Ever heard of Paul Robeson?
I was listening to one of my favorite artists, Saul Willams, the other day – when it occurred to me that he speaks about some historical figures that I didn’t know much about. One of these is Paul Robeson. Saul Williams has a song entitled Robeson, and also mentions the name in “Coded Language” which is on the same album (Amethyst Rockstar). I really enjoy learning, and Saul Williams is an artist whose lyrics have a lot to offer in terms of knowledge, so I took some time to do a little research.
It turns out that Paul Robeson’s life is really interesting. While wikipedia is generally not to be considered an absolute source of facts, the entry regarding Paul Robeson is more than enlightening. I’m not going to quote the page here, since you can just read it yourself, but I will say that if you want to read about an interesting figure in American history, particularly if you are interesting in African American history, it’s well worth the time to read. Also, with regards to wikipedia as a source of facts, this entry is chock full of real references and cited sources.