:

Robeson marks his 65th bi

he United States of *Amer-
T ica has many- white pew
ple with surname Robeson.
Not many of them can tell you
how jor where this name orig-
inated, but Paul Robeson can.
He knows all the details. For
the story of his name is also
the story of the American
Negro... :

% * *

A little over a hundred
years ago, no colored person
in the U.S. had a surname—
the cotton pickers of Florida,
the laborers of Louisiana, old
Tom of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin”,
Jim, the friend of Tom Saw-
yer and Huckleberry Finn —
none of them owned a second
name.

Nor did any black citizen
of North Carolnia have a sur-
Name, including those who
lived in the Negro settlement
adjacent to the huge planta-
tion of “Massa Robeson”. Not
even fifteen-year-old Willi-
RNs x.

Indeed, the white owners
and their overlords didn’t ev-
en bother to try to remember
the first names of their many
Slaves, but were quite content
to call them by the rough
equivalent of: “Hey, colored!”

‘Plantation owner Robeson

never concerned himself with
his Negroes; when he needed
money, he simply sold some
of his “black exchange’, and
that was that.

The day came when he sold

young William.
* * *

But the spirited youngster
had -no desire to remain a
slave and so he ran away.
Hiding in undergrowth, bull-
ing his way through dense
thickets, crossing and _ re-
crossing creeks and streams,
the boy managed to stay
ahead of the posse that had

been organized to find him-—

and bring him back to face
Lynch-style justice.

Having tasted the breath of
freedom, young William was
determined to elude his pursu-
ers and, after a month of
flight, made his way to the
Northern States.

Shortly afterwards, the
American Civil War broke
out, and President Lincoln
was organizing troops with
which to beat back the attack
of the southern slaveowners,
William drew on the blue uni-
form of the Union Army, took
up arms, and helped in the
fight to abolish slavery.

* * *

After the war, William en-
tered Lincoln University (for
colored people) and took ad-
vantage of an unexpected op-
portunity to become a min-
ister. He later recalled that
his schooling showed him the
brutal contradictions of: Am-
crican capitalist society, but
he was at a loss to understand

them fully.
He felt that the path to

PAUL ROBESON, famed singer, actor and hum@mst, this
month celebrated his 65th birthday. Paul Robeson is ill
in London. Thousands of affectionate greetings from his
friends and admirers around the world flooded his home
by letter and cable. In the Soviet Union he was widely
honoured this month. We reprint here a summary of an

article on his early years.

actual, real social and racial
freedom lay in each individ-
ual rising to the challenge of
the times — each man had to

“find himself”.

Graduation day. One by
one, the former slaves walk
out of the graduation hall,

rthday

diploma in hand. They 4re
radiant; for the first time, in
the history of the U.S. they
have been given the right to
assume:a surname _..
—‘Lincoln!”’
—‘Washington!”
—“Jackson!”’
—‘Student William!
surname?”
The young man closes his

Your

_eyes. His breast is filled with

a mixture of emotions; the
dominant one — happiness.
At last, at last the long await-
ed moment. Now he can draw
himself up to equal stature
with ‘‘Massa Robeson”, that
self-styled god of North Caro-
lina, who never admitted that
a Negro was a human being
with a right to have a sur-
name...

Understandably, William
draws himself up to his full
height and loudly pronounc-
ed: “Robeson! My name is
Robeson!”

Before long, William Robe-
son takes a wife, Marie Lou-
isa Bastille, and they settle
down in Princeton, New Jer-
sey. And there, in a little
building next to a Negro
church, the first generation of
Negro Robesons comes to the
world — Robesons from the
day of their birth — six boys
and a girl.

There, on the 9th day of
April, 1898, the seventh son
is born. He is christened Paul.

—YOUTH OF UKRAINE
(Abridged)

‘Founding of Canada’
new edition available

A NEW revised second edition

of ‘The Founding of Canada ;

—Beginning to 1815’ by Stanley

B. Ryerson is now available for ;

Spring release, Progress Books
announced this week.

The book which brought a wide
favorable response when first is-
sued was rapidly sold out requir-
ing a new edition. It is the first

of a series on the history of Can- |

ada. A second book planned as a
companion sequel volume is now
in preparation entitled — “1837
and Confederation.”

The Founding of Canada is an
absorbing study offering an en-
tirely new insight into the main
driving forces which shaped Cana-
dian history. The book explores
the roots of Canada’s present day
Capitalist social structure and
how labor and democratic strug-
gles played a crucial role in the
founding and building of Canada.

A final chapter on the War of
1812 is largely new in this second
edition of “Founding of Canada.”

The outstanding historian Gus-
tav Lanctot, reviewing the first
edition in the Canadian Historical
Review said: ‘Swift and forceful

annie

WORTH

READING

The Bolshoi Ballet, by Y-
Slonimsky. Price $4.75.

Part One: Acquaints the
reader with the two hundred
year old history of Russian
Ballet — its famous compos-
€rs, ballerinas, and male danc-
.€rs and the wonderful art
Which has attained such
heightsin our time.

Part Two: Gives an artistic
analysis of 17 ballets, includ-
Ing Giselle, Swan Lake, The
Red Flower and Romeo and

bi: Juliet,

The FOUNDING® |

CANADA

Beginnings to 1815

style .-.- curiously interesting
and suggestive . . - It is a socio-
logical study of Canadian eco-
nomic and political evolution bas-
ed on the Marxist conception of
history.”

The author, Stanley B, -Ryer-
son, was born in 1911 and. gradu-
ated from the University of To-
ronto and the Paris Sorbonne. His
writings have included ‘1837:
Birth of Canadian Democracy”
and ‘‘French Canada.” He is edi-
tor of the Marxist Quarterly and
Director of the Marxist Study
Centre in Toronto.

The Founding of Canada ap-
pears in an attractive new paper-
back jacket edition 366 pp. in-
cluding illustrations, index and
reference notes, somewhat larger
than the earlier edition and is
priced at $3.00. A handsomely
bound cloth covered edition 1s
also available at $5.00.

Mr. Scrooge, a new opera by the
Slovak composer Jan Cikker,
based on Charles Dickens’ Christ-
mas Carol will be presented by
the Slovak National Theatre in

Bratislava this fall.

OPEN FORUM

__(With this little poem came

$5.00 to help the “PT” do the

job. Ed.)

Again the voter failed to see
the light,

Again the people failed to
join the fight.

= The struggle against war,

disease and want,
To all Humanity
taunt.
The cause of each, can be,
must be eradicated, 4
The sadism, the jingoism. of
war; :
The germ, the ignorance of
disease.
The silent factory, the
unplowed earth, of want;
The voter, the people, can be,
must be educated.
GERRY DELANEY

C. E. Jewitt, Powell River,
writes: I would like to thank
those who took an interest in
a recent letter of mine, pub-
lished on this page, and who
wrote to me.

I would like to point out
that I did not deny the exist-
ence of a Supreme Power nor
do I intend to interfere in any
person’s heavenly undertak-
ings, but will endeavour at
all times to improve the lot
of we very confused beings
on this glorious earth we
dwell on,

I must agree with some of
my critics that my education
was sadly neglected. However
I do know that c-a-t spells cat
and r-a-t spells rat, and that
2-and-2 makes four. Only in
capitalist politics, sometimes
it doesn’t?

is still a

E. W., New Wesiminster
writes: It has often been said
before an election that a ‘“‘na-
tion gets just what it. des:

erves’”’. That’s how it is today
and You were there. As re-
gards the NDP vote, it is
about as one could expect it
to be. Too much indecision.
They did not want the Com-
munist vote. Hence the proof
of the pudding is in the vot-
ing, with less seats this time,
the voting population increas-
ing, the trend of world events
in the direction of Socialism.
But the NDP rejected it and
got what they deserved.
Many people as a result, did
not know where to cast their
vote so would throw it away,
which by the look of it they

did. e

John Anderson, Qualicum
Beach, writes: The day for
Labor to strike in a big way
is election day. If the work-
ingman would just think it
over, his father and his grand-
father have probably been
voting Liberal or Conserva-
tive ever since Confederation.

And where has it got us?
Just look around and see this
terrible growing army of un-
employed, then learn that the
only remedy capitalism has
for the unemployed is war
and more war.

On top of that our nation
is burdened with debt, billions
of it going down the arms
drain. But we go out on elec-
tion day and vote the same
gang -back in, whether Lib-
eral or Tory, makes no differ-
ence. Then we pass resolu-
tions and send them down to
our ‘representatives’ in Par-
liament. where they are quiet-
ly pigeonholed.

Then we rave about the
Communists and the Com-
munist countries, forgetting
that they have put their own
house in order and generally

attending to their own bus-
iness. We on the other hand
are going to “bury ourselves”
if we don’t put our own house
in order. &

John Ogbourne. North Bur-
naby, writes: The Humpty-
Dumpty fate of the Diefen-
baker government was inevi-
table, No longer able to sit
on the Harkness-Green wall,
it erashed upon the shoals of
of its contradictory policies.
Even if it had some support
from MP’s outside of its party
fold, not all the late Mac-
Kenzie King’s horses (the ones
that padded the army pay-
roll) and all. the king’s men
(Lester Pearson and com-
pany) will ever be able to put
a Humpty-Dumpty govern-
ment like Diefenbaker’s back
in power again.

The Norstad-Rusk-Harkness
clamor about “honoring our
commitments” is _ ballyhoo.
The real honoring of commit-
ments by a Canadian govern-
ment is to the Canadian peo-
ple and not to a foreign pow-
er. The actions of the Liberal
party during this election cam-
paign are a disgrace to Can-
ada, -the actions of Quislings
working for the Pentagon.

And I speak as one of many
hundreds of thousands of un-
employed Canadians who is
a fed-up and angry victim of
the imposed conditions of long
months of idleness. The vic-
tim of wasteful squandering
of billions of dollars on* war
preparations, which could &e
put to useful purposes from
which all mankind could ben-
efit. The victim of the empty
promises of our modern party
peddling politicians.

May 3, 1963—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5