• Despite an openly racist high school principal who tried to intentionally sabotage this student, the student persevered and won a statewide competition for a full, four-year scholarship to Rutgers University. Four years later the student was Valedictorian of his/her graduating class at Rutgers. The student was also elected to the select national honors society, Phi Beta Kappa.

• This athlete won 15 sports letters in college football, basketball, baseball and track and field; was twice elected to the collegiate All-American Football Team; and played in a National Football League Championship Game.

• This man graduated from Columbia Law School, wrote a book, and established a newspaper. (HINT: Later, in the 1970s, he was proclaimed by "Ebony" magazine as one of the 10 most important Black men in American history.)

• An internationally acclaimed singer performing to sold-out audiences around the world in venues like New York City's Carnegie Hall, this artist was almost single-handedly credited with bringing the "Negro Spiritual" to world-wide attention and establishing the genre's significance as artistic, religious, political and cultural expression.

• This justice crusader boldly spoke out AGAINST prejudice, lynchings, discrimination and racism, and FOR freedom and workers' rights, despite threats, danger and damage to life, career, and her/his own freedom of artistic and political expression.

• This actor was considered by many theater critics to have accomplished an astounding interpretive transformation of Shakespeare's character, Othello. He was also credited by many to have given the most significant performance ever in that role.

• This international social activist was the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the Abraham Lincoln Medal for notable and distinguished service in human relations; the NAACP's most prestigious award, the Spingarn Medal; and the Soviet Union's highest honor, the Stalin Peace Prize.

• Because of his beliefs and strong convictions, this man had his U.S. passport revoked, despite protests from nations all over the world, and was denied the freedom to travel out of the United States for eight years. Eventually the United States Supreme Court ruled that the revocation of his passport had been unconstitutional and illegal.

• This popular artist earned $100,000 in 1947, but seven years later was earning only $6,000 per year due to harassment by the FBI, and to the pressures put on local theaters, recording companies and filmmakers to exclude him from his artistic career.

PAUL ROBESON IS ALL THAT! (and DID all that!)