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
At one point American peace sentiment helped to stop Truman from pursuing use of the atom bomb in Korea and helped force the recall of MacArthur.
The telling of these truths is an important part of our work in building a strong and broad peace movement in the United States.
And today the Negro people watch Africa and Asia and closely follow the liberation struggles of the rising peoples in these lands.
I've learned that my people are not the only ones oppressed.. . . I have sung my songs all over the world and everywhere found that some common bond makes the people of all lands take to Negro songs as their own.
For many years I have so labored and I can say modestly that my name is very much honored all over Africa, in my struggles for their independence.
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.
Four hundred million in India, and millions everywhere, have told you, precisely, that the colored people are not going to die for anybody: they are going to die for their independence.
The other reason that I am here today, again from the State Department and from the court record of the court of appeals, is that when I am abroad I speak out against the injustices against the Negro people of this land.
My mother was born in your state, Mr. Walter, and my mother was a Quaker, and my ancestors in the time of Washington baked bread for George Washington's troops when they crossed the Delaware, and my own father was a slave.
This is the basis, and I am not being tried for whether I am a Communist, I am being tried for fighting for the rights of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this United States of America.
Once we are joined together in the fight for peace we will have to talk to each other and tell the truth about each other. How else can peace be won?
What do you mean by the Communist Party? As far as I know it is a legal party like the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.
My name is Paul Robeson, and anything I have to say, or stand for, I have said in public all over the world, and that is why I am here today.
In fact, because of this deep desire for peace, the ruling class leaders of this land, from 1945 on, stepped up the hysteria and propaganda to drive into American minds the false notion that danger threatened them from the East.