Stamp Honors Athlete, Activist Robeson
Tue Jan 20, 3:56 AM ET
PRINCETON, N.J. - A U.S. Postal Service stamp honoring athlete, performer and social activist Paul Robeson (news) was scheduled to go on sale Tuesday in the town where he was born 106 years ago.
The Postal Service plans to launch the stamp during a ceremony at Princeton University, just a few blocks from Robeson's birthplace and boyhood home.
"I am very gratified," Robeson's son Paul Robeson Jr. told The Times of Trenton. "To say the least, the family and I are very pleased."
The elder Robeson was a football All-American and valedictorian at Rutgers University at a time when few blacks attended college. He later became an actor, singer and activist for racial justice and international peace.
The stamp, designed by Richard Sheaff of Scottsdale, Ariz., is a detail of a photograph of Robeson taken around 1943 by an unknown photographer.
The Postal Service plans to issue 130 million Paul Robeson stamps initially.
The younger Robeson has been waiting for the Postal Service to issue a stamp on his father ever since it began its "Black Heritage" series of stamps in 1978.
"If you named 10 black historical figures from the beginning of the republic, my father would have to be one of them," Robeson said. "I've always felt that it was an inevitable occurrence since they began the series."