This American Life - 885: Bless This Mess

Episode Date: April 12, 2026

At a time when the U.S. government is trying to make American history tidier, we try to learn from the mess. Including the untold, messy story of Paul and Essie Robeson. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Guest Host Emanuele Berry talks to Nichole Hill about the Black movie characters Nichole was curious about as a child. (7 minutes)Act One: A giant of the Harlem Renaissance, Paul Robeson was the most famous American of his day. Until he wasn’t. Nichole Hill tells the messy, complicated story of Paul and his wife, Essie Robeson. (38 minutes)Act Two: In 1865, a formerly enslaved man named Jourdan Anderson received a letter from his former enslaver, asking Jourdan to return to the plantation and work. Actor Laurence Fishburne reads Jourdan’s response. Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.

From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Emmanuel Barry 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 glamour, the glamour, 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. Nicole Hill was also sad.

Anything with Betty 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, like, 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 it. Like what? Okay, so, I mean, this is like 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, they are so dramatic. Oh my God, the behind the scenes. Whenever I talk with Nicole, she always has some fact like this. You mentioned 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 knows. noticed something about these movies that I never did. 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. Hattie McDaniel plays Mammy, an enslaved house servant. I just remember feeling really ashamed of like 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, no. I don't want to grow up and be that. That's not, well, that's not the let. You want to be out on the town with Marlon Brando. You don't want to be

Scarlet O'Hare's made. Yeah. 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? And then what? Became this question that drove Nicole. 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 the real life's offstage, 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, Nicole was searching through black newspapers from the 1930s through 60s,

researching for her job at the time. And Nicole, being Nicole, ended up deep in online news archives and in backrooms of University Libraries, looked at all the microfichees, 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. I always remember the first thing I noticed is a woman in a bathing suit.

and they're saying like pretty hot A or something like that. And then on the side they're talking about, you know, 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. The paper had an advice column. It was called the Court of Afro Relations. And they have like 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 is a woman and she is married and her sister is in town. And her sister is seeing a married man. Okay. 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. Oh my goodness. An umbrella at church. 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, like, what should I do? And they were just like, she needs to get it together. Why is she spending all that money? I'm like, oh my gosh, this is what they were doing when they went home. 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 Nicole 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 the sudden was not. This story is hilarious and moving, and it is very messy. Stay with us. It's This American Life, Act 1, the was it couple. So Nicole 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, Zornil Hurston, and Paul Robeson. Paul Robeson exist in this weird twilight, right? Like, 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, Eslonda Robeson, as he for short, was also famous, and also in everything at once type person, scientist, writer, anthropologist. So what the whole happened to these two superiors? 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 Nicole and her guest, author Jason Reynolds, with her show Our Ancestors Were Messy. Secret Adventures of Black People Presents. Our Ancestors Were Messy. Today, witness a roaring 20s meat cute. You didn't tell us she had a boyfriend. He was dirty mac. This episode stars novelist, poet, and bona fide genius, as in MacArthur Genius, Jason Reynolds, and your host, Nicole Hill. 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. Okay, hi, everyone. Welcome to the salon recording of our ancestors for 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. 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. So I'm going to tell Jason a story. Sorry. 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? Who's Paul Robeson? 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. 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 he came to know, to love, to fear, and to forget the revolutionary Robesons. So first, how he came to know the Robesons. The year is 1920. We're in Harlem. It's summertime and 24-year-old as Landa Cardoza Good, 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 D.C., known as the first families. 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? We're always going like Halliberry, man. 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 22-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 and playing in the NFL, which doing both at the same time is obviously wild. He's pledged Alpha.

Who could play him? Ooh, that's a tough one. What about the young brother who played in Sen, Sen, us? who played the guitar. Yes, Miles something. Miles something, yeah. Maybe that young brother could pull it all.

Man, the pressure. I felt the pressure. You felt the pressure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look at that. We're going to give him the role of a lifetime. Well, that was the role of the lifetime. Well, that was the role of the lifetime.

Okay, 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-negrove 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 in. He dumps all the women of Harlem. He was dirty mac. Leave that man. They dump all their people and our ancestors start dating. People are alive.

like, okay, 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. Their opposites in temperament and style and 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, as he 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's 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. Can we pause? Can we just 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, 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 I just want, she deserves a round of applause.

I appreciate. That's amazing. Because I mean, that's a different. You think about the time. What a, that's a pretty bold risk. Yes. But what an incredible example of love and support. I mean, like I also have a serious, serious commitment to black women for this reason.

I think because I also think that. that like, you know, we live in this time now. It's funny, we're talking about our ancestors, but we live in the 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.

And I just, 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 Essie, like 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. I know what you're capable of.

Yes. And so I'm going to go ahead, pour this into you. Yes. Now, I'm hoping that's the story unfolds. You know what I'm saying? Because I know how it goes. I'm hoping that my man holds us to come on, Paul. You know what I mean? Okay. 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 Robson. 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. 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 what you love it. Let's say it together. One, two, three, the Russian Revolution and the rise of communism. I was going to say jazz. I was going with jazz, but you know. So close. For centuries, Russia's labor system of choice was serfdom. 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 land. 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. In 1917, Communist Party leader Vladimir Lennon, with the help of the peasants, 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. 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? Old Man River. That's the only part I remember. That's how it's thought.

That's the melody. At home, he must know something, but don't say nothing. He just keeps rolling. He keeps on rolling. 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 absent 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. They name him Paul Robeson Jr. Essie calls him Polly 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. Come on, Paul. 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? The room has feelings. 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 Yelan Jackson. She's described as just like 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. 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 some more on the side. I don't know what else they'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 of unless you get a divorce. If you don't want to get a divorce, 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? I would tell you what happened. No, no, no. I'll do you better.

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 decides to write a biography. about Paul. She names it

Paul Robson comma Negro. He's like... It's a day sound dis-n- 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 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.

And Paul is like, I want a divorce right now. After that, there are messy headlines. They kind of spend some time apart. There's this like 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 stupid there flat. He says, Essie, I've made a terrible mistake.

Paul and the sometimes actress Yelan broke up. Essie says that Yelan chickened out. So he comes back home and he and Essey 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 Yelans.

They will have an open marriage. 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 Emmanuel Barry 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 Nicole and Jason. So while Paul and Essie 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 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 marched 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. Here is how he 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 United States. the day, let's go. So the Robesons arrive in Moscow around Christmas time. They receive 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 viability. and then he sings the songs again, but in Russian, because he's fluent now, they adore him. The Robesons are part of a whole wave of black intellectuals that are visiting the USSR at this time. People like Langston Hughes, W.B. Du Bois, opera singer, Marion 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.

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 you. 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, right? That maybe there is freedom at some point. If I could be free here, maybe someday I could be free there. 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 with in two years of the Robeson's visit, Stalin will enact the great purge in which he imprisons or executes his so-called enemies. 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 U.S. 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, because, becomes one of the world's most famous supporters of the USSR. And his son, Polly, 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.

Pauly will later learn that the FBI opened a file on his mom. What are you thinking right now? just at the FBI and the CIA and the State Department and all just thinking about all the people who's had files opened up on them for for having an imagination right 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 who are experiencing similar things might be free and they're being punished or at least being sort of investigated due to said imagination. You know, it's just, it's interesting to think about. 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 a very important.

is organizing against lynching, job discrimination, and mob violence, and he's campaigning for progressive causes around the world. I would just like to add one other word that this is a time of struggle. Paul would speak to packed out venues, bars, churches, concert halls, even to kids at summer camp. 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 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 George, 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 public. an article with the headline, Paul Robeson, is he a man or a Soviet mouse? So Essie is like in Mexico when all this happens, and she's like, oh my God, she gets out of her typewriter. She's like, everybody. You know us.

We've been in this for 20 years at this point, 20, 30 years. We understand that tensions are high, but you know that we are doing everything that we're doing to help America realize its promise. And the public is like, oh, well, yeah, that's kind of a good point. And then Pauly marries a white girl. and the public is like, boo, you guys are communist, we hate you. Essie goes back to her typewriter, and she writes,

do, da, da, da, da. Oh, yeah, I declare war on all of our enemies. And then she just, like, writes this article going off on everybody. She's like, you booed my son. I'm coming for you. I'm coming for you. I'm coming for you. She's just like...

I'm still a fan. This is what I'm talking about. Yeland would never. Paul's viral moment when he was misquoted has big consequences for him and his family. They're now targets of the U.S. government and a coordinated effort to discredit and ultimately erase him from every corner of public life begins. Which brings me to how he came to forget the Robesons. It's 1950. The State Department demands that Paul.

All in S.E. Sign loyalty oaths disavowing communism. They refuse. Their passports are revoked. So you're Polly. 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. I'm proud of my parents. If I'm me and they're my parents, these are people who raised me. I think I would have been sad and 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. Yeah. Right? If them, you're parents, then you go ahead and you sign up for what it is. 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 USS, are under Stalin is this like violent, authoritarian regime, they remain unwavering in their belief in communism. So Essie's question by Joseph McCarthy and his little protege Roy Cohn, who is the mentor to the current president. They want to know why she's so obsessed with Africa. If she's like an American and why she love 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, you know, 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 him that he's literally a lawyer. If you'll recall, that's where all this started. Plus, he's an order 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.

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. If you can believe it, after these testimonies, they do not get their passports back.

I can't believe it. 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 NACP 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 loss income. Paula Nessie have to sell their home and move in with Polly. 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 say 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. Right. 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 slid 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 that seems to help.

Polly 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, Pauly recovers, but Paul does not. At times he seems fine, and other times he's dangerously depressed and completely disoriented. And then Paul's London doctors suggest 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 Polly rushes to London and he's horrified.

At the clinic, Paul has been subjected to near daily debilitated. 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 Pauly'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 MK Ultra. I'm obviously a little more toward the Pauley side where it's like I think they poison them. And for his son to get sick too. Yeah. 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, I mean, I, because there's anger there for me. Yeah. Because it's a pattern. Right. Actually, of Paul, Curtis 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, I, 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, you know, be the change we want to see. And then I read everything that they did. They did every single thing.

like a person could think to do to make not only black life, but all life better. And we forgot. And I just, 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. But that's the thing, right? You say we forgot, we didn't forget, we never knew. Right? the information, his life had been redacted. Right. 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, right? If I, 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.

the only thing left to get me is to make it so that I never existed. Right? It's 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, right? Because it's one of those...

Because it sounds so ten-foily. Yes, yeah. But if I'm only looking at what is happening, right? It's like James Baldwin. No, I don't... don't know if you hate me, but I know that my, I know my kids ain't got no books in these schools. 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. You know, when you say they know who we are, people know who we are, I think a lot about the fact that there's 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 I, when I'm in archives, when I'm reading the, the like 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, I've never even seen. And I think, like, man, there's so much power in that. And I didn't know. And that is by design. Nicole Hill. She's a host of the award-winning show, Our Ancestors Were Messy. What you've 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 podcast. and there are so many wonderful stories that Nicole tells. I highly recommend checking out the episode about Nora Holt and the one about Zora Neal 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 Nicole. From the Bay of Massachusetts, out into the golden gate,

Henry Wallace leads his army against destruction, fear, and hate. We Americans will save the precious land that we create. For the people's marches on. Act two, sincerely, absolutely not. Okay, 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 Jordan Anderson. Anderson wrote a letter in response. It was published in a newspaper in 1865 and is read here at a live event by Lawrence Fishburn. To my old master, the letter, Dayton, Ohio, August 7th, 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 Jordan

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 for harbour and rebs that they found at your house. I suppose they never heard. I heard about your going to Colonel Martins 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,

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. 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, Well, 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. 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 from Mandy,

and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams Express and 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, Jordan Anderson. Lawrence Fishburn, 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. The 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 U.S. 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, Emmanuel?

But there was also something comforting about recognizing what my name is. 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. Daniel from the lion's den, Jonah from the belly of the wave, and the Hebrew children from the fiery furnace, and why not ever remind you?

Our program today was produced by Emmanuel Jochi. The people who put together today's show include Fia Bennon, Dana Chivis, Michael Cometay, Molly, Marcello, Tobin Lowe, Catherine, Raimondo, Stowe Nelson, Ruthie, Petito, Nadia Raymond, Anthony Roman, Ryan Rumrey, and Ike Shrewkandarajah, Lily Sullivan, Francis Swanson, Christopher Swatala, Marisa Robertson-Texter, Nancy Updike, and Julie Whitaker. Our managing editor is Sarah Abduraman. Our senior editor is David Kestimbaum. The original Our Ancestors Were Messy Team includes executive producer Adriana Ambrez, sound design by Kyle Murdoch, research producer and narrator Chioke Ayanson, story producer, Martina Abraham's Ilunga. Special thanks to Nate Wong,

John DeLore, Sean Usher, Angelina Mosier, Salazar, Abby Conklin, Tom Preston, Benjamin Dolly, and everyone at Virginia Public Media. Also, thanks to Connor 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 This AmericanLife.org slash Life Partners. 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 Emmanuel Berry. Ira Glass will be back next.

next week with more stories of this American life.