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One day in 1932, C. L. R. James was on his way to the British Museum, in Bloomsbury, when he saw the ‘magnificent figure’ of Paul Robeson, the singer, actor and scholar, walking towards him. They stopped to talk. James regarded Robeson as ‘a man not only of great gentleness but of great command: he was never upset about anything’. On this day, however, clearly bothered, he asked James whether he had heard the gossip 'about a coloured singer and a member of the British Royal Family’. 'It's not me, James', Robeson declared passionately. 'It's not me.' To Robeson's indignation, his friend laughed: 'What is there to laugh at? I don't see anything to laugh at.' James explained that, as a Negro from the United States' living in England, there was no disgrace in being linked to a member of the British Royal Family'. Hence his reaction: I laugh because you seem so upset about it. That is very funny.' Robeson was unmoved. 'They got the wrong Nigger in the woodpile, this time James', he protested. 'It's not me - Hutch (Leslie 'Hutch' Hutchinson) maybe - but not me!'
Donald J. Robeson Agonistes. In: Lusty N, Murphet J, eds. Modernism and Masculinity. Cambridge University Press; 2014:141-158.
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The royal gigolo: Edwina Mountbatten sued over claims of an affair with black singer Paul Robeson. But the truth was even more outrageous…
https://dizwhite.com/downton-abbeys-jazz-singer-inspired-by-scandal/
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