Insight of the Week: Paul Robeson and His Tomato

​Paul Robeson was a notable player early in the civil rights movement. He was the Valedictorian for the 1919 graduating class at Rutgers and received a law degree from Columbia University.

Known for his singing, Robeson began acting in plays and silent films during the Harlem Renaissance and eventually toured Europe, spending many years in London and Russia. He became politically involved in the 1940's attempting to persuade Major League Baseball to accept black players, acting as Chairman of the Council for African Affairs and was quickly discredited by his sympathies towards Russia and ultimately blacklisted in the 1950's during the McCarthy era.
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Moscow Seedwoman, Marina Danilenko, breed and named an Hierloom Tomato after Paul Robeson. Fedco Seeds describes the the tomato as a "...maroon-brick, 6–12 oz, oblate, often bi-lobed fruits with dark green shoulders come closest in flavor to Black Krim, but claim their own distinctive sweet smoky taste. A sandwich tomato with a tang, an extraordinary tomato for an extraordinary man."

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day &
Happy Farming,
Woody