In 1967, Paul Robeson was admitted to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia for a skin ailment. No one was allowed to see him without permission from his sister Marian Forsythe or son Paul Jr. Charles L. Blockson was not on the permissions list, but he wanted to see the man who had long been his hero.
Growing up, Blockson’s father and grandfather played Robeson’s 78 rpm records. Born in 1933, he was a child and then a grown man when Robeson reached the highs and lows of his popularity. In the 1930s and much of the 1940s, Robeson was hitting the right notes – making movies, acting on Broadway, singing in the United States and abroad, and interacting with global cultures.
“I read about Paul Robeson being a patient at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital on a cold winter day,” Blockson said in a 2018 interview for the Paul Robeson House & Museum’s video “Where Art Lives,” produced with Scribe Video Center. “It said he wasn’t seeing any visitors, but something told me to get in my car in Norristown my hometown 18 miles from Philly and drive in to see him. Something kept telling me, ‘Who do you think you are. People from all over been trying to see him and they’re being turned away,’ but I persisted.”
“I went to the reception area. The African American receptionist said Paul Robeson is not receiving any visitors. She said, ‘Mr. Blockson, I know who you are, and I’ll permit you to see him for 10 minutes, he’s in room such and such upstairs.’ I went to his room. I saw flowers, I saw the book “Black Magic” (about the history of Black entertainers), Christmas cards. I didn’t see Paul Robeson. He was out receiving X-rays.
“Something said, ‘Be patient.’ A short time later, a young African American nurse came in the room wheeling Paul Robeson in a wheelchair. He had a blue checkered robe on, and he stood up. I introduced myself. He said, ‘Yes Charles, Marian was telling me about you, that you wanted to see me. Marian being his sister, Marian (Robeson) Forsythe. So I said I won’t stay long.
“I had two books: His book “Here I Stand” and another book of his came out, Paul Robeson “Othello.” So he autographed them to me. I kept my word and stayed 10 minutes and I left.” (Robeson published “Here I Stand” in 1958. “Paul Robeson: The American Othello” by Edwin Hoyt came out in 1967.)
“I’ll never forget this as long as I live,” Blockson told a newspaper reporter in 1987. “There was a magnetic force when he shook my hand, and we talked, and he told me the importance of collecting and that books were important to our history and the history of all people, and that we came from a proud heritage.”
Robeson moved to Philadelphia in 1966, a year after the death of his wife Eslanda, to live with his older sister Marian Forsythe and her daughter Paulina. They lived in a corner twin house at 4951 Walnut Street, which is currently the location of the Paul Robeson House & Museum.
Blockson had much in common with Robeson: Both were football players (Robeson at Rutgers University and Blockson at Pennsylvania State University), collected and enjoyed books, possessed a insatiable love for the history of African Americans, and descended from the Igbo people of Nigeria.
Blockson is the among the country’s foremost bibliophiles and collectors of Black history, amassing a collection of more than 500,000 materials pertaining to the experiences of Black people in this country and across the world. The collection consists of books, manuscripts, sheet music, pamphlets, journals, newspapers, broadsides, posters, photographs and rare documents. He donated the collection – the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection – to Temple University in 1984. He has also authored more than a dozen books.
Blockson has put his admiration for Robeson into tangible products: He was the impetus behind the placement of a state historical marker on the sidewalk in front of the house in 1991. With artist Frank Stephens in 1998, he curated a series of panels on Robeson’s life, achievements and contributions titled “From These Roots,” which are in the Paul Robeson House & Museum. Blockson said that he commissioned artist Cal Massey to create portraits of Robeson’s parents, the Rev. William Drew Robeson and Maria Bustill Robeson; Robeson’s sister Marian and Robeson. Blockson was a longtime patron of the house, starting with its purchase by Frances P. Aulston and the West Philadelphia Cultural Alliance in 1994.
His interest in the history of African Americans stretches far back. In fourth grade, a substitute teacher was reviewing American history, spewing out the usual names of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin. “I raised my hand,” Blockson recalled once in an interview. “I was curious. I always had an interest in humanity and history and art. I said, ‘Are there any colored people that we could emulate besides Paul Robeson, Jessie Owens, Marian Anderson?’
“She said, ‘No Charles. Negroes were born to serve white people.’ She wasn’t a bigoted person per se. But she was a victim of her environment. … About 20 years later, I met her. She said she was proud of what I was doing, and she apologized. She said she didn’t know when she told me that remark. She said she was always hurt, because this was the way she was taught. So it was like I forgave her. I didn’t hold any grudges.”
Stung by the teacher’s words but not trapped by them, Blockson spent years buying books, ephemera and artifacts about Black history. Among them were materials pertaining to Robeson.
He never expected to meet Robeson. But he did, three times in the late 1960s and 1970s, twice at Forsythe’s home. He was told each time not to mention his visit.
“We had an exhibition going on called the Black Film Exhibition about black movie stars. Something told me to take the poster around to 4951 Walnut Street and have Paul Robeson sign it,” Blockson said of a 1972 visit. “I was a little leery because so many people were turned away. Mrs. Forsythe wouldn’t permit them to see Paul because of the instructions from Paul Jr., didn’t want people bothering his father. But they knew of my love for him. She permitted me to come in and I did.
“I was sitting down(stairs) waiting for him to come down to sign the poster for the Black Film Festival. She said you have a lucky day. Paul is upstairs. He’s having one of his better days. So I waited patiently on the couch, and I heard BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM coming down the steps. Something told me that moment, he was okay, the strength in his steps.”
Robeson signed the poster, which hangs in the research room at the Blockson collection at Temple.
Blockson said he saw Robeson for the last time a few months before the great man died. He had brought with him a copy of his book to present to Robeson as a gift. It was the day before Blockson’s Dec. 16 birthday.
“’Pennsylvania’s Black History’ was published, so I took a copy around to Mrs. Forsythe his sister and knocked on the door,” he said. “Paulina his niece – Paulina was named after him – she came to the door, she said, ‘Charles, Uncle Paul isn’t feeling too well today.’ I said I won’t stay long. She cracked the door. She had Venetian blinds on the door. They would scrutinize anyone who came to the door before they let them in. She cracked the door enough for me to see him sitting at the dining room table holding his two hands to his head nodding back and forth.
“I had the strange feeling his time was near. … I left the book. Three and a half weeks later he died in Presbyterian Hospital.” Robeson died on Jan. 23, 1976.
Forsythe died the following year, and Paulina moved out of the house. Blockson made a final stop by the vacant house.
“In the closet upstairs in his room there was an overcoat and a suit, a pair of shoes,” Blockson said. “Paul Robeson and I were the same height, 6-3, 215 pounds. I started to put the overcoat on. I was going to take them as a museum piece, but a voice said, ‘Let those clothes be.’ And even today I wish I had taken those clothes and shoes.
“Then I went downstairs. On the floor there were three photographs of Judge (Raymond) Pace Alexander and his wife Sadie Alexander, attorney; Paul Robeson, Mrs. Forsythe and Paul in his robe – the same blue and white robe I saw in the hospital – taking a picture. There on the floor I found telegrams from all over. People who cleaned the place out, they left a lot of materials, so I got on my hands and knees and picked them up and I have them here today.”
