in youth he had refused to remain a slave, so in all the years of his manhood he disdained to be an Uncle Tom. From him we learned, and never doubted it, that the Negro was in every way the equal of the white man. And we fiercely resolved to prove it.
Paul's education, then, began in his home, at the hands of two well-educated parents, but especially from his father, because his mother died when he was six. It was father William "who oversaw the family's intellectual and moral development." Paul also learned the "skills of public oratory" from his minister-father.
Paul went to all-black elementary schools, and then an integrated high school, where his relations with whites were established, a mixture of respect, defiance and realism:
In high school Robeson had positive experiences with whites, except for clashes with a racist principal who hated him for his qualities as an outstanding scholar and athlete. As a result, he regarded whites, on balance, as individuals, but he realized that most whites did not welcome competition from blacks. . . .
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