Bound To Stay Bound

Booklist - 02/01/2024 *Starred Review* “Two rivers rush through my blood: / Resistance and intellect. / They converge / in my heart, run deep / in my soul.” Cast as powerful lines for a one-man retrospective show, interspersed with snatches of spirituals and folk songs in italics to suggest musical backgrounds, this first-person biographical account begins with Robeson’s eighteenth-century antecedents and follows the performer and radical activist from childhood to success in collegiate sports and academics, then onto triumphs (and missteps, too) on stage and screen, his blacklisting during the McCarthy era, and, at last, to the strange, bitter end of his later career. His strength of character as an “unbending truth teller and troublemaker” comes through clearly in the illustrations as well as the words; in montages of images, many based on contemporary photographs, Velasquez poses him heroically, whether in charismatic performance, speaking out defiantly against racism and social injustice, or, finally, broken down by poor health (and equally poor medical treatment): “Oh Lord, I’ve done what you told me to do.” Weatherford ends on a dramatic note with a pounding, alphabetically arranged summary of relevant one-word descriptors, from “activist” to “unparalleled.” By including “un-American?” in that list, she invites readers to judge for themselves. - Copyright 2024 Booklist.