In 1949, Manning Johnson, a former CPUSA member, identified Robeson as a fellow member of the Communist Party in testimony to the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Johnson testified:
{{Cquote|[W]e were told, under threat of expulsion, never to reveal that Paul Robeson was a member of the Communist Party because Paul Robeson's assignment was highly confidential and secret... Paul's assignment was to work among the intellectuals, the professionals and artists that the party was seeking to penetrate and influence along communist lines. As long as Paul Robeson's identity with the party was kept secret, so long would his work among these groups be effective and serve the best interests of the party...<ref>Manning Johnson testimony, July 14, 1949, [http://www.archive.org/stream/investigationofu0304unit#page/4497/mode/1up ''Testimony of Paul Robeson,''] Investigation of the Unauthorized Use of United States Passports - Part 3, Hearings before the Un-American Activities Committee, House of Representatives, Eighty-fourth Congress Second Session, June 12 and 13, 1956, p. 4497. Cf. ''The Media Falsify Robeson's Record,'' AIM Report, March 1976, pages pp. 5, -6, cited in Cliff Kincaid, [http://www.usasurvival.org/docs/chicago-obama.pdf ''Communism in Chicago and the Obama Connection''] (usasurvival, USAsurvival.org), pp. 4-5</ref>}}
Robeson's son, Paul Robeson, Jr. (who admits being a member of the Communist Party from about 1948 to 1962) claimed that his father "never joined the Communist Party."<ref>Arnold H. Lubasch, "[http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/21/garden/in-harlem-with-paul-robeson-jr-finding-his-own-voice-and-learning-to-use-it.html?pagewanted=all IN HARLEM WITH: Paul Robeson Jr.; Finding His Own Voice And Learning to Use It]," ''The New York Times'', October 21, 1993</ref> Martin Duberman, whom Robeson, Jr., selected as his father's "official biographer"—in part (according to Duberman) because of "my left-wing views"<ref>Martin Duberman, "[http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/297.html Writing Robeson]," ''The Nation'', December 28, 1998</ref>—also claimed in his 1988 biography that Robeson "was never a member of CPUSA, never a functionary, never a participant in its daily bureaucratic operations."<ref name=dubermanpages/>