Title: Robert Carl Cohen Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1963-1978

Creator:

• Cohen, Robert Carl, 1930-

Call Number: Mss 52; Tape 885A

Quantity: 2.0 c.f. (5 archives boxes) and 9 tape recordings

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Papers of author-filmmaker Robert Carl Cohen largely relating to his unauthorized biography of revolutionary Robert Franklin Williams, the first black American to advocate armed self-defense. Included are various drafts of Black Crusader (1972), together with correspondence, clippings, speeches, and recorded interviews and transcripts. Regarding Cohen's work as a documentary filmmaker are fragmentary clippings and reviews.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00052

 ↑ Bookmark this ↑

 ↑ Bookmark this ↑

Author, educator, and producer-director Robert Carl Cohen was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 24, 1930. He received a B.A. in art in 1952 and an M.A. in film in 1954, both from the University of California at Los Angeles. His further graduate work included studies at the Sorbonne and at the University of Southern California. Since completing his academic work Cohen has worked primarily in television. His first important work was as an NBC special correspondent to mainland China during 1957. At that time he was the first U.S. citizen allowed to film in China following its control by the Communists. In 1961 the film he shot during this period was integrated into a special television documentary entitled Inside Red China. Cohen later also became the first U.S. citizen permitted to film in East Germany (1959) and Cuba (1963) after those nations established Communist governments. These experiences became the basis for the documentaries Inside East Germany (1959) and Three Faces of Cuba (NET, 1964).

In addition to these documentaries Cohen has worked for the media in other capacities. These other projects include: writer, producer, and director for the independent television documentary Committee on Un-American Activities (1962); writer, producer, and director for the feature-length film Mondo Hollywood (1965-1967); training supervisor for minorities at MGM (1973-1974); and writer and producer for With Reason and Humanity, a stage dramatization of the Rosenberg trial produced in California in 1975.

Cohen's published work includes The Color of Man (1968), an award-winning exposition of racial issues for children that was used as a seventh grade textbook in California public schools, and Black Crusader (1972), an unauthorized biography of the black revolutionary Robert Franklin Williams.

The papers consist mainly of drafts of Cohen's biography of black activist Robert Franklin Williams. In addition to materials relating to this book, there are a few clippings and documents pertaining to various projects dating from the 1960s, but for the most part the information about Cohen's career is disappointingly scarce.

The papers have been separated into four series: PRODUCTION MATERIALS, WRITINGS, BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION, and MISCELLANEOUS RECORDINGS. Production materials consist of two folders. The first contains miscellany concerning various documentaries that Cohen produced. The other folder consists of clippings and reviews of Mondo Hollywood (also known as Hollywood U.S.A.), which document the manner in which the film became a key issue in the 1978 race for lieutenant governor of California between incumbent Marvin Dymally and Mike Curb, the film's musical director.

Writings mainly consist of various drafts of Black Crusader (1972) and the supporting material used in writing the book. These include clippings, speeches, miscellaneous interview transcripts, correspondence, and Listen, Brother, a pamphlet by Williams. Taken together, they provide excellent documentation of the life and character of the book's subject, Robert F. Williams. This material includes a 27-page letter from Williams to Fidel Castro dated August 28, 1966, which details Williams' reasons for his eventual emigration from Cuba to China.

The Black Crusader files have been arranged to approximate the sequence in which the book was written. That is, the research and correspondence is arranged first; next, the transcripts of the long 1968 interview between Cohen and Williams; and finally, the various drafts of the actual manuscript. The researcher should note that the book was originally planned as an auto-biography written in collaboration with Cohen. As such, the earliest drafts are written in the first person and are little more than revisions of the tape transcripts. Early in 1970, Williams refused to work further with Cohen, who then decided to continue writing the book as an unauthorized biography. The third draft is thus a transition from first-person to a third-person presentation and the fourth draft is a further third-person revision. Other information concerning Cohen's relationship with Williams and the circumstances under which the book was written can be found in the folders marked Correspondence, Introduction-Early Drafts, and Epilogue.

Following the Black Crusader files are two folders dealing with other writing efforts by Cohen: a 1968 article and related materials for True Magazine about Williams and a book The Color of Man, together with material dealing with its use as a text in California public schools.

The tapes in this collection all deal with Robert Franklin Williams, and for the most part, represent background research accumulated by Cohen prior to writing Black Crusader. Most important are the reels which constitute the 1968 interview with Williams, which became the basis of Cohen's book. Unlike the transcripts, the recorded version includes Cohen's questions. Other tapes relating to Williams, but not specifically to Black Crusader are a 1962 interview recorded at the Hotel Capri in Havana for WBAI-FM (New York) (later published as Negroes with Guns), a rerecording of a 1963 episode of Williams' propaganda show, Radio Free Dixie, originally recorded during the “Birmingham Crisis” and consisting of a mixture of music, news, and commentary by Williams; and a combined recording of several interviews and speeches.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Robert Carl Cohen, Los Angeles, California, 1977-1979. Accession Number: M77-438, M78-58, M79-199, M79-211

Processing Information

Processed by Thomas Pscheidt and Carolyn Mattern, January 1981.

Mss 52	Series: Production Materials
Box   1 Folder   1	Miscellany: Inside Red China, The Committee on Un-American Activities, etc., 1963-1975
Box   1 Folder   2	Mondo Hollywood (Hollywood International Pictures, 1967): Clippings, 1967-1978
	Series: Writings	⇧
	Black Crusader (1972)
Box   1 Folder   3	Correspondence, 1967-1975
	Research
Box   1 Folder   4	Interview transcripts, speeches, Williams' writings, clippings, 1964-1975
Box   1 Folder   5	Williams' correspondence, 1963-1969
Tape 885A	Recordings
No.   4-7	Interview, August 2, 1968
Mss 52	Tape transcripts, circa 1968
Box   1 Folder   6-12	No. 4-No. 7, Track A
Box   2 Folder   1	No. 7, Track B
	Drafts
Box   2 Folder   2	Chapter outlines, circa 1968
Box   2 Folder   3-9	Early drafts, introduction, preface, and chapters 1-10, 12-14, circa 1968-1969
	Draft I
Box   2 Folder   10	Chapter 1
Box   3 Folder   1-3	Chapter 1-16
Box   3 Folder   4	Chapters 2 and 3 revised
Box   3 Folder   5-8	Draft II, circa 1969
Box   4 Folder   1-4	Draft III, circa 1970
	Draft IV, circa 1971
Box   4 Folder   5-7	Chapters 1-11
Box   5 Folder   1	Chapters 12-16
Box   5 Folder   2	Epilogue, circa 1971-1972
Box   5 Folder   3	True Magazine, Interview, Drafts, correspondence, circa 1968
Box   5 Folder   4	Color of Man, Text and Miscellany, 1968, 1978
Box   5 Folder   5	Series: Biographical Information	⇧
Tape 885A	Series: Miscellaneous Recordings	⇧
No.   1-3	Havana interview with Williams, 1962
No.   8	Miscellaneous interviews with Williams, undated
No.   9	Radio Free Dixie Broadcast, 1963