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Robeson Protesting Racial Segregation

Black and white photo. Paul Robeson marching in front of the theater. Like others in the demonstration, he carries a protest sign hung from his shoulders. His sign reads FORD’S DISCRIMINATES AGAINST AMERICAN CITIZENS. Robeson, wearing a dark suit and fedora, marches behind a woman in an oval hat carrying a sign protesting racial segregation at Ford’s Theater.

Paul Robeson (second from left) joining members of the Baltimore chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in a picket line in front of Ford's Theater, Baltimore, to protest the theater's policy of racial segregation. Robeson, who was a quarter-century older than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, set an example of civil rights militancy that was all but forgotten during the “heroic age” of the Civil Rights Movement.

1948
Attribution/Credit

Paul Robeson Photo Collection, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs & Prints Division, The New York Public Library. "Alphaeus Hunton with his wife, Dorothy, Paul Robeson, and W.E.B. Du Bois" New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed January 15, 2022. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/07dba650-c5f2-012f-73a5-58d385a7bc34