The U.S. Congress established the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in 1938 to investigate communist activity in the United States. Celebrities and other influential people were questioned regarding their political leaning and conceptions of loyalty to the United States. Paul Robeson, an actor, athlete, legal scholar, and political influencer, was one such public figure questioned by HUAC. Robeson, a prominent African American citizen and outspoken critic of American military involvement abroad, sought to regain the ability to travel internationally after his passport was revoked in 1950. In his testimony before the Eighty-fourth Congress in 1956 during its Investigation of the Unauthorized Use of U.S. Passports, and in the years leading up to it, he refused to disavow communism.