How the history is documented

Editorial principles

• Distinguish primary evidence from later interpretation.
• Identify translations and describe material differences between versions.
• Label disputed claims and avoid presenting inference as settled fact.
• Record creator, title, date, repository, identifier, rights holder and access date for every item.

Working source groups

Paris dispatches and speech texts; Hotel Moskva and Tchaikovsky Hall accounts; Peekskill photographs, testimony and local records; government and passport materials; Robeson biographies, oral histories and performance records.

Title provenance

A recorded interview with Paul Robeson Jr. attributes the wording “America’s number one Negro” to The American magazine in 1944. Until the original 1944 issue and page are inspected, the site should not expand the phrase to “No. 1 Negro Entertainer” or attribute it to Collier’s as a settled fact.