Paul Robeson High School for Business and Technology

Last night I saw a sign in the background of a news clip which threw me for a bit of a loop: Paul Robeson High School for Business and Technology. According to WikiPedia, it is part of the New York City Department of Education.

My recollection of Paul Robeson and his politics was pretty hazy, but my impression was pretty strong that he was a communist. He seemed like an odd person to honor by putting his name on a school of business in the United States. So this morning I looked him up.

Robeson claimed to not be a member of any communist party. OK. And he clearly was on the right side in the civil rights struggles of the day. In fact, he seems to have been one of the giants in such basic fights as stopping racist lynchings and legal segregation. On those issues he was on the side of the angels.

On the other hand, while he may never have written a dues check to any communist party, it is hard to imagine he wasn't a communist. And that makes it a bit weird for any pro-capitalism group to name a business school in his honor. Of course, one might reasonably question whether the New York City Department of Education is pro-capitalism.

Without getting into the curriculum or politics of the staff, the school's mission statement can hardly be faulted. It concludes with "We will prepare our students to use business and technology to achieve their personal best, to fulfill their responsibility to their community and to positively influence the course of events in the 21st century." But a Paul Robeson School of Business? How about a Typhoid Mary School of Public Health?

From WikiPedia:

Commenting in 1935 to the Daily Worker on the execution of several peoples as counter-revolutionary terrorists, Robeson said: "From what I have already seen of the workings of the Soviet Government, I can only say that anybody who lifts his hand against it ought to be shot!"

And:

By December 1937 Robeson...spoke out in favor of the emerging Communist revolution in China

Further:

At a Bill of Rights Conference in New York in July 1949, Robeson denounced a motion, which called for the freeing of nineteen members of the Socialist Workers Party convicted in 1941, calling the imprisoned Trotskyists- who were at odds with the Soviet leadership-"the allies of Fascism who want to destroy the new democracies of the world...let's not get confused, they are the enemies of the working class. Would you give civil rights to the Ku Klux Klan?"

Robeson apparently considered Joe Stalin a great guy:

In April 1953, shortly after Stalin's death, Robeson penned a eulogy entitled To You Beloved Comrade, praising Stalin as being dedicated to peace and a guidance to the world: "Through his deep humanity, by his wise understanding, he leaves us a rich and monumental heritage."

To Robeson, the good old Soviet Union was a bulwark against capitalism:

Robeson is on record many times as stating that he felt the "existence of a major socialist power like the USSR was a bulwark against Western European capitalist domination of Africa, Asia and the Caribbean." At no time is Paul Robeson on record of mentioning any unhappiness or regrets about his support for the Soviet Union and his hopes for socialism in Africa and Asia.