The Family and Friends of Asbury and Green Chappel, Inc and The Frederick Douglass Honor Society have joined together bringing to Easton and the Mid-Shore the powerful stage production “Paul Robeson,” staring Jason McKinney, as Paul Robeson and Christopher Bagley as Lawrence Brown.
This one evening only performance takes place on Saturday, September 8, 2012, 7:30 PM at the Todd Performing Acts Center, Chesapeake College, Wye Mills, MD. Tickets for this production are available through the Todd Performing Arts Center Box Office: (410) 827-5867, 10 AM – 4 PM Monday through Friday.
A retrospective on Robeson’s triumphs and disappoints, “Paul Robeson” by playwright Phillip Hayes Dean, chronicles in word and music the life and legacy of this culture-shaping American. The epitome of the 20th-century Renaissance man Paul Robeson was an exceptional athlete, actor, singer, cultural scholar, author, and political activist. His talents made him a revered man of his time, yet his radical political beliefs all but erased him from popular history. Today, more than one hundred years after his birth, Robeson is just beginning to receive the credit he is due.
During the 1940s, Robeson’s political activism brought him to the attention of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Despite his contributions as an entertainer to the Allied forces during World War II, Robeson was singled out as a major threat to American democracy. Every attempt was made to silence and discredit him. Of this time, Lawrence Brown, writer and long-time colleague of Robeson, states: “Paul Robeson was the most persecuted, the most ostracized, the most condemned black man in America, then or ever.”
To this day, Paul Robeson’s many accomplishments remain eclipsed by the propaganda of those who sought to silence his voice. His role as a spokesman for civil rights here in the US and around the world remains relatively unknown. Though a handful of movies and recordings are still available, they are a sad testament to one of the greatest Americans of the twentieth century. If we are to remember Paul Robeson for anything, it should be for the courage and the dignity with which he struggled for his own personal voice and for the rights of all people.
Proceeds from this performance benefit the Fredrick Douglass Honor Society’s Endowed Scholarship Fund and the ongoing restoration efforts of the Asbury and Green Chappel.
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