Paul Robeson Centennial
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Thank you for the engaging article about the resurgence of gospel music (Nov. 10).
Your readers might also be interested in knowing that significant credit for the popularization of gospel music as well as African American spiritual and folk music should be given to Paul Robeson (who, incidentally, would have turned 100 years old next April 9). During 1998 there will be events worldwide, nationwide and throughout Southern California celebrating Robeson’s legacy. Events will include concerts featuring spiritual/gospel music.
Undoubtedly one of the first “crossover” concerts occurred on April 19, 1925. Robeson, accompanied by Lawrence Brown, gave the first concert composed entirely of Negro spiritual and folk music to an interracial audience, at the Greenwich Village Theatre. The audience was composed of the most sophisticated New Yorkers, including George Gershwin and James Weldon Johnson.
Robeson and Brown toured the country for the next four years, raising the Negro spiritual and folk and work songs to a true level of honor and integrity. Said Robeson of their mission, “All that breaks the heart and oppresses the soul will one day give place to peace and understanding, and every man will be free. That is the interpretation of the Negro spiritual.” Amen to that.
JAN GOODMAN, Exec. Dir.
Paul Robeson Centennial Committee of Southern California
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