If it is accomplishments that men are judged by, surely Paul Robeson should be remembered well. He was an All-American football player at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

After graduation, he attended Columbia Law School. To pay his way through school, he played pro-football on the weekends. He was a singer, a Broadway and film star and a politician. Robeson, an accomplished linguist, eventually mastered more than 20 languages.

So, why is Paul Robeson not remembered in history classes and text books? Why are there no streets or buildings named for him? In a country where heroes are a dime a dozen, where has the memory of Paul Robeson gone?

“He was blackballed,” actor Warren C. Bowles said. “In his search for equality for blacks and his concern for labor, the McCarthy Committee got him and he was labeled a Communist.”

Bowles will bring the life experiences of Robeson to the Maintenance Shop stage this Saturday when The Mixed Blood Theatre Company presents Paul Robeson, a play.

“Paul Robeson was such a giant of a man, in stature and in accomplishment,” Bowles said of his character. “It’s somewhat intimidating.”

Intimidating and inspiring. Admitted to the New York Bar in 1923, Robeson was dissatisfied with the prejudice he encountered in his law firm and quit. Unemployed, he appeared in a play at the Harlem YMCA and caught the attention of Eugene O’Neill who cast him in All God’s Chillun Got Wings. Later, he was offered a role in the London production of Showboat.

Robeson’s many tours and travels took him to Russia which proved to be a turning point in his political philosophy. He did not encounter the prejudice he felt in America, and he remained a close friend of the Russian people for the rest of his life.

But during the Communist witch hunt of the 1950s, Robeson saw his constitutional rights abused when the State Department illegally refused to reissue his passport. He was blacklisted from the mass media; concert halls were made unavailable to him. His name was taken off the All-American list.

“He was written out of history,” Bowles said.

The Mixed Blood Theatre Company, based in Minneapolis, has seen to it that Paul Robeson finds his way back into the books. The 20-year-old company keeps alive the talent, strength, independence and humor of this great African America.

Long known for its policy of colorblind casting, Mixed Blood in 1984 became the nation’s leading employers of minority professional actors.

“We were founded in 1976 as a multi-raced performing company,” Bowles said. “We’re dedicated to the spirit of Dr. King’s dream. At one point, we provided the most work-weeks for minority actors in the country.”

Bowles said he hopes the audience comes away from this performance with a bit of Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream too: a better understanding of a black man known as Paul Robeson.

“A respect for the man, a knowledge of the man, and a sense things can be accomplished in this country no matter what your beginnings,” Bowles said of what he tries to convey to the audience. “Achievement is a possibility.”

Paul Robeson comes to the M-Shop Saturday, July 27 at 7 p.m. Admission is free and snacks will be provided. For more information call the Student Union Board’s cultural director at 294-8081.