Whenever people say "cancel culture" is a new thing, I think about how Paul Robeson's 1948 concerts were canceled by the FBI, or how, when visiting my parents from college in 2003, I actually--seriously--wasn't allowed to buy French cheese for them from the grocery store.

The life of Paul Robeson was something else. A complex person and pushed to extremes by harassment. But I don't think anyone has faced a cancellation like Paul Robeson.

In 1949, he spoke at a Soviet-sponsored conference in Paris: We in America do not forget that it was on the backs of white workers from Europe and millions of blacks that the wealth of America was built."

The Associated Press sent out a faked version of his speech:

The AP's faked version: "We denounce the policy of the United States government which is similar to Hitler and Goebbels."

Thanks to that, ahead of a Robeson concert in Peekskill, people lynched Robeson in effigy, burned crosses, and wounded 13 people.

The Joint Veterans Council of Peekskill described this as a "protest parade... held without disorder and... perfectly disbanded." The commander of the American Legion stated: "Our objective was to prevent the Paul Robeson concert and I think our objective was reached."

In subsequent anti-Robeson riots, the first black combat pilot, Eugene Bullard, was beaten by the police.

The House of Representatives' response was ... to condemn Robeson. Southern Democrats denounced Robeson on the House Floor as "that n***** Communist." And then ...

The U.S. State Department revoked Robeson's passport!

Stuck inside the U.S., 80 of his concerts were cancelled.

The State Dep't actually told him his passport was revoked because his "criticism of the treatment of blacks in the U.S. should not be aired in foreign countries."

I remember watching Robeson's sublime rendition of "Ol' Man River" from the movie Show Boat.

Robeson plays a boat laborer who becomes jealous of the Mississippi River: "You and me, we sweat and strain ... but ol' man river, he just keeps rollin' along."

And I remember hearing Robeson became a Communist sympathizer.

His cancellation, though, happened well BEFORE his serious Communist turn. There was a tragic dynamic: a man forced by the free country that hated him into the arms of the Soviets, who treated him as a pawn.

By 1956, Robeson still had no passport.

He had to sing his concerts in London *over the telephone.*

In 1936's Show Boat, Robeson's black character sings these haunting final words: "I'm tired of living, but scared of dying."

In the 1960s, after decades of harassment, Robeson tried to commit suicide several times.

Even after Robeson had become a recluse, the State Department and CIA repeatedly attempted to rescind his passport *again*, nearly until his death in 1976.

In one sense, Robeson's life shows how incredibly hard it is to cancel beauty--to cancel a powerful voice.

We still listen to Paul Robeson, all his tens of thousands of would-be cancelers have been forgotten.