Paul Robeson was born April 9, 1898, in Princeton, New Jersey, the son of an escaped slave. He rose to unparalleled heights as an athlete, actor, singer, and activist, and was arguably the most prominent African American from the 1920s through the 1950s. This work is a compilation of 18 essays written by scholars and activists that were presented at a one-day conference held at Long Island University's Brooklyn campus on February 28, 1998, to honor Robeson's life and legacy. The essays discuss his significance as a singer, his political activism, his efforts to achieve solidarity between...

Jewish humor, with its rational skepticism and cutting social criticism, permeates American popular culture. Scholars of humor--from Sigmund Freud to Woody Allen--have studied the essence of the Jewish joke, at once a defense mechanism against a hostile world and a means of cultural affirmation. Where did this wit originate? Why do Jewish humorists work at the margins of so many diverse cultures? What accounts for the longevity of the Jewish joke? Do oppressed people, as African American author Ralph Ellison suggested, slip their yoke when they change the joke? Citing examples from...