Paul Robeson was the only black student at Rutgers (he got in after being class valedictorian in high school and starring in four sports), and became a two-time All-American end AND the Rutgers valedictorian as well as the most extraordinary singer on campus. After graduating he somehow managed to go to Columbia Law School, play in the NFL, and perform in plays and musical concerts....all at the same time. He graduated from law school, retired from the NFL, and became a legendary theater, movie, and singing star.
I'll timestamp this one to the line that matches how I feeling right now.
As his fame increased, Robeson became an activist against racism, imperialism, and fascism. He led the anti-lynching campaign, was a huge pro-union activist, and dabbled in socialism and communism. Due to his support of the USSR he was blacklisted for eight years, saw his football accomplishments erased, his television appearances cancelled, and had negative press written about him everywhere. J. Edgar Hoover made a global campaign against him to try to destroy his reputation and blocked his ability to get a passport. Still he carried on, doing international musical concerts over the fukking telephone lines and campaigning against Apartheid in South Africa and the oppression of Aborigines in Australia. Eventually his passport was restored in a Supreme Court case, and he continued to fight for the rights of Black Americans and other oppressed people through the rest of his life. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, the American Theater Hall of Fame, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and earned a Lifetime Achievement Grammy award.
Paul Robeson's testimony before the House Un-American Committee is
some of the baddest shyt you will ever see spoken to the face of White Power. The fact that a Black man was able to stand up in 1956 and speak this way to White U.S. Representatives with the power to fukk up his life makes me proud. It should be required reading in every high school class. Here James Earl Jones does a reenactment from the transcript. I promise you, listen to it and you won't spend 12 minutes better all day.
I feel a special connection to Robeson because I was a football player and an intellectual too, and I also sacrificed in my career to fight for the struggle instead. Of course nothing I've done in any sphere of life can even compare to him, but he's one of those people that I consider a hero and a role model and one of the greatest people that America has ever produced.
i know that ol man rivers song too. thats deep all of it. 
