[Swipe 👆] Gary Simmons’ “Ghost Reels” drawing installation will be on view in The Drawing Center stairwell through January 2018. According to Simmons, the work reflects “the memories of actors that have been blurred in the history of Hollywood film . . . a kind of silence in both voice and visibility.” Here we explore the contributions of African American actors and musicians of the early 20th century. Born in 1898, Paul Robeson graduated as valedictorian from Rutgers College in 1919 and earned his LL.B from Columbia Law School while acting off-Broadway and playing in the NFL in 1922. Already accomplished at the young age of 23, Robeson’s career in film began soon afterward, when he starred in Eugene O’Neil’s “All God’s Chillun Got Wings”. A famous figure of the Harlem Renaissance and true Renaissance man, Robeson also performed as Othello at the Savoy in London, where his exposure to working class England served as a formative experience in his activism. Dedicating his life to civi...