Songs Under Egyptian Skies: How SWANA Travels Shaped The Activist Paul Robeson Would Become

By Razan Idris

This year, Philadelphia celebrates the 125th birthday of the Black singer-actor and international activist Paul Robeson at his final home in West Philly. Robeson began his youth as a Columbia-trained lawyer in New York. After facing racial discrimination, he instead became the best-known entertainer in the United States, and traveled the world as a performer. With the interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s marking a time of global Black renaissance, Robeson slowly became ever-more radical in his political critiques of his homeland. He spent his middle age as a persecuted human rights activist before landing in Philadelphia after being denied a passport by the US government. Although Robeson is now remembered for his beautiful voice and civil rights work, his travels in North Africa shaped the activist he would become.

In 1937, Robeson traveled to Egypt to film “Jericho”, a British film where he portrayed a soldier framed for murder in the North African desert. In later years, Robeson remarked that “Jericho” was his favorite of his films done in England due to the creative control he was given over his role as the Black lead. The following year, film-goers in Philadelphia saw “Jericho” under the name “Dark Sands”, with reviewers in the Philadelphia Inquirer billing it as “featuring the Negro baritone Paul Robeson”. But Robeson did not film “Jericho” by chance.

Robeson’s career as an actor was supported and influenced by the often under-studied anthropologist and activist Eslanda Goode Robeson, who was also his wife. In December 2022, the Paul Robeson House dedicated a reading room to Eslanda’s memory, and the executive director of the museum Janice Sykes-Ross stated, “[Eslanda] was [Robeson’s] manager and she got him involved in activism. She got him involved in the arts. She was the person who encouraged him to pursue acting and singing on a professional level.

UNITED STATES - AUGUST 20: The "Peace Under the Stars Rally" at Triboro Stadium, Randall's Island, Mr. Paul Robeson and his wife Mrs. Eslanda Goode Robeson who gave one of the principal addresses at the rally. (Photo by George Torrie/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

Before Robeson’s Egyptian venture, Eslanda traveled to Africa with her son, Pauli, to complete research for her doctorate in anthropology in 1936. But during Eslanda’s tour of the African continent, she took deep notes on the colonial power politics of the continent and connected them to her experiences in the United States. When Eslanda saw both the cities of Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt, she was deeply impressed with the racial diversity there, writing: “The people were all colors, very like our own negros in America - from deep black through all the shades of brown to rich cream and white”. With Eslanda’s encouragement, Robeson came to Egypt to film “Jericho” by the new year.

When Robeson arrived in Alexandria in 1937, he gave an enthusiastic interview to a journalist from al-Ahram, the most prominent Egyptian newspaper at the time, about “his first time on African soil”. Robeson also spoke about his love of Egyptian phonographs, humming melodies which his interviewer recognized as the songs of the famous Egyptian singers Mohamed Abdel-Wahhab and Sayyid Darwish.

As Robeson and his interviewer chatted, he talked about how similar the sounds of “Eastern” music and African American music were, describing them as similarly emotional and soulful. Al-Ahram had previously translated Robeson’s critique of race in American cinema for an Egyptian audience, and Robeson would continue to be interviewed for his opinions about race in the United States during his stay in Alexandria. By the end of his time in Egypt, Robeson even picked up some Egyptian Arabic as part of his efforts to connect with Africans on the continent by learning several languages. 

As part of the lead-up to the 125th birthday of Paul Robeson and the dedication of Paul Robeson Street, the Paul Robeson House screened “Jericho”. Across the screen, African American, Sudanese, and Egyptian faces all intermingled, much like the faces of West Philadelphia today. As SWANA communities continue to grow and thrive in Philadelphia, it is important to archive the shared historical connections between the SWANA region and African American activists such as Robeson. Through the memories of elders stored in places such as the Paul Robeson House, communities of color can continue to stand hand in hand against injustice in their Philly neighborhoods today.

Razan Idris is a Sudanese-American PhD candidate in History at the University of Pennsylvania and the curator of the #SudanSyllabus, working on a project tentatively titled The Colors of the Earth: Blackness in 1930s Egypt