Paul Robeson honored on center's 25th anniversary

"(Today) is a day for looking backwards with our historical eye, and for looking forward with our futuristic eye," Lawrence W. Young, director of the Paul Robeson Cultural Center, said yesterday.

Robeson Sr., the son of a slave, was an accomplished football player, actor, singer and scholar. He supported civil rights, African awareness, and ethnic integration, which Robeson Jr. said was different from black assimilation.

"Ethnic integration is making a group integrated as equal to any other ethnic group," Robeson Jr. said. "The problem for America . . . is the tricky and inaccurate idea that the color of someone's skin determines them as a human being."

Behind Robeson Sr.'s ideas were six basic goals revolving around the ideas of struggling to advance oneself and one's people, despite unavoidable obstacles.

Not only did he believe these goals, but he followed them. People must not just look for them in others, but model them in themselves, Robeson Jr. said.

"We have this thirst for icons in this country," he said.

The problem with making a hero in American society, he said, is creating an invitation to kill the hero, like Moses or Martin Luther King Jr.

Robeson Sr. was persecuted by culture like these men, though not to death, his son said. As a black man in the early 20th Century, he said, Robeson Sr. endured singing about his race as "niggers" who would get drunk and go to jail.

Robeson Sr. starred in 11 feature films, but left the industry because he felt the roles he had to play as a black man were stereotypical. He was also protesting the stereotypical characters of other races.

Politically, Robeson Sr. was blacklisted in the '50s for refusing to reveal to Congress the names of any of his colleagues or family members as part of the Communist party, Robeson Jr. said.

Robeson Sr. also challenged the Cold War, the failure of the U.S. to support colonial independence, and the failure of the U.S. to end segregation.

"That's why he was so persecuted, because he challenged the foundations of what he thought were wrong policies," Robeson Jr. said.

At the conclusion of the speech, the audience of about 75 people gave Robeson Jr. a standing ovation.

Robeson Sr., who Vice President for Student Affairs Bill Asbury called "the true Renaissance Man," had the center named after him for the example he set. Robeson Sr.'s success is also mimicked in the success of the center.

"The center has come to serve hundreds of thousands of Penn Staters," Young said. "It's important to reflect on the success it's had."

The center was originally built as a temporary student union building during the construction of the HUB. In 1969, several black students asked to name the center the Black Cultural Center. The name was changed to the Paul Robeson Cultural Center in 1973.

In 1999, the center will become a part of the HUB during the HUB/Robeson Center expansion.

"I'm excited," Young said, who has been director of the center for 15 years. "It will literally lead us forward into the 21st Century."