Rance Robeson is On Fire!!
There are a few different ways to explain just how far Rance Robeson II had to travel to get to Rider University. He can tell you about how 10 years ago, he was homeless yet still managed to complete a year of community college in Queens after being sent packing from his parents’ home in the tough Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.
Or, Robeson can also tell you about weathering mortar fire as a combat soldier in Iraq, a place where plenty of other young men and women a lot like him were dying – too often, literally – just for the chance to attend college.
But to really understand what it is that forced Robeson to chase his love of words and language to a university campus, you have to recognize the journey he’s made in a more abstract sense. Robeson’s surname comes from his grandfather, a man who didn’t have access to the same sort of education Rance now absorbs and who, unable to properly spell his own last name – Neare – instead used the name of perhaps the greatest black man of his time, Paul Robeson, to enlist in the military.
“I’m not a part of his family,” Rance Robeson explained. “But I feel like I’m a result of his greatness.”
The grandson of a man unable to read is now the creator and editor-in-chief of On Fire!! A Literary Journal of the African Diaspora, which made its debut on Monday, April 21, in the Cavalla Room before an audience of about 200. On Fire!! is a compilation of poetry, narratives, photography, interviews and fiction that details the African-American experience through the perspectives of the authors, composed of Rider students, New York-based performance artists and community leaders. It is a journal Robeson hopes will give a new voice to people of color at Rider and well beyond campus.
“I don’t want it to be something that is just campus-based,” he said. “We’re working to get it in the library here at Rider and in other university libraries as well.”
As a model, Robeson invokes the name of Calaloo, the award-winning academic journal published by Johns Hopkins University Press and perhaps the most widely acclaimed African and African-American literary periodical in the English language. “They are my competition,” exclaims Robeson.
Robeson says while the quality of an education should always be of primary importance to students, they will no doubt search for things with which to identify on campus once they arrive there. “I’ve got friends who feel connected to their school because something like Calaloo is there,” he said. “They might go to that school just to be a part of it.”
For the sophomore English major, the most important consideration in his school was the quality of the education, but still, he felt that void. “I felt like we needed that sort of thing here, and that it would be a draw for the University, another reason to come here.”
Literary journals aside, what steered Robeson to campus is a bit more complex. In essence, Robeson’s entire existence has been a fight for stability, and it took a long time for the 28-year-old to find it. Following his graduation from high school, Robeson waited a year before enrolling at LaGuardia Community College in 1998. At the same time, he was living in an embattled home, contending with his drug-abusing father and the atmosphere of fear and uncertainty he created. In the end, it was a war not worth fighting. Just months into his college career, Robeson was homeless.
“I slept in an alcove underneath some stairs there in the same clothes I had gone to school with,” he said. “I knew what days the janitors would clean, so I moved around that. Then, I’d sleep on the train or in the park. I kept some clothes at my friends’ houses, but they never really knew what was going on.”
After three months, Robeson’s grandmother took him in, and soon, the school year was over. Soon, however, credit card bills and loans started piling up – “I knew nothing about how all that worked until the collection agencies started coming,” he recalled – and he was unable to continue at LaGuardia. Forced to drop out, Robeson began performing at competitive spoken word and poetry slams to earn money.
“I had actually been performing since I was 13, sneaking out of the house to go to places like Brooklyn Moon Café on Fulton Street,” he said. “But this was different. For a year and a half, I paid my grandmother rent like that. She had no idea I had no job, but that covered my food and transportation. I knew I had to have a certain amount of victories in a four-week stretch.”
Robeson actually attempted to sue his parents for child support at the age of 19 – students are unable to claim independence until age 24 – but to no avail. “My dad was educated, smart and good-looking, and I lost the case,” he said. “I couldn’t prove he was on crack.”
At that point, Robeson was running out of options. “After I met that defeat in court, I knew it was on me” to survive, he said. He joined the U.S. Army Reserves in 2001, three days after the September 11 attacks. “I knew I wanted to finish school. I don’t like to start anything and not finish,” he said. “Those attacks made me look at myself and ask, ‘are you not going to chase your dream?’ So I swore in to the Army.”
Two years later, Robeson was at the Military Base Anaconda in Balad, Iraq. “We were prepared enough for the experience, but when your boots hit the ground, you know you’re there,” he recalled. “I’m from Brooklyn, and I’m used to gunfire. Pap! Pap! Pap! – I know that sound – but when you hear BOOM!, that’s something different. Our base got bombed and we got into full “battle-rattle” and jumped into the concrete barriers. I was scared to death.”
Eventually, Robeson was discharged for medical cause, six and a half years into his eight-year commitment, and purchased a home in Willingboro, N.J. He entered the Army’s Vocation Rehabilitation program, which would cover the cost of his college degree, and enrolled at Rider. “I went to war for my education,” he declared. “I’ve seen people die fighting for the same thing. I’d say a majority of the soldiers there are looking for the same thing I was – stability – and with stability, for me, comes education.”
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