Skip to main content
The inheritor of his father’s political mantle
Dr Hywel Francis, founding chair of the Paul Robeson Wales Trust, pays tribute to the lasting legacy of Paul Robeson Jr

have known Paul Robeson Jr for nearly 40 years. It was with great sadness that I received the news from Paul Robeson Jr’s wife Marilyn at the weekend that he had died in Jersey City, US, aged 86.

The son of the great singer and black civil rights and peace champion Paul Robeson, Robeson Jr was very proud of his father’s lifelong campaigning for progressive and cultural causes, including his links with Wales and especially the south Wales miners.

A qualified electrical engineer, writer, lecturer and Russian translator, he wrote the definitive two-volume biography The Undiscovered Paul Robeson, published in 2001 and again in 2010. 

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Reform leader Nigel Farage who is hoping to make inroads in Wales at polls this week
Features / 5 May 2026
5 May 2026

Plaid Cymru’s Caerffili by-election win raised hopes on the left — but the complex realities of Wales suggest the Senedd election may be far less predictable, argues CATRIN ASHTON

CONFORMISM v REBELLION: Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1954 and Paul Robeson on a visit to London in 1958 Pics (L to R): Bob Sandberg/Public domain; PA
Book Review / 19 April 2026
19 April 2026

RON JACOBS recommends a book that charts the disparate circumstances that defined the lives of two prominent black Afro-Americans — one a communist, the other an anti-communist

David Speedie
Features / 9 November 2025
9 November 2025

Kenny MacAskill remembers a ‘Sovietologist’ and voice for peace and reconciliation at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs