Q 01/05

A dark red heirloom variety of which garden crop from the Soviet Union carries Paul Robeson's name?

A) Beetroot

B) Pepper

C) Tomato

D) Radish

Answer · why

C) 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 02/05

Which physicist came backstage after a 1935 Paul Robeson concert and stayed a friend for nearly twenty years?

A) Albert Einstein

B) Niels Bohr

C) Enrico Fermi

D) Robert Oppenheimer

Answer · why

A) 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 03/05

Paul Robeson's 1941 recording helped spread March of the Volunteers, later which country's national anthem?

A) Vietnam

B) Cuba

C) Ghana

D) China

Answer · why

D) 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 ...

Q 04/05

In 1960, Paul Robeson became the first major artist to perform at which landmark, still under construction?

A) Seattle Space Needle

B) Sydney Opera House

C) Lincoln Center

D) Gateway Arch

Answer · why

B) 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 05/05

Barred from leaving America in 1957, Paul Robeson sang live to a London concert hall using which technology?

A) Shortwave radio broadcast

B) Early satellite relay

C) Undersea phone cable

D) Live television link

Answer · why

C) 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...