Paul Robeson
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50 free Paul Robeson trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Paul Robeson packed several careers into one life. He was a scholarship student and two-time All-American at Rutgers, a professional football player, a law graduate, a concert singer with one of the most recognizable voices of the century, and a stage and film star on both sides of the ocean. He was also one of the most outspoken activists of his era, and he paid for it: blacklisted at home, stripped of the right to travel, and left out of the record books for years. These fun facts come from every chapter, from his college days in New Jersey to the concerts he found ways to give when he could not leave the country. The quiz suits students working on a Black history project, Rutgers fans, and anyone who knows the voice but not the full story. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01A dark red heirloom variety of which garden crop from the Soviet Union carries Paul Robeson's name?
Tomato
The Paul Robeson tomato is a dusky Soviet heirloom, named in a country where the singer once drew a tumultuous stadium crowd in Moscow.
Q 02Which physicist came backstage after a 1935 Paul Robeson concert and stayed a friend for nearly twenty years?
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein bonded with Robeson over music and a shared hatred of fascism, though their friendship was little publicized at the time.
Q 03Paul Robeson's 1941 recording helped spread March of the Volunteers, later which country's national anthem?
China
China adopted the march as its anthem after 1949, and Robeson, who sang it in Chinese and English, kept sending royalties to the family of its jailed lyricist.
Q 04In 1960, Paul Robeson became the first major artist to perform at which landmark, still under construction?
Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House was years from opening when Robeson sang for its construction workers during a two-month tour of Australia and New Zealand.
Q 05Barred from leaving America in 1957, Paul Robeson sang live to a London concert hall using which technology?
Undersea phone cable
An undersea phone cable, the newly laid TAT-1, carried Robeson's voice from New York to St Pancras Town Hall, where the tickets had sold out within an hour.
Q 06Paul Robeson was among the first artists to record at which London studio, weeks before its official 1931 opening?
Abbey Road
Abbey Road, then called EMI Recording Studios, hosted Robeson for four songs in September 1931, almost two months before its formal opening.
Q 07Banned from foreign travel in 1952, Paul Robeson sang to a crowd in Canada from which border landmark?
Peace Arch
Peace Arch stands right on the border, so labor unions from both countries staged the concert there in defiance of the travel ban, and Robeson came back three more times.
Q 08Which Show Boat song became Paul Robeson's signature after he played Joe in the musical's 1928 London premiere?
Ol' Man River
Ol' Man River became the benchmark for every later singer, and Robeson eventually rewrote its resigned ending into words of defiance for his concerts.
Q 09Paul Robeson urged commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis in 1943 to admit Black players to which sport?
Baseball
Baseball's owners heard Robeson out, asked him nothing and changed nothing, and the major leagues stayed segregated for four more years.
Q 10Paul Robeson was born in 1898 in which New Jersey town, where a street is now named after him?
Princeton
Princeton was home only briefly: after his mother died when he was six, the family ended up living in the attic of a store in Westfield.
Q 11Paul Robeson's father William escaped slavery as a teenager and later worked in which profession?
Minister
Minister of a Presbyterian church for two decades, William Robeson resigned after a dispute with its white backers and was left working menial jobs.
Q 12Which academic honor society admitted Paul Robeson at Rutgers, where he also won letters in four sports?
Phi Beta Kappa
Phi Beta Kappa admitted Robeson, who also won the college oratorical contest four straight years.
Q 13Which honor did Paul Robeson's Rutgers classmates give him at graduation in 1919?
Class valedictorian
Class valedictorian Robeson used his commencement speech to urge his fellow graduates to work for equality for all Americans.
Q 21Paul Robeson scored both touchdowns in a 1922 win over Jim Thorpe's Oorang Indians for which NFL team?
Milwaukee Badgers
Milwaukee Badgers was Robeson's last stop in pro football: he retired after that 1922 season and finished his law degree the following year.
Q 22Which chemist, nicknamed Essie, married Paul Robeson in 1921 and later became his business manager?
Eslanda Goode
Eslanda Goode was the first Black head chemist in a New York hospital's pathology lab, and her salary supported the couple until his career took off.
Q 23Which playwright wrote All God's Chillun Got Wings, the 1924 drama that gave Paul Robeson a lead role?
Eugene O'Neill
Q 14Rutgers, where Paul Robeson enrolled on an academic scholarship in 1915, sits in which New Jersey city?
New Brunswick
New Brunswick voted in 2019 to rename Commercial Avenue as Paul Robeson Boulevard, a century after he graduated.
Q 15Paul Robeson put himself through which university's law school with his pay from professional football?
Columbia
Columbia gave Robeson his law degree, but he quit the profession soon after, when a white secretary at his firm refused to take dictation from him.
Q 16Which football pioneer, selector of the All-America teams, called Paul Robeson the greatest end ever?
Walter Camp
Walter Camp is known as the father of American football, and his praise came as Robeson earned All-American honors in both 1917 and 1918.
Q 17Rutgers benched Paul Robeson in 1916 when which Southern college refused to play against a Black athlete?
Washington and Lee
Washington and Lee refused to take the field during Rutgers' 150th anniversary celebrations, and the college left its sophomore star on the bench.
Q 18Which Rutgers honor society inducted Paul Robeson, who was also the college's first Black football player?
Cap and Skull
Cap and Skull inducted Robeson even though he was only the third Black student Rutgers had ever enrolled, and the only one on campus at the time.
Q 19Rutgers marked 100 years since Paul Robeson's graduation in 2019 by dedicating what in his honor?
An open-air plaza
An open-air plaza on the College Avenue campus tells Robeson's story on eight black granite panels, an idea championed by the Class of 1971.
Q 20Which football trailblazer, the NFL's first Black head coach, recruited Paul Robeson to the Akron Pros?
Fritz Pollard
Fritz Pollard had befriended Robeson years earlier during a summer job in Rhode Island, and in 1976 he served as one of the pallbearers at his funeral.
Eugene O'Neill's play, about a Black man married to a white woman, stirred such a nationwide controversy that its opening had to be postponed.
Q 24In which 1933 film did Paul Robeson play Brutus, a Pullman porter who jumps ship and takes over a remote island?
The Emperor Jones
The Emperor Jones paid Robeson $5,000 a week, and his one condition was that nothing be filmed south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Q 25Which pioneering Black filmmaker directed Paul Robeson's screen debut in the 1925 silent film Body and Soul?
Oscar Micheaux
Oscar Micheaux made his films for Black audiences outside Hollywood, and the deal was negotiated by Robeson's wife, who had quit her job to act as his agent.
Q 26Which Show Boat composer said the organ-like tones of Paul Robeson's speaking voice inspired one of its melodies?
Jerome Kern
Jerome Kern then visited Robeson's Harlem apartment and played the piano while the singer tried out the brand-new song.
Q 27After starring in Show Boat in London, Paul Robeson gave a Royal Command Performance at which residence?
Buckingham Palace
Buckingham Palace welcomed Robeson, yet around the same time London's Savoy Grill refused to seat him, an insult he made public in a press release.
Q 28Which future Dame played Desdemona opposite Paul Robeson's Othello at London's Savoy Theatre in 1930?
Peggy Ashcroft
Peggy Ashcroft was astonished to receive hate mail for acting beside a Black star, and angry that the hotel next door to the theatre would not welcome him.
Q 29Paul Robeson's 1930 Othello was billed as the first by a Black actor in Britain since which 19th-century star?
Ira Aldridge
Ira Aldridge, born in New York, left America in 1824 to escape discrimination and made his name on European stages.
Q 30Paul Robeson's 1943 Broadway run set the record for the longest-running production of a play by which dramatist?
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare's Othello ran for 296 Broadway performances with Robeson in the lead, the first Black actor to play the part there with a white supporting cast.