Jason Reynolds
Who's Paul Robeson?
Nichole Hill
Mm.
Jason Reynolds
Yeah, I think that the average American has no idea that Paul Robeson ever lived. If they've heard of him, I think they'd probably say he was an actor, but they would know that he had something to do with a freedom fight of sorts, I think.
Nichole Hill
Yeah. I think people know he's an important figure, but they probably don't know why. So Jason, I'm going to tell you Paul's story in four parts. This is how we came to know, to love, to fear, and to forget the revolutionary Robesons. So first, how we came to know the Robesons.
The year is 1920. We're in Harlem. It's summertime, and 24-year-old Eslanda Cardozo-Goode, or Essie, as everyone calls her, she lives with her best friend, Minnie Sumner, in a tiny studio near all the action. They're, like, in it in Harlem.
By day, Essie is a level-headed chemistry major at Columbia University. She's studying to be a doctor at the Teachers College. She's also dating a doctor at Harlem Hospital. She's pledged Delta and is a descendant of one of the elite Black families in DC, known as the First Families.
By night, she and her roomie Minnie are throwing ragers. They're known around Harlem for how wild their parties get and for Essie's bathtub gin that would reportedly mess you up.
So she is vibrant. She's opinionated. She's hot. Who could play her? This is a picture of her. Who do you think could play her?
Jason Reynolds
Essie?
Nichole Hill
Mm-hmm.
Jason Reynolds
A young Halle Berry.
Nichole Hill
Oh, yeah?
Jason Reynolds
We always going like Halle Berry, man. You know what I'm saying?
Clip
It's a real-- it's a romantic town.
Nichole Hill
Essie enrolls in a summer course at Columbia. She shows up to class and spots a 22-year-old nicknamed Harlem's Darling. This is Mr. Paul Robeson. He's 6'3". He's chocolate. He's got a smile. He's got a voice. He's studying at Columbia Law and playing in the NFL, which, doing both at the same time is obviously wild. He's pledged Alpha. Who could play him?
Jason Reynolds
Oof, that's a tough one. What about the young brother who played in
Sinners,
who played the guitar?
Nichole Hill
Yes, Miles something. Yeah.
Jason Reynolds
Miles something, yeah. Maybe that young brother could pull it off.
Clip
Man, the pressure. I felt the pressure. I felt the pressure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nichole Hill
Look at that. We're going to give him the role of a lifetime.
Jason Reynolds
The role that--
Nichole Hill
That was the role of a lifetime, the second role. Yeah. OK, so we're going to picture Miles.
So Essie's seeing a doctor, and Paul is seeing, like, all of the women of Harlem. So they're just friends, friends who go out to dinners and to the all-Negro tennis matches and to plays, some starring Paul, because he's an actor. He's pretty good at it. They're just two friends taking in post-World War I Harlem.
Somewhere along the way, if you can believe it, Essie and Paul become more than friends. I know, nobody saw that coming. I know how shocking it is. She dumps her boyfriend, and he dumps all the women of Harlem.
Jason Reynolds
He was dirty mackin'.
[LAUGHTER]
Leave that man.
Nichole Hill
They dump all their people, and our ancestors start dating. People are like, OK, but do not get married, because this is the thing. His boys think that she is too ambitious. Her girls say that he's a player.
Plus, Essie and Paul, by their own admission, argue a lot. They're opposites in temperament, in style, in height. They also want an unconventional arrangement where instead of man and wife, they are going to be equals.
So one rainy day in August 1921, a year after they started hanging out, Paul and Essie elope. They move into a tiny apartment in Harlem. Their friends and family are like, God bless.
So Paul is studying to be a lawyer, which is a huge deal for many reasons, not least of which because he and Essie are the first generation to come up in an America without slavery. His dad was actually born enslaved and then escaped on the Underground Railroad as a teenager. All around them, Americans are trying to figure out a way to beat Jim Crow, and Paul hopes to do his part as a lawyer.
So while Paul is studying, Essie supports the couple as the first Black woman to lead a lab at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. Paul lands a job at a law firm, where he's subjected to all kinds of racism, all kinds of indignities. They hate that, so Essie is like, Paul, you know what you should do? You should quit being a lawyer, and you should become a full-time actor.
Paul is like, what are you even talking about? But she's like, no, no, no. I think you're a generational talent. I see something here. And so she stays on him for years until he does it. She becomes his manager, publicist, acting coach on top of her day job.
Jason Reynolds
Can we pause? Can we just pause for a second?
[LAUGHTER]
We should pause for a second and talk about Essie.
Nichole Hill
Yeah, what are you feeling? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell us where you're at.
Jason Reynolds
So Essie said, listen. I know you're a lawyer, which still in America is one of the most prestigious jobs one might have. But I think you should quit to become an actor.
Nichole Hill
Full time.
Jason Reynolds
Because she believed. I just want-- she deserves round of applause. I appreciate-- that's amazing, because, I mean, that's a different-- you think about the time. That's a pretty bold risk.
Nichole Hill
Yes.
Jason Reynolds
But what an incredible example of love and support. I mean, I also have a serious, serious commitment to Black women for this reason, I think. Because I also think that we live in this time now. It's funny, we're talking about our ancestors, but we live in a time where the internet has convinced us that we all hate each other--
Nichole Hill
Yes.
Jason Reynolds
--that we all are terrible to one another. Black women are terrible. Black men are terrible. We're all terrible. And I just-- we've always been awesome. Things have always been tricky.
Nichole Hill
Yes. Yes.
Jason Reynolds
But we've always been supportive and loving. And I just want to say to Essie, like, it does my heart good to know that somebody would say, you know what? They're killing you at work. And I know where your heart is. I know what you're capable of.
Nichole Hill
Yes.
Jason Reynolds
And so I'm going to go ahead and pour this into you.
Nichole Hill
Yes.
Jason Reynolds
Now, I'm hoping as the story unfolds-- you know what I'm saying? Because I know how it go. So I'm hoping that my man hold us. Come on, Paul. You know what I mean?
Nichole Hill
OK, how we came to love the Robesons.
For the next four years, our 20-something-year-old ancestors grind. Paul's profile and his star rise and rise until everyone is talking about Paul Robeson.
In 1925, he lands his first film role in a movie called
Body
and
Soul,
directed by the hardest-working man in cinema, Oscar Micheaux. And between Paul's acting skills and Essie's PR brilliance, they score invites to house parties in Harlem, where they could have run into the likes of Louis Armstrong or Josephine Baker. And they're like, let's go.
So in the movie version, it's wintertime. They get to a house. They take off their jackets. They put it in the back room. It's packed. It's a Harlem brownstone, so it's loud. It smells like booze. All around them, people are talking about art, and jazz, and dance.
Our ancestors stop in on a conversation about a thing that we all think of when I say the Harlem Renaissance. You know it. You love it. Let's say it together-- 1, 2, 3-- the Russian Revolution and the rise of communism.
Jason Reynolds
I was going to say jazz. I was going with jazz, but you know.
Nichole Hill
So close.
Man
[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
Chioke I'anson
For centuries, Russia's labor system of choice was serfdom. Everyone always points out that it's not slavery. Peasants were just legally bound to the land they were born onto, and they had to work that land, and couldn't leave, or change jobs, or travel, or marry without the landlord's permission. But the landlord didn't own the people, just the land.
Russian czars kept this up until around the time of America's Civil War. Then they freed the serfs, who were not slaves, but left them with no resources and forced them to live under Jim Crow-esque restrictions.
Black people around the world began to identify with Russian serfs. In 1917, Communist Party leader Vladimir Lenin, with the help of the peasants, labor unions, and soldiers, overthrows Russia's czar and forms the newest, largest country in the world, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The USSR bills itself as a worker's utopia without capitalism, colonialism, or racial hierarchies. Black people across the diaspora, including Paul Robeson, are so into this.
Nichole Hill
Now, I know when we think of Harlem Renaissance-era Black folks, we don't really think, oh, yeah, super into Russia. But the Soviet Union is promising to be a place that's going to be free of racism and a haven for workers.
So while Paul and Essie are taking in these ideas about Russia, his success as an actor continues to grow. The couple moves to London, and Essie quits her job to manage him full-time, so goodbye being a doctor.
Paul lands his career-defining role in the musical
Showboat,
where he sings what will become his signature song, "Old Man River." I think we all know it. Should we all sing it together right now?
Jason Reynolds
(SINGING) Old man river.
Nichole Hill
Oh.
Jason Reynolds
That's the only part I remember. That's how it starts. That's the melody, you know what I mean?
Paul Robeson
(SINGING) Dat ol' man river
That ol' man river
He mus' know somethin'
But don't say nothin'
He just keeps rollin'
He keeps on rolling along
Nichole Hill
People cannot believe his voice. America's number-one Black newspaper, the
Chicago
Defender,
celebrates him as a generational talent. Essie's like, I already knew that.
Essie and Paul spend the rest of their 20s traveling Europe for his plays and experiencing being Black outside of America. They say it's divine. Essie is trying absinthe in Paris. Paul is studying every language. He's posing nude. Like, they're Bohemians.
Then in 1927, Essie gets pregnant. She delivers an 11-pound baby boy.
[AUDIENCE GROANING]
They name him Paul Robeson Jr. Essie calls him Paulie for short. She's in love. But in the background of all this, she's dealing with the fact that Paul is cheating on her.
Jason Reynolds
Come on, Paul. Oh.
Nichole Hill
Yeah. Essie sort of knew that there were always other women, but he'd been keeping it on the low before. Then one day, he comes to her, and he's like, Essie. I love you so much. We both said we want an unconventional relationship. Why don't we open up our marriage?
[LAUGHTER]
The room has feelings.
Jason Reynolds
This man been dead forever.
[LAUGHTER]
Like, it's not-- it's not happening right now.
Nichole Hill
He's also seeing, among others-- he's also seeing, among others, a wealthy white British party girl named Yolande Jackson. She's described as just fun, and carefree, and a sometimes actress.
Between the women, and the fame, and his growing activism, Paul is getting sloppy. The papers catch wind, and they're speculating that he wants to marry Yolande.
Plus, Essie is finding love notes. She's pissed. So what would be your advice to our Auntie Essie, as a man, about how she should navigate this conversation with Paul?
Jason Reynolds
She doesn't want to leave her husband?
Nichole Hill
She does not want to leave him. She built him.
Jason Reynolds
She did. She doesn't want to leave her husband. I've only got toxic advice-- in this moment. Normally not, but in this moment, I'm like, go get you some on the side.
Nichole Hill
Oh.
Jason Reynolds
Like, I don't know what else they-- like, I don't know what else. You're going to have to go and figure out how to find your own peace and happiness.
If you're going to keep this marriage together, you're going to have to go find some outside happiness, unless you get a divorce. If you don't want to get a divorce, I don't-- to me, I don't know what the other option-- you don't deserve to suffer, so you're going to have to go find you some happiness on the outside. I don't know what else I'm supposed to-- what's the better piece of advice? What would you tell her? What would you tell her?
Nichole Hill
I will tell you what happened.
Jason Reynolds
No, no, no.
Nichole Hill
I'll do you better.
Jason Reynolds
No, no, no. What would you tell her?
Nichole Hill
I would tell her to do what you said.
Jason Reynolds
OK.
[LAUGHTER]
Nichole Hill
I'm going to tell you what she does. She decides to write a biography about Paul. She names it
Paul
Robeson,
comma,
Negro.
He's like--
[LAUGHTER]
Jason Reynolds
In today's time, this? No.
[LAUGHTER]
Nichole Hill
It's written in the third person to make it seem more scholarly, and on the surface, it reads like a loving tribute to his life and accomplishments. But if you read between the lines, she's calling him lazy. She says that she has to constantly chase after him to get him to rehearse and be a professional.
She says that he is barely interested in Paulie. She calls him a massive flirt who is not cheating on her, but if he did cheat on her, he would never leave her. And Paul is like, I want a divorce right now.
[AUDIENCE GROANING]
After that, there are messy headlines. They kind of spend some time apart. There's this
Eat,
Pray,
Love
summer in Paris for Essie.
And then in the movie version of this, so it's all in my head, one day Paul shows back up on the stoop of their flat. He says, Essie, I've made a terrible mistake.
[LAUGHTER]
Paul and the sometimes-actress Yolande broke up. Essie says that Yolande chickened out.
So he comes back home, and he and Essie essentially start dating again. In 1933, the two make each other some promises. They will never get divorced or discuss divorce again. They will be together for the rest of their lives. There will never be headlines or gossip about them again. No more Yolandes. They will have an open marriage.
Emanuele Berry
Coming up, Paul and Essie fall in love again, but this time, it's with the Soviet Union. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.
It's
This
American
Life.
I'm Emanuele Berry sitting in for Ira Glass. Today's show, "Bless This Mess." Today in our program, we are hearing the story of Paul and Essie Robeson. When we left the couple, the newspapers couldn't stop talking about their unconventional relationship. In part two of our story, all the headlines become about their politics. Here's Nichole and Jason.
Nichole Hill
So while Paul and Essie were dealing with all their drama, the world around them was changing.
Benito Mussolini
[SPEAKING ITALIAN]
Chioke I'anson
Over in Italy, Benito Mussolini is running the world's first fascist dictatorship. Mussolini invades Ethiopia, forcing the country's emperor into exile.
Ethiopia, the only nation in Africa that hadn't been colonized, is of enormous symbolic importance to the Black diaspora. In response, Black men across America train in hopes of joining the Ethiopian resistance. W.E.B Du Bois and Paul Robeson hold a rally at Madison Square Garden, and 25,000 New Yorkers march through Harlem to show their support for the African nation.
Mussolini's fascist movement spreads. So does Hitler's. America chooses isolationism. The Robesons do not.
Nichole Hill
Here is how we came to fear the Robesons. All right, so now we're in the mid-1930s. Essie and Paul have remixed their vows. They seem to be doing well. They are splitting their time between London and New York. Now, Paul at this point is so wildly famous. I saw this quote that said that he was as well-known during his lifetime as Abraham Lincoln.
Essie, meanwhile, is still managing Paul, which is just, like, amazing. She's killing it. But she's decided that she's going to go back to school for anthropology. She wants her own outlet. And then Paul gets this invite to go to Moscow. And he and Essie are like, you know what? Let's do it. We've been curious about Russia since way back in the day. Let's go.
[TRAIN HORN BLARING]
So the Robesons arrive in Moscow around Christmastime. They received the red carpet treatment. It's all the best this. It's state-of-the-art that. Paul performs Negro spirituals for huge crowds. And you have to picture this.
He is the son of a slave, singing the plantation songs of his parents to the children of serfs, whose parents had their own versions of plantation songs and similar struggles. So they're listening, and they're vibing. And then he sings the songs again, but in Russian, because he's fluent now. They adore him.
Paul Robeson
[SINGING IN RUSSIAN]
[APPLAUSE]
The Robesons are part of a whole wave of Black intellectuals that are visiting the USSR at this time, people like Langston Hughes, W.E.B Du Bois, opera singer Marian Anderson. And all of them are saying the same thing. They're like, when we are in the USSR, we are being treated like equals. Which, like, I can't really even imagine what it would have felt like to finally be treated like a human being.
Jason Reynolds
Mm. First of all, it's hard to travel now. Imagine how difficult it was to travel then.
And then also, I just think, they were creative people. You better get out here and see what's happening. It's good for your imagination. It's good for your creativity. It's good to know that maybe the thumb of oppression might not be as heavy everywhere else, right, and that that's a possibility, that maybe there is freedom at some point. If I could be free here, maybe someday I could be free there.
Nichole Hill
Yeah.
Chioke I'anson
The Robesons are getting a very particular experience of the USSR. But the reality is, Stalin, at this point, has perpetrated a genocide in Ukraine. And within two years of the Robeson's visit, Stalin will enact the Great Purge, in which he imprisons or executes his so-called enemies.
Nichole Hill
We don't really know how much Essie and Paul knew about Stalin's actions. Maybe they'd heard rumors, but maybe they viewed those rumors as US propaganda.
Obviously, in hindsight, it seems like a clearly controversial thing to have looked past, if they knew anything at all. But what we do know is that after their visit, Paul becomes one of the world's most famous supporters of the USSR. And his son Paulie will later learn that the CIA opened a file on his dad.
Essie, meanwhile, is doing some traveling of her own, inspired by her interest and curiosity about Africa. In 1936, Essie goes to places like South Africa and Uganda, and it kind of radicalizes her.
So she writes this article being like, attention, everyone. Paul and I have traveled essentially Earth at this point, and everywhere we go, we see the same thing, which is workers of every race being exploited.
After that, she steps away from Paul's world to be a writer and an international speaker on Pan-Africanism, communism, and women's and civil rights. Paulie will later learn that the FBI opened a file on his mom.
What are you thinking right now?
Jason Reynolds
Oh, just that the FBI, and the CIA, and the State Department, and all-- just thinking about all the people who had files opened up on them for having an imagination.
Nichole Hill
Right.
Jason Reynolds
These people are doing nothing other than imagining a better version of the life in which they've been-- the life that has been foisted upon them, you know what I mean-- and trying their best to imagine a space where people who are experiencing similar things might be free and are being punished, or at least being sort of investigated due to said imagination. It's interesting to think about.
Nichole Hill
So from the 1930s and into the '50s, the two devote themselves to fighting racism, colonialism, and class oppression. Paul becomes one of the leading figures in the Civil and Labor Rights Movement, and he uses his fame and fortune to put on benefit concerts that Black and white people attend.
Paul is organizing against lynching, job discrimination, and mob violence, and he's campaigning for progressive causes around the world.
Paul Robeson
I would just like to add one other word-- that this is a time of struggle.
Nichole Hill
Paul would speak to packed-out venues-- bars, churches, concert halls, even to kids at summer camp.
Paul Robeson
And that we have to fight against people who are very powerful, people whom it seems are pretty hard to bring down from those top places. But they can be brought down.
Nichole Hill
This activism, it doesn't really impact Paul and Essie's popularity. They continue to be stars. But they are called extremists by some. They're told to leave America all the time if they have so many problems with the country.
But they're like, we're Americans. Our parents built this country. We're going to stay, and we're going to help America realize her promise. This is always their position. But then in 1949, public opinion starts to shift.
So that year, Paul joins a peace conference in Paris, and he gives this speech. And in it, he's basically like, Black and white workers built America. We want to share in its wealth. We're not interested in a war with the USSR.
The press falsely reports Paul saying Black people would help the Soviet Union in a war against America as revenge for slavery and Jim Crow. This goes viral. Every paper covers it. Public sentiment turns on Paul. The
Chicago
Defender
publishes an article with the headline-- Paul Robeson: Is He a Man or a Soviet Mouse?
Jason Reynolds
I'm still a fan. This is what I'm talking about. Yolande would never.
[LAUGHTER]
Nichole Hill
Paul's viral moment, when he was misquoted, has big consequences for him and his family. They're now targets of the US government, and a coordinated effort to discredit and ultimately erase him from every corner of public life begins, which brings me to how we came to forget the Robesons.
It's 1950. The State Department demands that Paul and Essie sign loyalty oaths disavowing communism. They refuse. Their passports are revoked. So you're Paulie. What are your conversations like with your parents at this point? They're in their 50s, and they're taking on the United States of America.
Jason Reynolds
I'm proud of my parents.
Nichole Hill
Mm.
Jason Reynolds
If I'm me, and they my parents, these the people who raised me, I think I would have been sad, and it would have been-- it would have been anxiety-inducing. But I know-- but I also know that it would have been a waste of my time, a futile endeavor, to try to convince them otherwise.
Nichole Hill
Yeah.
Jason Reynolds
Right? If them your parents, then you go ahead and you sign up for what it is.
Nichole Hill
So in 1956, the Robesons get called down to Washington to testify in front of lawmakers. They're going in hopes of getting their passports back.
So now, you have to just remember that this is during the era of the Red Scare. So even though the Robesons, by now, would have learned that the USSR under Stalin is this, like, violent, authoritarian regime, they remain unwavering in their belief in communism.
So Essie's questioned by Joseph McCarthy and his little protege Roy Cohn, who was the mentor to the current president.
[GAVEL POUNDING]
They want to know why she's so obsessed with Africa if she's an American and why she loves it there so much. Essie's like, why is everybody on this committee white? McCarthy's like, because we are who the American people voted for. Are you a Communist?
And she says, well, Jim Crow is making it very hard for a lot of the American people to vote down South. Maybe if they could, we wouldn't all be here wasting our time.
Paul testifies before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He's asked if he's a Communist, why he loves Stalin so much, why he keeps criticizing America even though he's rich and famous. His contempt for the committee is hilarious. You should absolutely read the transcripts. He's just like, I'm so bored. Why am I here?
He reminds them that he's literally a lawyer. If you'll recall, that's where all this started. Plus, he's an orator, and he's a genius. And they're like, obviously we forgot that. Otherwise, we wouldn't have invited all these reporters in here. He's just, like, posing for the reporters. He does not care. They ask him over and over again if he's a Communist, and he says the following.
Jason Reynolds
"I'm not being tried for whether I am a Communist. I'm being tried for fighting for the rights of my people to be full citizens in this country, and they are not. They are not in Mississippi, and they are not in Alabama. That is why I am here today. You want to shut up every Negro who has the courage to stand up and fight for the rights of his people, for the rights of workers."
Nichole Hill
If you can believe it, after these testimonies, they do not get their passports back.
Jason Reynolds
I can't believe it.
Nichole Hill
I know. I know. I know.
After the hearings, the Robesons are declared anti-American communists. Paul is labeled the most dangerous man in America by the State Department, and other institutions are like, all right, let's go. And they try to make it so the Robesons never existed, like, literally.
Paul's University, Rutgers, erases any record of his football or sporting career. Newspapers destroy archival materials that mention Paul. The NAACP denounces them. The concert halls that Paul had once filled, they won't book him. He writes a memoir. The mainstream white press refuses to promote or even review it.
His films and recordings get taken out of circulation. He's blacklisted from the radio, movie screens. And he becomes one of the first artists to be blacklisted from television. He's banned longer than any other performer from this era.
Black churches and unions around the world send their support, but it's not nearly enough to make up for so much lost income. Paul and Essie have to sell their home and move in with Paulie. And all of this is what erasing them from the history books looks like.
So Paul's actually going to live into the 1970s, but he is hidden from view. And let me just tell you that when I tell white people this next part of the story, they're usually like, what? But as a Black person, I'm like, obviously, because none of this feels unbelievable to a Black person.
Jason Reynolds
Right.
Nichole Hill
But let's get into it. In 1958, after eight years, the Supreme Court rules that the state can't take your passport over your politics, and the Robesons get theirs back. They relocate to London.
A couple years later, Paul is in Moscow. He's entertaining in his hotel room, and some uninvited guests arrive. Then Essie, who's back in London, gets a call telling her that Paul is in the hospital.
She rushes to Paul's side and is told that at some point during or after this party, Paul went into his bathroom and slit his wrists. He was discovered and brought to the hospital experiencing some kind of a mental breakdown, with severe hallucinations and extreme paranoia. The doctors treat him with mild tranquilizers. This seems to help.
Paulie arrives in Moscow. He checks on his dad. Then he grabs a meal. He suddenly begins experiencing some kind of a mental breakdown with severe hallucinations and extreme paranoia.
After a week, Paulie recovers, but Paul does not. At times, he seems fine, and at other times, he's dangerously depressed and completely disoriented.
And then Paul's London doctor suggests that Essie check him into a clinic called The Priory to receive special treatment. Essie agrees, but after a few months, she finally lets it slip that she's worried about Paul's treatment plan. So Paulie rushes to London, and he's horrified.
At the clinic, Paul has been subjected to near daily debilitating electroconvulsive therapy and a cocktail of powerful drugs. He's a shell of himself.
Some historians say that maybe he had a mental break. Others wonder if he had bipolar disorder and it appeared in his 60s. They don't like Paulie's theory because he can't produce enough evidence for it, but I'm going to tell you it anyway.
He says that he finds compelling evidence that the CIA and British intelligence may have conspired to administer LSD and ECT therapy as part of the covert CIA mind control and chemical interrogation research program known as MKUltra.
Jason Reynolds
I'm obviously a little more toward the Paulie side, where it's like, I think they poisoned him. And for his son to get sick, too?
Nichole Hill
Yeah.
Jason Reynolds
Come on, man. We know what it is. Like, I just-- I didn't know that part, and I think that part kind of has me a little emotional and a bit rattled, just because-- I mean, because there's anger there for me.
Nichole Hill
Yeah, because it's a pattern.
Jason Reynolds
Right.
Nichole Hill
Actually, of Paul, Coretta Scott King will later say, "He was buried alive even before my husband for tapping the same wells of latent militancy." Essie passed away in 1965, and Paul died a decade later. He was 77.
You know, when I talk about Paul and Essie, it's a little bit painful to tell a story like that as a Black person to another Black person and think about the amount of research that I had to do to know it and that it isn't already known. And I have this feeling. You know, there's this belief that if you do enough, if we do enough, then maybe we can change everything. Maybe we can turn it around or be the change we want to see.
And then I read everything that they did. They did every single thing it feels like a person could think to do to make not only Black life, but all life, better. And we forgot.
And it just makes me-- it makes me sad to know that that's possible. It feels like it should be impossible to erase a legacy of that size, but it wasn't, which means it probably still isn't.
Jason Reynolds
But that's the thing, right? You say we forgot. We didn't forget. We never knew.
Nichole Hill
Mm.
Jason Reynolds
Right? The information-- like, his life had been redacted.
Nichole Hill
Right, that's true.
Jason Reynolds
And I think-- and this is the thing that I think about all the time, is that if you can't beat me at any of the things, if I am objectively better at all of the things-- my intellectual capacity, my athletic capacity, my creative capacity, my fervor and spirit-- the only thing left to get me is to make it so that I never existed, right-- is to turn me into a ghost.
The moment that the opportunity arose, he was turned into a ghost. And this is a tricky thing to talk about, because it's one of those-- because it sounds-- it sounds so tinfoil-y.
Nichole Hill
Yes. Yeah.
Jason Reynolds
But if I'm only looking at what is happening, it's like James Baldwin. No, I don't know you hate me, but I know that my-- I know my kids ain't got no books in their schools.
Nichole Hill
Mm-hmm.
Jason Reynolds
Because I don't necessarily think that they're taking these things down because they don't believe them. I think they're taking these things down because they don't want everyone else to believe them. They know exactly who we are.
Nichole Hill
You know, when you say they know who we are, people know who we are, I think a lot about the fact that there is something in our ability to disrupt the economic systems of America, the social systems, the political systems. I mean, the whole country had one system that it was built on, which was the enslavement of Black people.
And then it ends, and it has to be overturned. And so they create a new system, where it's like, all right, well, fine, we'll be separate. And then, through our strategy, through our art, through our humanity, through everything that we are, we overturn the social, political, cultural, religious, all these systems again.
And when I'm in archives, when I'm reading the diaries of ancestors, that's the thing that sticks with me. I'm like, oh, this is who we are. We have the power to articulate our lived experience in such a way that people all around the world rise up and say, this is wrong, and join movements and fights for people they've never met, and in a lot of cases, have never even seen.
And I think, man, there's so much power in that. And I didn't know, and that is by design.
Emanuele Berry
Nichole Hill-- she's the host of the award-winning show
Our
Ancestors
Were
Messy.
What you just heard was an adaptation of her original episode. That's right. There is even more Paul and Essie drama. It's a two-parter.
You can find that episode and more wherever you listen to podcasts, and there are so many wonderful stories that Nichole tells. I highly recommend checking out the episode about Nora Holt and the one about Zora Neale Hurston. Go listen.
What you're hearing right now is Paul Robeson singing a song he himself wrote to the tune of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." It was kind of lost to history until a sound designer and editor John DeLore found it last year at a thrift store and gave it to Nichole.
Paul Robeson
(SINGING) From the Bay of Massachusetts out into the Golden Gate,
Henry Wallace leads his army 'gainst destruction, fear, and hate
We Americans will save the precious land that we create
For the people's march is on
Glory, glory hallelujah
Act Two: Sincerely, Absolutely Not
Emanuele Berry
Act 2: "Sincerely, Absolutely Not."
OK, so you're emancipated from slavery. You resettle in Ohio. Then you get a letter from the man who used to enslave you, asking you to come back and work for him again.
That is exactly what happened to a man named Jourdon Anderson. Anderson wrote a letter in response. It was published in a newspaper in 1865 and is read here at a live event by Laurence Fishburne.
Laurence Fishburne
To my old master-- the letter. Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865.
To my old master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee.
Sir, I got your letter and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anyone else can.
I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you before this--
[AUDIENCE LAUGHING]
--for harboring Rebs that they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable.
Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt and am glad that you are still living. It would do me good to go back to dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha, Alan, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this.
I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.
I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get $25 a month, with victuals and clothing, have a comfortable home for Mandy-- hah, the folks call her Mrs. Anderson. And the children, Millie, Jane, and Grundy, go to school and are learning well.
Now, if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will better be able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHING]
As to my freedom, which you say I can have, well, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost Marshal General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us kindly and justly. And we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time that we served you.
[APPLAUSE]
This will make us forget and forgive old scores and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for 32 years and Mandy 20 years. At $25 a month for me, $2 a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to $11,680. Add this-- the interest for the time of our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing and three doctor visits for me, pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to.
Please send the money by Adams Express in care of V. Winters, Esquire, Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for our faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the Good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers in making us toil for you for generations without recompense.
Here, I draw my wages every Saturday night, but in Tennessee, there was never any payday for the Negroes, any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.
In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Millie and Jane, who are now grown up and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve and die, if it came to that, than to have my girls brought to shame and violence by the wickedness of their young masters.
You will also please state if there have been any schools open for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education and have them form virtuous habits.
Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me. Your old servant, Jourdon Anderson.
[APPLAUSE]
Emanuele Berry
Laurence Fishburne reading Jordan Anderson's "Letter to my Former Master." What you just heard is a slightly shortened version of the original response. You can find the whole thing and countless other amazing letters on the
Letters
Live
YouTube channel or at their website, letterslive.com.
Letters
Live
is actually coming back to New York City on the 14th. Tickets are on sale now.
One last little thing to end our show. Recently, I went to the Blacksonian. That is not what it is called. It is called the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. But Blacksonian is more fun.
Anyway, it was a winter morning, busy, full of school children and teachers, parents, and chaperones. I took the escalator down to the bottom floor, to the history galleries, and there, in big white letters against a black wall, it says "Slavery and Freedom, 1400 to 1877," and then this short caption.
"500 years ago, a new form of slavery transformed Africa, Europe, and the Americas. For the first time, people saw other human beings as commodities, things to be bought, sold, and exploited to make enormous profits. This system changed the world. The United States was created in this context, forged by slavery."
I stopped reading there-- forged by slavery. And my first thought was, how are they allowed to say this? Like, why hasn't this been flagged?
And then, my next thought was, what a fucked up thought. I know the US does not exist without slavery, but it wasn't about what I knew to be true, but what's allowed to be true in this country right now. And it freaked me out, because what the hell, Emanuele? But there was also something comforting about recognizing what my brain was doing.
The way history is being reshaped in this moment, it's about power. It's about how the United States is changing. I think I've read the phrase "sliding towards authoritarianism" countless times this year.
But it's not a slide, is it? It's more like steps-- steps we the people are taking-- not just politicians, all of us. We're changing, too, taking steps so small you can miss them. But here in this museum, I caught my foot mid-air.
Our program today was produced by Emmanuel Dzotsi with editing help from Neil Drumming. The people who put together today's show include Phia Bennin, Dana Chivvis, Michal Comite, Molly Marcello, Adriene Lilly, Tobin Low, Katherine Rae Mondo, Stowe Nelson, Ruthie Petitto, Nadia Reiman, Anthony Roman, Ryan Rumery, and Ike Sriskandarajah, Lilly Sullivan, Frances Swanson, Christopher Swetala, Marisa Robertson-Textor, Nancy Updike, and Julie Whitaker. Our managing editor is Sarah Abdurrahman. Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum.
The original "Our Ancestors Were Messy" team includes executive producer Adriana Ambriz, sound design by Kyle Murdock, research producer and narrator Chioke I'anson, Story Producer Martina Abrahams Ilunga.
Special thanks to Nate Wong, John Delore, Shaun Usher, Angelina Mosher Salazar, Abby Conklin, Tom Preston, Benjamin Dolle, and everyone at Virginia Public Media. Also, thanks to Conor Anderson and everyone at WDET Detroit.
Thanks also to our
This
American
Life
partners, premium subscribers who support the show financially, which means we can continue making this show. Life Partners listen ad free, receive regular bonus episodes, and more. And we're relying on more people signing up. Go to thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners. That link is also in the show notes.
This
American
Life
is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. Thanks, as always, to our host, Ira Glass.
I swear, that man can never remember hit songs. He keeps calling me, asking, what's that one that made Rihanna famous? It involved an umbrella.
I'm Emanuele Berry. Ira Glass will be back next week with more stories of
This
American
Life.
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