- Dropped out of school in the third grade to work as a sharecropper. Also worked on the railroad until the Depression caused him to lose his job.
- One-time sparring partner for world heavyweight champion Joe Louis in 1937.
- Honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Black Theatre Festival; also received an Oscar Micheaux Award and was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame.
- Had a deep and mellifluous voice like that of his son James...with whom he appeared onstage in "Moon on a Rainbow Shawl", "Infidel Caesar" (both 1962) and "Of Mice and Men" (1967, portraying Crooks to James's Lennie).
- Was blacklisted in the early 1950s and called before the House Un-American Activities Committee because of his involvement in the leftist movement of the late 1930s.
- Ran in the New York City Marathon several times, including in 1996! (source: New York Amsterdam News).
- Was at one time a boxer.
- Father-in-law of Cecilia Hart.
- Divorced twice.
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