Nicole Hill

There will never be headlines or gossip about them again.

No more Yolans.

They will have an open marriage.

So while Paul and Essie were dealing with all their drama, the world around them was changing.

Over in Italy, Benito Mussolini is running the world's first fascist dictatorship.

Mussolini invades Ethiopia, forcing the country's emperor into exile.

Ethiopia, the only nation in Africa that hadn't been colonized, is of enormous symbolic importance to the black diaspora.

In response, black men across America train in hopes of joining the Ethiopian resistance.

W.E.B.

Du Bois and Paul Robeson hold a rally at Madison Square Garden, and 25,000 New Yorkers march through Harlem to show their support for the African nation.

Mussolini's fascist movement spreads.

So does Hitler's.

America chooses isolationism.

The Robesons do not.

Here is how he came to fear the Robesons.

All right.

So now we're in the mid 1930s.

Essie and Paul have remixed their vows.

They seem to be doing well.

They are splitting their time between London and New York.