Paul Robeson 1898-1976

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"That 1

the rock

on which I stand’

~ Excerpts from a tribute to Paul Robe-
Son, by Robert Kenny, to the Central
Committee Meeting of the Communist
Party of Canada, January 24, 25, 1976.

We have lost recently one. of the
great figures of the international work-
Ing class movement in the person of
Paul Robeson. I want to briefly sketch
for yOu today some of the salient facts

Mm his career. In dealing with Paul
Robeson, we are dealing with a pro-

foundly integrated person.

Robeson had a profound rejection of
€ racism of the United States which
Be felt most deeply and ‘fought passion-
} ately all his life. He also believed that
} Music should be refreshed by bringing
} into it the songs of the people. He
reached into the heritage of his own
People and took the spirituals of the

ack community and he gave them a
New content .. .

He felt deeply committed to social
action. The Great Depression of 1929
“nlivened his political sensibilities.
‘en the struggle broke out in Spain
¢ visited the battalions of the Interna-
‘onal Brigade and sang for them .. .

He regarded the event that took
| Place in October 1917 in the Soviet
J Union as unquestionably the most.deci-
| Sive experience in the history-of Man.
He believed the October Revolution
} Was a great objective fact in the social
| “story of man and throughout his career
) Was deeply and profoundly attached to
the Soviet people. Paul Robeson did not
Teject his native land — the. United
) States of America. He did not simply
/ €mbrace the Soviet Union as another
» hation-state. He embraced it isa new
| ©Ommunity with a new set of ideas.
| to uring the war, many people listened
° What he had to say about the Soviet
) ¥Mon with great attention. In 1943,
: fe received a Doctorate in Humane
} (Stters from Morehouse University. In
din address, the president said: “Your
|} ~ "sing is a declaration of faith .. .

You are truly the people’s artist. In
‘Yur search for freedom, you experi-
Bo a common bond between the suf-
| “Ing and oppressed of the world —

that folk music is universal and that
people are much alike everywhere . . =
When the Un-American Committee
was established Paul Robeson was
challenged by them and brought be-
fore them. There is no man who fought
more passionately, fought more ardent-
ly, with greater singleness of mind than
Paul Robeson. We in Canada are deeply
attached to the memory that he left.

The meeting then heard a recorded
speech by Paul Robeson in 1953 at the
Peace Arch between British Columbia
and Washington when Robeson, banned
from travelling abroad, his passport
lifted, was invited by the Mine Mill and
Smelter Workers union to a tremen-
dous concert on the Canada-U.S.
border, Paul said:

I want to thank you for your very
great kindness in coming here today. It
means much to us in America, much to
Americans struggling for peace in the
Nortwest.

Some of the finest people in the
world, under pressure today, are facing
jail, facing hostile courts, for a ‘simple
fact of struggling for peace, struggling
for a decent America where all of us
who helped build that land can live in
decency and in goodwill.

As for myself, as I said last year, I
remain the same Paul that you have
known throughout these many years.
The same Pauli, but time has made it so
that everyone, I included, fight harder
today to preserve the basic liberties
guaranteed to us Americans by our
Constitution.. If. this were not so, I
would be with you in Vancouver. -I
‘would be travelling all over the Canada
that I cherish so deeply .. .

I remember speaking to the British
actor’s association years -ago when
some were asking whether or not ‘we
are workers, and I told them: we who
labor in the arts, we who are singers,
we who are actors, we who are artists,
must remember that we come from the
people! P

In America today it’s very difficult to

get a theatre or a hall to sing in. In the’

cities today, the wrath of all the pow-

“would keep mankind

ers-that-be descends on one poor
minister who wants to give me his
church; or descends upon the people
who rent the hall. They are told by all
the forces in America — the strongest
business forces, that the banks will no
longer honor their mortgages — every-
thing, to keep just one person from
appearing in concert.

I know what it means. They don’t
want to hear people speak for peace.
And today we fight in America, on the
eve of the truce in Korea, for the.am-
nesty of those leaders so they can come
back and lead the people! :
~ So I can’t act or sing in my ‘own
country. The British actors, however,
have invited me-to return to play
Othello. And at the end of their invita-
tion was a very important phrase: ““We
would welcome him to this land. . .”

At the same time I have received an
invitation that couldn’t mean more to

_me. It was from the miners in Wales.

Wales is where I first understood the
struggle of whites and Negroes to-
gether. I went down into the coal mines
of the Rhonda Valley, went down into
the mines with the workers, lived
among them, later did a picture, as you
know, called Proud Valley — and. I
became so close that in Wales today,
as I feel here, they feel me a part of
that land.

So it’s important that we are gather-
ed here today. Not-only myself, but so
many others — artists, scientists, trade
union leaders — are prevented from
leaving this country to attend peace
meetings, scientific gatherings all over
the earth. You must understand that
they will hear about this today.

And why did they take my passport?
They said that, no matter what my
political beliefs, what my standing may
be among my own people in America,
that for’many years out of my own
lips, I have been struggling for the
independence of the colonial peoples of
Africa! And that is “meddling in the
foreign affairs of the United States.”
Now that’s just too bad because I’m
going to have to continue to meddle!

But I say to you: I’m proud of the
America in which I was born. My father
was a slave raised in North Carolina. I
have many friends all over the earth,
and rightly so! Other Americans can
chose their Francos if they want to.
Other Americans can chose the refuse
of nazi fascism. They can wander
around the earth picking those who

slavery.

I choose to stretch out my hand
across the oceans to brave peoples of
many lands. — across the border to
Latin America to Neruda in Chile, to
the brave people of Cuba and Mexico,
across the oceans to the lands of Asia
— and I stretch my hands to the people

in perpetual -

of the new China as they build a new
life for 500 million people.

And.I say as an American, as Jeffer-
son in his time stretched his hands
across to the heroes of the French Re-
volution of 1789, I stretch my hands
across the continents to shake the hand
of the Soviet people and to the new
People’s Democracies! That is my right
as an American!

I speak as one whose roots are in
the soil of my land. I speak as one
whose fathers and mothers toiled in
cotton, toiled in tobacco, toiled in
indigo—toiled to help create the wealth
upon which the great land of the United
States. was built. The great primary
wealth came from the blood and from
the suffering of my forefathers.

And I say, as I have said many times,
that I have a right to speak out — on
their blood, on what they contributed
to that land — and what I have contri-
buted to that land as best I can!

But I say right here, that because of
their struggle, I will go around the
world, but I’m telling you now that a
good piece of that American earth
belongs to me and to my children and
to my grandchildren! There’s a lot of
America that belongs to me and to my
people. And we have struggled too long
to ever give it up.

My people are determined in Ame-
rica to be not second class citizens —
to be full citizens to be first class
citizens. And that is the rock upon
which I stand.

From that rock I reach out across
the world to my forefathers in Africa,
to Canada, all around the world. Be-
cause I know there is one humanity,
that there is no basic difference of race
or color, no basic difference of culture,
but that all human beings can live in
friendship and in peace.

I know it from experience. I have
seen the people, I have learned their
languages, I sing their songs and I go
about America and wherever.I may go
speaking of simple things — it seems
so simple — that all people should live
in full human dignity and in friendship.

But somewhere the enemy has al-
ways been around to try and push back
the great mass of the people. We know
that. But I said long ago that I. was
going to give up my life, to spend my
day-to-day struggle among the masses -
of* the people, in this park, on the
picket lines, wherever I could help the
people’s struggle. I shall never apolo-
gize for that. I shall continue to fight
as I see the truth.

And I tell you here that I shall con-
tinue the fight for peace no matter how
difficult. And I want everyone within
range of my voice to hear, official or
otherwise, that there is no force on
earth that’ will make me go backward
one-thousandth part of one little inch!

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 30, 1976—Page 9

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