[Until] recently it was rare to find an American under 18 who knew who Paul Robeson is. However, within less than a year, several of his old films have been revived, black students at Rutgers named their student center for him, and a three part series on Robeson, sponsored by National Educational Television, won an Emmy.

Now Robeson's renaissance is further enhanced by Virginia Hamilton's outstanding biography [Paul Robeson: The Life and Times of a Free Black Man]. In a lively narrative style, she recounts Robeson's life from the warmth of his closely knit family, through his professional and political growth, to his persecution during the McCarthy witch-hunt and its final resolution. Virginia Hamilton actually tells two stories, so skillfully interwoven they are indivisible—Robeson as the black singer and actor refusing to play "darkie" parts, and Robeson as the humanist and political activist whose determination to free black...