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
africa asia closely follow liberation people rising struggles today watch
And today the Negro people watch Africa and Asia and closely follow the liberation struggles of the rising peoples in these lands.
honored modestly name struggles
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.
struggle people feelings
I said it was my feeling that the American people would struggle for peace, and that has since been underscored by the President of these United States.
country struggle fighting
I stand here struggling for the rights of my people to be full citizens in this country. They are not-in Mississippi. They are not-in Montgomery. That is why I am here today. . . . You want to shut up every colored person who wants to fight for the rights of his people!.
sports art struggle
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.
struggle heart men
Through my singing and acting and speaking, I want to make freedom ring. Maybe I can touch people's hearts better than I can their minds, with the common struggle of the common man.
country struggle men
Every artist, every scientist, must decide now where he stands. He has no alternative. There is no standing above the conflict on Olympian heights. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction, in certain countries, of the greatest of man's literary heritage, through the propagation of false ideas of racial and national superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. The struggle invades the formerly cloistered halls of our universities and other seats of learning. The battlefront is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear.
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The telling of these truths is an important part of our work in building a strong and broad peace movement in the United States.
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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.
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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.
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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.
colored four hundred million millions people
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.
abroad again against court department injustices people record state
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.
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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.