Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robesonwas an American bass singer and actor who became involved with the Civil Rights Movement. At Rutgers College, he was an outstanding American football player, and then had an international career in singing, with a distinctive, powerful, deep bass voice, as well as acting in theater and movies. He became politically involved in response to the Spanish Civil War, fascism, and social injustices. His advocacy of anti-imperialism, affiliation with communism, and criticism of the United States government caused...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionStage Actor
Date of Birth9 April 1898
CityPrinceton, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
Films make me into some cheap turn...You bet they'll never let me play a part in a film where a Negro is on top.
Sometimes great injustices may be inflicted on the minority when the majority is in the pursuit of a great and just cause.
I know that if the peace movement takes its message boldly to the Negro people a powerful force can be secured in pursuit of the greatest goal of all mankind. And the same is true of labor and the great democratic sections of our population.
I am being tried for fighting for the right of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this United States of America.
Through the years I have received my share of recognition for efforts in the fields of sports, the arts, the struggle for full citizenship for the Negro people, labor's rights and the fight for peace.
Artists are the radical voice of civilization.
But the deep desire for peace remained with the American people.
When I sang my American folk melodies in Budapest, Prague, Tiflis, Moscow, Oslo, or the Hebrides or on the Spanish front, the people understood and wept or rejoiced with the spirit of the songs. I found that where forces have been the same, whether people weave, build, pick cotton, or dig in the mine, they understand each other in the common language of work, suffering, and protest.
I feel closer to my country than ever. There is no longer a feeling of lonesome isolation. Instead-peace. I return without fearing prejudice that once bothered me . . . for I know that people practice cruel bigotry in their ignorance, not maliciously
And, gentlemen, they have not yet done so, and it is quite clear that no Americans, no people in the world probably, are going to war with the Soviet Union.
Yes, peace can and must be won, to save the world from the terrible destruction of World War III.
The man who accepts Western values absolutely, finds his creative faculties becoming so warped and stunted that he is almost completely dependent on external satisfactions, and the moment he becomes frustrated in his search for these, he begins to develop neurotic symptoms, to feel that life is not worth living, and, in chronic cases, to take his own life.
Yes, I heard my people singing!-in the glow of parlor coal-stove and on summer porches sweet with lilac air, from choir loft and Sunday morning pews-and my soul was filled with their harmonies. Then, too, I heard these songs in the very sermons of my father, for in the Negro's speech there is much of the phrasing and rhythms of folk-song. The great, soaring gospels we love are merely sermons that are sung; and as we thrill to such gifted gospel singers as Mahalia Jackson, we hear the rhythmic eloquence of our preachers, so many of whom, like my father, are masters of poetic speech.
Artists are the gatekeepers of truth.