Our Ancestors Were Messy - Eslanda and Paul Robeson: Revolutionaries in the Making (Part 1)

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

Eslanda Cardozo Goode and Paul Robeson meet and fall in love during the Roaring 20s in Harlem. They give up promising careers and devote themselves to climbing the ladder of fame and fortune. Can their relationship survive the success that follows?  Starring Jason Reynolds Support this independent production and access bonus content at https://ourancestorsweremessy.supercast.com Stay in touch at [e-mail] Follow the show on Instagram at @ourancestorsweremessy Follow the show on TikTok at @ourancestorsweremessy Learn more about the show at https://ourancestorsweremessy.com Listen on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@OurAncestorsWereMessy  SELECT SOURCES Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson by Barbara Ransby The Undiscovered Paul Robeson: An Artist's Journey 1898-1939 by Paul Robeson, Jr. The Undiscovered Paul Robeson: Quest for Freedom 1939-1976 by Paul Robeson, Jr. Here I Stand by Paul Robeson History of America in Ten Strikes by Erik Loomis How American Slavery Echoed Russian Serfdom by Matthew Wills Haymarket Book Talk with Barbara Ransby The Scramble for Africa  Arturo Alfonso Schomburg The Atlanta Daily World 

Secret Adventures of Black People Presents, Our ancestors were messy. Today, witness a roaring 20s meat cute. You didn't tell her she had a boyfriend. She had a boyfriend, a doctor. He was dirty macking. Paul and Islander Robeson, forge a bond defined by love.

They also want an unconventional arrangement where they're going to be equal. War. You said she already did it, see? I'm glad you said that. Not me. Nothing. And ultimately, revolution.

He's like, they want your labor for as close to free as possible, and they want to treat you like second-class citizens, just like black Americans and Russian serfs. This episode stars 24 MacArthur Fellow at New York Times bestselling author of Young Adult Novels and Poetry, Jason Reynolds. There's an honoring of the sacrifice of my ancestors that I think I would want to see through. And your host, Nicole Hill.

So in the movie version, it's wintertime. They get to a house just like this. Live in front of a studio audience in a living room in Washington, D.C. This is Our Ancestors Were Messy. I feel like this is a setup. A show about our ancestors and all their drama.

Hello. I am on my way to the museum to do some research for season two. Target released state fall, 2026, mark your calendars. And actually the museum that I'm going to is the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, one of my favorites, if you can believe it, and now felt like as good a time as any to let you know that this episode

is brought to you by the community of donors that fuel this independent podcast known lovingly as The Household. Now, the Household is a reference to a Gilded Age black newspapers nickname for their D.C. readership. And dragging all of you into archival deep cuts like that is among my proudest accomplishments. So back to the household. It's their monthly support that covers the cost of producing the show and what has allowed my team and I to bring you this bonus two-parter just in time

for February's 100th anniversary of Negro History Week, which later became Black History Month. Thank you to everyone that's given monthly and to the one-time donors because it's all made a difference. So our ancestors were messy is still a completely independent production and we want to continue bringing you histories source from archives across the country with award-winning editing and sound design

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members of the household get access to the director's commentary for each episode, outtakes, exclusive interviews, and for this one, I'll be sharing video of the first time I told this story live from New York as part of the 2025 Tribeca Festival with special guest,

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The link is also in the show notes. Enjoy the episode. Okay, so this is Jason Reynolds. This is my guest for today. You have a beautiful and very impressive resume. I'm not going to... Thank you. I won't do that to you.

Thank you very much. I will just say that the thing that I am the most excited about is that you were on Antiques Roadshow. I was. I think that's so exciting. How did you get into collecting? Oh, gosh. I come from one of those families, you know, where your mom is like, what people would call a hoarder, but she, you know, but she calls a collector, you know, and

an antiqueer. And so I grew up in a household full of old things. And I was always used to watch my mom sort of get fixated on particular things and then just collect and collect. And so over time, you just kind of inherit that, had the habit. What's the best thing you found or collected? I don't know. I have like old postcards from Langston Hughes. I have, you know, very rare books that you can't find anymore first editions but also like books that are out of print like montage of a dream deferred which we all quote all the time

but I have the actual book I have the very first shirt that we ever saw for real Williams where like I own that shirt that's in the rock star video the pink and brown polo shirt yeah yeah like just like random life you know what?

What kind of black are you? All the kinds except for the self-hating kind because they exist yeah you know I like to think of blackness um as as both abstract and concrete both of those things right that it exists in sort of this amorphous way and also in a way that I could put my finger on both yeah right and because of that I think it gets to be expansive and so whatever it is that I am is the kind of black I am whatever it is I do is the black thing to do right I look at it as a need

neon color. You know, that's the way I see it. Yeah. It glows in the dark. Oh, that's beautiful. I see, yeah. I didn't say he's a poet. I mean, you know that, right?

Okay, good, good, good. What is your relationship with Paul Robson? There's like a weird thing about Paul Robeson for me, just because when I think of, when I think of the way we use the term Renaissance, man, Paul Robeson, especially for black people, right? Paul Robeson is who comes to my first. I mean, he did a lot. He did it. He did everything. Right. I mean, the way that we think about like Harry Belafonte, right, they can't be a Belafonte without Paul Robeson. They couldn't have been, especially in the earlier parts of his life, a Jim Brown or Maya Angelou, right, who did lots and lots of things, right? A life well lived, where she dabbled in all these things. Paul Robeson is sort of that figure to me. Yeah. And everything

black. Yeah. Okay. So you know a lot about Paul. I know a bit about Paul. Okay. All right. We're going to see if I can surprise you a little bit. All right. It's 1964. And a 37-year-old black man is at a party in New York City. He does not give any details about this party, but it is the 60s. So I'm picturing that it looks like the Jetson's living room. Like space agey, futuristic, this is the vibe. He would be played by Brian Tyree Henry. Okay. Glasses, smiley, but underneath the smile, he's seething. His name is Polly. So he's mixing, he's mingling, but he is on a mission.

He's approached by a black man. The man says, can we talk somewhere private? Paul, he's like, okay. So they go somewhere private, and the man says, I'm X-C-I-A, and I have information about your dad, Paul Robson. Before the 1950s, if you'd stop the average American on the street and asked who's Paul Robson, they might have said, oh, he's one of the greatest civil and labor rights leaders in the world.

after the 50s, you'd get a lot of, was he like an actor or something? Maybe this is just a function of time. The public memory can only hold but so much. But Polly doubts that and so do others. Koretta Scott King described Paul as having been buried alive. And Polly wants to know who did the burying and why. So Polly's talking to this man who's just revealed himself to be X-CIA and the man tells him,

I heard that the director of the CIA had a man. meeting with his super spy. And the super spy asked, do you want me to solve the Paul Robeson problem? And the CIA director said, not yet, we don't want to create a martyr. This is the story of how he came to know, love, fear, and forget the revolutionary Robesons. Okay, act one, how he came to know the Robesons. So we're leaving the 60s. The year is 1920. So Polly is not even a thought. We're in Harlem, it's summertime, and 24-year-old as Landa Cardoza Good, or Essie, as everyone calls her, you will be Essie later. 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 studying to be a doctor. 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 D.C. known as the first families. As in Cardozo High School Cardozos? Right, I know. It's wild.

Wow. By night, she and her roomy many 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? Essie? Mm-hmm. A young Hallie Berry. Oh, yeah? Okay, I think we like Holly. We're going to give it.

We're always going like Halliberry. It's a real. It's a romantic town. Essie enrolls in a summer course at Columbia. She shows up to class and spots a 21-year-old nicknamed Harlem's darling. This is Mr. Paul Robson. He's 6'3. He's chocolate.

He's got a smile. He's got a voice. He's studying at Columbia Law, playing pro football, pledged Alpha. Who could play him? Oh, that's a tough one. Anybody got anything? thing? It should be illegal to use him.

I mean, I'm looking at like, that's a hard one. I know. No, I'm here. Who is it? Dampson. Damson may be, but he's small too. He's also from England. Diaspora.

Diaspora was. I know, right? Like, we're sick of that. We're sick of it. He says, let me hide my accent. What about the young brother who played in Cennis, who played the guitar in Cinnis? Miles, what's his name? Oh, what's his name?

Yeah, yeah. His real name is Miles. Yes, Miles something. Yeah. Maybe that young brother could pull it all. Look at that. We're going to give him the role of a lifetime. Well, that was the role of lifetime.

The second role. I mean, we're talking about a one in a million sort of physique, right? That's a unicorn brother. Exactly. Exactly. You know what I mean? Okay, so we're going to picture Miles. Man, the pressure.

I felt the pressure. You felt the pressure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 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-negrove tennis matches

and to plays, some starring Paul because he's an actor. They're just two friends taken in post-World War I, Harlem. So black people from across America and around the world are migrating to the neighborhood and bringing with them their food, their art, their music, and ideas, and it's all blending together. It's creating something new, and Essie and Paul are so energized by this. I have to throw them on the floor. I don't know why. Just ignore that. As friends, I'm guessing Paul and Essie would have gone to these things called protest parades that had started a few years before they met in 1917.

Black folks would get together by the thousands, and they would of course dress up. And they would hold signs protesting racial violence and discrimination, and then they would march. And the white press is like, oh my God, what are these Negroes doing? They're freaking out. At these protest parades, they often carry American flags and they call themselves Americans. This upsets a lot of people. There's, of course, racism, but in addition to that, there are millions of white families who were impoverished by slavery for centuries. Because obviously, like, how do you compete with free labor?

So their thinking was, like, we know capitalism works. It's just the issue is that slavery is robbing us of our jobs. once we end that, then the American dream is going to finally be within reach. But then slavery ends and the robber barons and all of them were like, okay, so here's barely enough money to survive, and then here are the worst working conditions you can ever imagine. And if you complain, we're just going to give the jobs to black people and to immigrants. And so then all those white workers are like, oh my God, not again,

these people aren't even Americans. They need to get out of this country. Paul and Essie are called New Negroes. They're the first generation to come up in America without slavery. vibe is very like I'm black, I'm proud. Lots of them agree with Marcus Garvey, and they want out of the country. They want to join his back to Africa movement. Garvey is genuinely shocked to learn that there are so many new Negroes like Paul and Essie

who are like, our parents built this country, we're proud to be black, we are Americans, and we're going to stay and see to it that the nation lives up to its promise. If you were in the 1920s, your parents were enslaved, now they're free, you're in the middle of this debate, do you think that you would want to stay here or do you think that you would want to leave? I would want to stay. Why?

I think it's tricky. First of all, it has to be acknowledged that they were in Harlem. If I was in Mississippi, maybe not. Great point. They're in Harlem, right? And so if I'm in Harlem and my family has bled for this country,

we've built this. I think there's a point of pride that I have And there's a sort of, there's an honoring of the sacrifice of my ancestors of the ones that have done this work that I think I would want to see through despite the consequences. Do you think that you would be like calling yourself an American? No. No.

I think that part would probably have come. At that time, I think I think I would have understood why people were. It just, and maybe I would have, right, but it would have always tasted pretty nasty. that's all. But I think I understand why it is important to exert that. I understand why it's important to exert it now. But it don't always taste so good. And I think I would have called I would have done what I do now, which is called myself a black American. Though I shouldn't have to create qualifiers and they shouldn't have had to sort of use qualifiers. But at the end of the day, it isn't always just to sort of delineate a difference. The prefix of black also serves as security blanket for me. It makes me feel better about what it is and who it is I am in this particular country. I'm okay with sort of adding it on. It doesn't make me feel like I'm necessarily apart from everybody else. It just means that like there's an aster's kid that should be acknowledged as a point of pride for me.

Okay, so we know what camp Essie and Paul are in. We're Americans. We're staying put. After their friendly adventures, Essie says that she and Paul would go back to her apartment. They would kick out her best friend many. They'd sit on the floor and they'd talk for hours. Maybe about the missions they'd inherited. Essie grew up with stories of her grandpa, Francis Louis Cardoza,

the first black person in America to be elected to statewide office as treasurer and then Secretary of State of South Carolina during Reconstruction. When Reconstruction era ended and America entered her Jim Crow era, Essie's grandpa was framed for fraud and imprisoned. When he got out, he fled to D.C. with his family and became an educator. Cardoza Education Campus in D.C. is named after him. He teaches his family to lift as they climb And the most important thing they can do Is he hopes do her part as a doctor

Hmm Did Marvin gay go to Cardoza? Do we know anybody? Any Washington? All right, y'all don't know You should check I think Marvin might have gone I think he might have graduated from Cardozo.

Really? I'm pretty sure. I should check on that. Okay, okay Well, I should write it down No, it's recorded. All right. Paul grew up idolatialized

his father, William Robeson. He'd escaped slavery and his teens via the Underground Railroad and settled in Princeton, New Jersey, where he started his family and worked for 20 years as a preacher at the all-black Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church. When Jim Crow began, Pastor Robeson spoke out against all of the racism that was happening down south, and his all-white church board fired him.

In his final sermon, he told his devastated congregation, Do not be discouraged. Do not think your past work. is in vain. Wither Spoon Street Presbyterian Church is still there to this day. Paul learns that beating Jim Crow was as important as anything else he'd do and he hopes to do his part as a lawyer. 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 and she had a boyfriend. She didn't tell her she had a boyfriend.

She had a boyfriend, a doctor. He was dirty mac and. leave that man. They dump all their people and our ancestors start dating. People are like, okay, but do not get married. This is a thing. His boys think that she is too ambitious. Her girls say that he is a player. Plus, Essie and Paul, by their own admission, argue a lot.

Their opposites in temperament and style and height and everything. But at their core, at the core of their relationships are their talks on the floor and ambitions and curiosity. They also want an unconventional. arrangement where instead of man and wife, they're going to be equals. So one rainy day in August 1921, a year after they started hanging out, Paul and Essie elope. Their friends and family are like, God bless. The newlyweds move into a tiny apartment in Harlem. Paul's in law school and Essie supports the couple as the first black woman to lead a lab at New York 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's like, Paul, you know what you should do. She quit being a lawyer and you should become a full-time actor. And Essie's, I mean, 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. Can we pause for a second?

We should pause for a second. What are you feeling? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell us where you're at. So Essie said, let's just say, let's just say, let's just say, let's say, let's say, let's say, 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. Full time.

Because she believed that she deserves a 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. Yes. But what an incredible example of love and support. I mean, like, sheesh.

And then say, look, and I'm going to pick up all the, I'm going to go here, be your manager. I'm going to do everything. I just want to shout, I love, this is, I also have a serious, serious commitment to black women for this reason. I think because I also think that, like, you know, we live in this time now. It's funny, we're talking about our ancestors, but we live in a time where, like, the internet has convinced us that we all hate each other, that we all are terrible to one another. black women are terrible black men are terrible we're all terrible we're not and i just i it we've always been awesome things have always been tricky yes but we've always been supportive and loving and i just want to say to s e like that that's 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 and i know what you what you're capable of yes and so i'm gonna go ahead pour this into you yes now i'm hoping that's a story unfolds You know what I'm saying? Because I know how it go. I'm hoping that my man hold us to come on, Paul. You know what I mean? So Essie starts booking Paul acting and singing gigs,

including Negro spirituals at private parties for rich white people because this was like a way that you did it back in the day if you were a hustler. Essie joins him at the gigs, which means that she probably has to sit through endless conversations about Africa. Now for Essie, she imagines Africa like a noble,

distant old country, even though she'd never been. She's like, it's just, it's such a, like a promised land for black people, like the ultimate promised land for them at this time. But that's not the Africa that these dinner party guests would have been referring to. Nations gather in Berlin to begin the Scramble for Africa. On the continent claiming land, extracting resources, and crushing resistance. The shadow of Europe stretches over the vast majority of Africa. In lands colonized by Britain and France,

Workers are encouraged to form trade unions and focus on skill building. The belief is that this will distract Africans from political organizing. America does not join the scramble for Africa. Back in the States, they're expanding into the West and making plans to conquer South America. But they still want wild animal skins, African artifacts, and scary stories. So they're like kind of sitting, listening to people talk about that. They're like, okay, whatever. And then I'm picturing Paul and Essie running out of the door as soon as they could to get to a

a party that is more their speed. The new Negroes have been staging themselves a little renaissance up in Harlem, and between Paul's acting skills and Essie's PR brilliance, they score invites to party with the big dogs like Louis Armstrong and Josephine Baker. So they're like, let's go. So in the movie version,

it's wintertime. They get to a house just like this. 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 a conversation about a thing that we all think of when I say the Harlem Renaissance.

You know what you love it. Let's say it together. Historical record keeping and the importance of archiving. I was going to say jazz. I was going with jazz. So close. So in the scene, a young man named Arturo Alfonso Schaumburg is asking the group if they have any old books or letters that they can add to his collection. Somebody says Arturo, why always collect? all this old stuff. Why he's such a nerd? And he says, I'll tell you why. Arturo Alfonso

Schaumburg is an Afro-Latino kid from Puerto Rico. When he was in school on the island in the 1890s, this is 30 years after slavery, his teacher tells him black people don't have any heroes or history or culture. A Jim Crow era belief was that maybe black people were more impoverished and imprisoned and cast out of society because we weren't real Americans and we weren't real Africans. We weren't from anywhere, and because of that, we lacked a history and a culture to inspire us to do better. Racism had nothing to do with it. It's just on us. Our trail's like, I don't think so. So he moves New York City. Now, some black people are studying who we are, culture, and our history through anthropology. Other people are doing it through sociology. Carter G. Woodson had just

started Negro History Week, so he would encourage people to do gatherings like this and share their histories with one another. Arturo's like, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to just start saving stuff. He begins saving with unbelievable and meticulous detail every artifact he can find having to do with black history and culture. The New York Public Library will eventually buy his collection and today the Schaemberg Center for Research in Black Culture is the Mecca. When I finally went there to like do my research and stuff, I had to like micro-fiche, everyone was like, oh my God. You went to the Schaumburg?

It's the best. It's the best. You know, in the opening entryway of the Schaumburg, there's the Cosmograph. And underneath that, and the floor of the cosmograph, underneath that stone are the ashes of Lengsen Hughes.

Stop. I didn't know that. Yeah. So Essie and Arturo become friends. And Essie gets into history and scrapbooking. Essie and Paul move to another circle. It's led by activist, author, and African royalty Prince Kojo Tuvila,

who will be played by Idris Elba. I've already cast him, so just finish it. Paul thinks he's brilliant, as he does too. He's talking about all our other favorite Harlem Renaissance era topic. I think we can all say it together. It's so obvious. We all know it. We're a scared.

We're a scared. One, two, three. The Russian Revolution and the rise of communism. Yeah, was it? You were almost there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For centuries, all the time

Bolsheviks, it's 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 Tsars 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. Communist revolutionaries cite the plight of the African-American worker under Jim Crow as an example of the evils of capitalism, leading Russian serfs to take an interest in black Americans. In 1917, Communist Party leader Vladimir Lennon, with the help of the serfs, labor unions, and soldiers, overthrows Russia's Tsar and forms the newest, largest country in the world, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The USSR builds itself as a workers' utopia without capitalism, colonialism, or racial hierarchies. Black people across the diaspora, including Paul Robeson, are so into this.

In the movie, Essie and Paul leave the party, they're so excited about all these new people and places and ideas. For the sake of his career, they say they're going to avoid politics for right now, but someday when they're rich and famous, they will visit Africa and the Soviet Union. Ramesi continues. Okay, if you love history, culture, beautiful storytelling sets of the best music and Puerto Rico, I've got a podcast for you. Allow me to recommend the critically acclaimed bilingual series La Brega. This show introduces listeners to the fighters who've represented Puerto Ricans everywhere from the courtrooms to the boxing rings, in their music, and on their jerseys. I would recommend starting La Brega with the episode titled Preciosa, which tells the story of the Afro-P Puerto Rican legend, Rafael Hernandez, and the song that he wrote in 1936. which went on to become the unofficial anthem of the island.

Now, does Rafael travel from Puerto Rico to Harlem in the 1930s and end up playing jazz at the same time as a bunch of the other ancestors that I talk about? Listen and find out. Subscribe to La Brega everywhere you get your podcast. Okay, act two. 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 ropes him. In 1925, he lands his first film role in a movie called Body and Soul, directed by the hardest working man in cinema, Oscar Michel. Yes. A lot of these people are from previous episodes. Look, he's the wrong guy for this trip.

Paul appears in Eugene O'Neill's play, Emperor Jones. This is a weird play, man. This play is weird. He blows up in Europe, his profile rises in the U.S. When the play is adapted into a movie, Paul stars in it, becoming America's first black movie star. The couple moved 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? once... Old man river That's the only part I remember That's how it's thought That's the melody You know

For something But don't say nothing He just keeps rolling He keeps on rolling People cannot believe his voice Now the song is problematic The N-word is in there for no reason And the dialect is not that

Of a Columbia law school grad But black folks are working with What they can at the time, America's number one black newspaper, the Chicago defender, celebrates him as a generational talent. Essie's like, I already did that. One day after a performance in London, Paul hears a bunch of people singing in the street. He said it sounds like Negro spirituals, but it's white people. And he's like, what's going on? He follows the sound and finds a group of Welsh miners, and they are doing a protest parade, and holding signs demanding better wages and safer working

conditions in the mines. So he's like, they want your love. They want your love. labor for as close to free as possible. And they want to treat you like second-class citizens, just like black Americans and Russian serfs. That's interesting. He starts donating to their cause and reading up on labor rights. Essie and Paul spend the rest of their 20s traveling Europe for his plays and experiencing being black outside of America. They say that it's divine.

Essie is obviously an amazing agent, but she is trying to do her own thing. She wants to find her own creative outlet. She starts reading up on Africa and African history. She's scrapbooking. When they visit Vienna, she meets up with a young black American chemist named Percy Julian. Also in an episode?

Percy was... Yo, he was tweaking. Maybe they taught chemistry things, but she is looking for something new. She writes a couple plays. People think they're mid. But that is okay. In letters home, she's like,

we're seeing the world. We're having so much fun. But in letters to people like her girl, Minnie, she's like, girl, Paul's cheating on me. Come on, Paul. You made that beautiful speech. Yeah. Essey sort of knew that there were always other women, but he'd been keeping it on the low before, but now he's a star.

Plus, they are in Europe. So Essie is trying absent in Paris. Paul is studying every language he's posing nude for magazines in Germany, like they're bohemians. So 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? The room has feelings. The way he puts it is, why don't we have our freedom?

Essie is like hard pass. So they're back and forth about that. And Essie has a habit of hiding bad medical news that sounds troublesome. This one time she went to the hospital and she was having her appendix removed, but she'd book Paul this really, really good gig overseas. So instead of telling him that she was in the hospital, she pre-wrote 21 letters. and then had her friends mail them each week so that he would stay on his gig.

What is happening? Exactly. I know it's not an episode of Scooby-Doo, so he figures it out. He rushes home. He's like, Essie, what's happening? And she's like, it's fine. How's the show? Then in 1927, Essie gets pregnant. She delivers an 11-pound baby boy. Right, right.

That's day two. Right. They name him Paul Robeson, Jr. Essie calls him Polly for short, she's in love. At the time, Paul Sr. is making his Paris concert debut, so she writes to him and she says, Polly is perfect, the delivery was perfect, good luck with the show. Her mom writes him and tells him, Essie is bedridden because she delivered an 11-pound baby. She's not okay. You need to get home.

He rushes home. He's like, Essie, what are you doing? She's like, it's fine. How was the show? So this is like a problem for them. They have this open marriage debate for years, and in that time, Paul becomes the first black man to play the role of Othello in a major American production before that's like white guys in blackface. Sure. His love interest in the play is a white woman named Peggy Ashcroft.

This is hugely controversial and it would have been even more controversial if people knew that the two were seeing each other behind the scenes. This man been dead forever. It's not happening right now. He's also seeing among others. He's also seeing, among others, a wealthy white British party girl named Yelon Jackson. Between the women and the fame and his growing activism, Paul is getting sloppy. And now Essie is finding love notes.

And she's pissed. Her and her best friend Minnie decide to have a girl's weekend at one of Madam C.J. Walker's family villas. dumb. That's just like a girl's retreat. And Essie is like, Minnie, what am I going to do? I don't want to get a divorce, but like I can't keep putting up with this. And Minnie's like, you should do like me. Many had teamed up with a private eye

and caught her husband in bed with the notorious Nora Holt. Private detectives broke into a furnished room and exposed attorney William L. Patterson and Mrs. Nora Holt-ray, according to their 12 or more witnesses, 12 or more witnesses, excuse me, in the raiding party, including attorney Patterson's wife. And so now they're getting divorced,

but Essie does not want a divorce. So, what? would be your advice to our auntie S.C. as a man about how she should navigate this conversation with Paul. I feel like this is a setup. What would be my advice as a man to tell this woman who knows her husband is cheating on her and is getting messy with it? He's getting messy. But she doesn't want a divorce. She does not want a divorce. And I'm supposed to give advice on the conversation that they're going to have. You, you're, okay, so you get to talk. to Essie. You can take the man. I'm part out. I'm being

extra. But you're going to talk you're going to go back in time. You're going to talk to Auntie Essie. We're in the future. People are having these conversations much more openly. Right. So what kind of advice would you give her? She doesn't want to leave her husband. She does not want to leave him. She built him. She did. She doesn't want to leave her husband.

I only got toxic advice in this moment. Normally not, but in this moment. I'm like, go get you someone on the side. I don't know what else they're finished. 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. Like, what's the better piece of advice? What would you tell? I mean, I'm already questioned baby Polly. I'm like, oh, no. Well, that's a whole other day.

You said she already did it, see? I'm glad you said that. Not me. That's not magical. First of all, that baby is ginormous. He's in normal than Paul's baby. That baby looked just like Paul Robeson. That's an eight-foot baby.

That's Paul Robeson. That's my, honestly, as jammed up as it all, Liz. And she don't want to leave him. And it's not changing that I'm, unfortunately, I would tell her to choose herself. Okay. I don't know what else I could say. I feel like it's messed up that you would ask me to say such a thing. I want a podcast.

Millions of people are going to hear. But, okay, there's that answer. That was beautiful. What would you tell her? How about that? What would you tell her? I would tell you what happened. No, no, no, no.

No, no, no. What would you tell her? I would tell her to do what you said. Okay. I'm going to tell you what she does. She is still searching for her creative outlet. Plays were not it. So she decides to try her hand at nonfiction.

She decides to write a biography about Paul. She names it Paul Robeson colon Negro. He's like, it's a day sound. This? No. Exactly. 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'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 Polly. She calls him a massive flirt who is not cheating on her, but if he did cheat on her, he would never leave her. She sends it to Lanks and Hughes. He's like, it's kind of mid. And the public agrees.

And Paul is like, I want a divorce right now. He's tired of fighting about having his freedom. He announces that of all his girlfriends, he's decided to marry Yelan. Jackson. That's the party girl. As his wife, Essie is devastated. She writes this in her diary. Can you read her entry? Yeah, that's Emma Stone, by the way.

Oh. Okay. I am surely a jackass if ever there was one. I should have seen the handwriting on the wall, fancy believing his lies right up till the last. He was a smooth one, though. He must have been lying to me for five years steadily. Paul has told me I refused to

face things, but now I know, and I shall face things squarely. But she can't face things right away. She starts having what sounds like panic attacks and is even hospitalized at one point, and Paul is worried, but he's still marrying Yalande. She tries dating, like Paul suggested, she hooks up with a white doctor and she does accidentally get pregnant. I mean, you know, she didn't mean to get pregnant. It happens accidentally all the time. It wasn't on purpose. She has to have an abortion. She has to have an abortion. him, Paul is upset, but he's still marrying Yelon. The papers catch wind of the drama, but they think the story is that Essey is leaving Paul

because he's having an affair with the white woman. Everyone wants to know who it is. The press guesses that the woman must be really accomplished to have lured him away from Essie. No one guesses Yalande, who is respectfully not a serious person. And I'm not just being a hater. I will tell you, her biographer tells the story about how one time her and Paul were in the back of a limo and she wanted to know him biblically and he was like no there's a driver right

there and she goes uh he's just a driver he's not a real person this is who esse is getting left for this is who he's getting left for so now as his manager essie knows that this marriage will end his career it's the 1930s there are laws against black and white people marrying and vigilantes who can kill to enforce those laws. Paul's boys go to Essie, and they're like, please do not tell the press. We might be able to talk Paul. Out of this, we just need time.

Please don't name Yelan and make it real. You have navigated the press. I have. What would be your advice to Essie when she, like the press is hounding her? They're like, who is it? Who is it? Who is it? No, no talking. No talking? Even though she wrote that book?

No talking. I think, no. I think press is. The moment you give them an inch, they'll take them out, and they'll create narrative, right? No talking. Mum's the word. Okay. While Essie and Paul were beefing a young Moorhouse grad named William Scott II started a newspaper down in Georgia.

It's called the Atlanta Daily World, and it was now the first successful daily black newspaper in America. The others were weekly. A 24-hour news cycle requires reporting on everything from civil rights to celebrity divorces. So Scott sends a reporter to. to New York to interview Paul and Essie, who are both in town for one of his performances. We're going to do a dramatic reading of the article that is written about this encounter. I'm going to have Nikki play the part of Essie. You're highlighted.

I'm going to be the intrepid reporter and playing the role of lying, cheating, Paul Roveson. Wow. It's Jason Rennell. This was a mistake. Okay. So I'll start. Paul Paul, Essie's divorcing you because you're cheating on her with a white woman. Is that true? Tell us the white lady's name.

This has not been much of a secret. We were seen together much of the time. I can't mention her name now. It's not the actress who played opposite me and Othello. Then the reporter is like Essie, Essie, you're divorcing Paul? How much do you hate him right now? Also, tell us the name of the white lady. Is it Becky with the good hair?

I began proceedings in New York courts about a month ago and hope to have my divorce soon. It is perfectly friendly, and we will keep being friends. We're just tired of each other and want our freedom. I'm not giving the name of the woman because I don't know and I don't care. Paul, what do you think of that? I've been expecting this. I'm sorry, but I guess it had to be.

I desire, above all things, to maintain my personal dignity. If this stirs up race prejudice, I am prepared to leave this country forever. I am studying Russian, German, and French. I am assured of a following in England. somebody comes out and tells Paul that he got a phone call he takes the phone call and then he comes back to the reporter

That was my lawyer He ordered me not to talk You'd probably better go I think he handled That particular interview Terribly And I think she handled it like a G Right

Hey I don't know And I don't care It's a rap We're friends We just tired of each other We're gonna keep it pushing He's like I'm gonna tell you who it's not

It's not the woman We've seen together But I'm going to tell you one thing, who it's not. It is not the woman from a hotel. It's like, it is. Right? Of course it is. I think he played it like a sucker.

And I think she took, she did. I think when it comes to the press, that's the way you do it. Hey, I don't know nothing. I ain't seen nothing. Get out of my face. That's it. Okay. Shit, you two are on the same page.

You and Essie. You and Esti. It's the DC connection. Oh, Paul is breaking my heart. I know. So it's the 19. So you can't just get divorced because you want to. You have to prove that it's someone's fault.

So Paul's like Essie. Why don't you leave Pauly with our nanny, who is Essie's mom, and then go to one of these hotels in Paris where I took Yilan, get some proof that I was cheating on you. Take that to a lawyer. Boom, we're a divorce. Nessi's like, okay. She heads to Paris, and she's picked up by her escort and confidant on this weird,

rude mission, Prince Kojo Tuvalo, played by Idriselva. Yeah. We have not forgotten. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want you to forget. I don't want you to forget. They get proof of Paul's cheating, and then Prince Kojo is like, let me hope you get your I pray love one girl. He takes her out shopping, drinking, dancing.

It sounds very flirty. He introduces her to his expat homies, people like Ada Bricktop Smith from Chicago, owner of Paris's legendary nightclub, brick tops in Montmart. The two expect to hate each other, but actually they end up best friends. Prince Kojo introduces her to the women of the Negritude movement, which was what the black French started after witnessing the Harlem Renaissance. Essie interviews these women about their culture and about their history and about Africa, where the trade unions that the French and British had introduced to be social distractions had evolved into powerful organizing bodies for the fight to end colonialism on the continent. And Essie's like, that's very interesting.

She starts writing all this down. When she gets back to London, she enrolls in the London School of Economics to study anthropology. Zora Nealhurst and tells her like, yes, girl, I told you should do that. In the movie, in the next scene, Essie's coming home from school. She's got all these books in her arms. She's humming to herself. She's so happy. And who should she find waiting on her doorstep?

It's Harlem's darling. Paul robs him. He says, Essey, I've made a terrible mistake. Paul and Yelan had broken up. Essie writes Y in her diary. This is you. Yelan lost her nerve. It would be too risky an experiment to give up all her friends

and her stupid social life to marry Paul. Plus, it sounds like she was not into the open. and marriage thing. So he comes back home and he and Essie essentially sit back down on the floor and 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 Yolans. They will have an open marriage. After they come to this understanding, Essie writes this in her diary. I'm 36 years old and I'm happier than I've ever been. in my life. Paul and I

understand each other. This is the beginning of a new phase of life. As these two were dealing with all their drama, the world around them was changing. 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 that 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 marched through Harlem to show their support for the African nation. Mussolini's fascist movement spreads. In 1933, Hitler rises to power. British and the French choose a policy of

appeasement, hoping everyone will get what they want and chill out. America chooses isolationism. The Robesons do not. 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. Next time, on our ancestors were messy. This episode was written, research, produced and performed by Mina Cole Hill. Thank you to my guest, the incomparable ever thoughtful Jason Reynolds. You can find more information about him in the show notes,

along with sources for this episode. I do want to specifically shout out and highly recommend Barbara Ransby's biography on Essie called Aslanda, colon, the large and unconventional life of Mrs. Paul Robson. The book is excellent. I have referenced it heavily, and a link to it is in the show notes.

Thank you to my A team. Executive producer Adriana Ambris, sound designer Kyle Murdoch, research producer and voice talent, Chioki A. Ensignson, story producer Martina Abraham Zilunga with show art by Asselica Smith. Thank you, Thomas Liu, for being our Day of Audio Engineer and Afim Shapiro and John DeLore for your support behind the scenes. Those mics were set up.

Thank you to my friend and our host for the evening Nate Wong with the most soundproof home ever. Thank you to my friends and their friends that made up the live studio audience you heard in the background of this episode. Y'all made all my 1990s Nick and Night Dreams come true. Thank you to my best friend, co-event planner, social media manager, stylist. Cassandra Sefa. She's literally a brilliant attorney who could be doing anything with her time, but she's on this ride with me, and I appreciate that. Thank you to everyone that attended all the table reads for this episode

and sat through my compulsive updates about the Russian Revolution. Thank you to my mom and sister for letting me commandeer Thanksgiving to play you early drafts. We are a completely independent podcast, and donor support is what keeps us free and in your feed. We're fundraising to bring you a whole slate of stories for season two, so please consider supporting us by making a monthly or one-time donation at our AncestorsWeremessy.com. To learn more about the show,

you can visit our Ancestorswemessy.com to those of you that listen all the way to the end, I want you to know that I was going to cut this part. But then I heard that you'd been clocking the evolutions in title. So before I go, I'll just say this. I'm a storyteller by training. now a historian and an archivist, in part because of quotes like this from Harry Truman. The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know.