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Paul Robeson and Malcolm X

The lives of Paul Robeson and Malcolm X seem quite different in terms of the social milieu through which they moved, yet there are also numerous similarities, especially those associated with being a leading black male in a society infused with racism and discriminatory attitudes. Both men were leaders in the black community, sometimes accepted by the larger society, and at the same time vilified by opponents in the white community as dangerous radicals who needed to be made examples of to deter others from following in their footsteps and from challenging the existing power structure in American society. Both men were also part of a tradition of social reform and protest extending back at least as far as W.E.B. DuBois, a hero to both and a personal friend to Robeson.

In many ways, Robeson was more favored in life than was Malcolm Little, later to be called Malcolm X. For both men, education would be an important element in their success, but the natures of their respective educational experience were very different. Their family lives as children also were quite different. Paul Robeson was born in 1890 in Princeton, New Jersey, far from the racially troubled South. The civil war had ended some 30 years before. The slaves had been freed, but the free blacks had not achieved equality or overcome the discrimination that replaced slavery. Blacks and whites were sharply divided in the North as well as in the South, and Robeson would remember his schooling as taking place in a segregated atmosphere. For years, no blacks could go to the prestigious Princeton University, where so many of the students and faculty came from the South. Blacks in Princeton lived in modest homes. Paul's father was a highly respected pastor known for his courage in representing his congregation. He was college-educated in an era when few blacks were and few Americans were even high-school educated.

When Paul was six, his mother died in a fire ...

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Paul Robeson and Malcolm X. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 12:45, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1690801.html