ESLANDA: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson by Barbara Ransby (review)

Having written a highly regarded biography of Ella Baker, Barbara Ransby has turned her attention to Eslanda “Essie” Goode Robeson. While acknowledging Eslanda’s identity as Mrs. Paul Robeson from the outset, Ransby seeks to highlight Eslanda’s role as an important political activist in her own right. The author follows the chronological course of Robeson’s life, seeking to highlight key themes and place her subject in historical context. Throughout this journey, Ransby emphasizes Eslanda Robeson’s commitment to confronting racism, ending colonialism, supporting socialism and communism, and advocating for women.

Because Ransby has sought to write a political biography, much of the narrative focuses on Eslanda Robeson’s life from her thirties onward, when she began to develop a greater political consciousness. Through her work on a doctoral degree in anthropology, travels to Africa, connections to activist women, and continued correspondence with important global political figures, Eslanda Robeson articulated an internationalist vision of the black freedom struggle and class struggle and a nascent intersectional theory of black feminism.

In the postwar years, Robeson began to make some of her most important contributions, completing her book African Journey (1946) and becoming a member of the Council on African Affairs. She also became an advocate for women, challenging their exclusion from positions of leadership. Much of Robeson’s activism came through scholarship and journalism. Ransby writes, “[Eslanda] sought to research, understand, and write about changing global realities not as a disinterested scholar or an ostensibly impartial reporter, but as a passionate and engaged historical actor, a scholar-activist, and a radical writer trying to both uncover the truth and influence the future” (205). In the course of recounting Eslanda Robeson’s political life, Ransby acknowledges the difficulties of explaining some of Robeson’s decisions, particularly her unwavering support of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China.

The relationship between Paul and Eslanda no doubt remains an important one. While Ransby seeks to extricate Eslanda from Paul’s shadow, she also points to the important role Eslanda played in advancing his career, sometimes at the expense of her own, and how the title Mrs. Paul Robeson gave her access to people who otherwise may not have acknowledged her. Because their marriage became strained by Paul’s infidelities, the two came to an agreement to have a non-monogamous relationship and often spent extended periods apart, living “parallel but gently overlapping lives” (142). Consequently, Ransby places greater emphasis on Eslanda and Paul as political allies.

Ransby has a great deal of source material to draw from as her subject “lived a well-preserved life” (8). Bringing together these materials, which are housed in a variety of locations around the globe, Ransby has produced a well-researched political biography. It would be interesting to see the author explore Eslanda Robeson’s gender analysis and comparative global perspective in greater depth to make a stronger case for her subject’s significance as a black internationalist and early theorizer of feminist intersectionality. Still, Ransby has done an excellent job providing a detailed account of Eslanda Robeson’s life and times.