Paul Robeson visits the Soviet Union (1959)

The Tallest Tree Paul Robeson Part 1

Paul Robeson - Rare TV appearance 1960

Harry Belafonte "Water Boy" on The Ed Sullivan Show

119th Birthday of U.S. Protest Folk Singer/Civil Rights Movement Activist Paul Robeson

To mark the birthday 119 years ago on April 9, 1898 of U.S. protest folk singer and anti-war/civil rights movement activist Paul Robeson:

Paul Robeson's UK Interview of January 13, 1960 Revisited

Following is an excerpt from Bob Leeson's article about his 1960 interview with U.S. protest folk singer and civil rights/anti-war movement activist Paul Robeson that appeared in the January 14, 1960 issue of the British Daily Worker newspaper:

"When the Daily Worker 30th anniversary celebration takes place in the Albert Hall on March 13 [1960] Paul Robeson will be there.

"In a wide-ranging interview with the Daily Worker yesterday...the great Negro singer expressed...his pleasure at being able to attend the paper's birthday...
"`And I want to get down to my study of music...of the teaching of music to children,' he added.

"`In my experience, music should not be thought of as inaccessible to the mass of people. I feel musicians have made a bit of a cult of it. They have convinced many people that to learn about it is like going into the field of atomic physics.

"I feel that modern musicians can solve the problem and get out of the corner they are in by going back to folk music, rather than trying to create a new musical language out of their own brains, for there is a language of folk music which is universal...'"

Paul Robeson Predicted 1960s U.S. Student Protest Movement In 1955

Five years before African-American students and Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee [SNCC] student activists began their mass-based non-violent sit-in protests in opposition to Jim Crow and segregation in the southern region of United States in 1960, U.S. protest folk singer and civil rights movement activist Paul Robeson predicted that a student protest movement in the USA would develop. In the May 1955 issue of his Freedom journal, for example, Robeson wrote:

"It is good, these days, to get out to the college campuses and see the stirring of new life among the students. The Ivy Curtain of conformity, which for a decade has shut them off from the sunlight of independent thinking, is beginning to wilt. The fresh breeze of free expression is beginning to filter into the stale atmosphere of the cold-war classrooms...

"Yes, a ferment is growing among America's students, both Negro and white. Many are beginning to see that if a concern for future jobs has dictated conformity, a concern for their very lives requires that they think for themselves..."

Paul Robeson Opposed U.S. Military Intervention In Vietnam In 1950's

Long before a mass-based U.S. anti-war movement against U.S. military intervention in Vietnam developed during the mid-1960's, U.S. protest folk singer and civil rights movement/anti-war activist Paul Robeson expressed support for the Vietnamese people's struggle for national independence from foreign domination and full self-determination rights; and he also opposed the U.S. government's policy of providing military aid and militarily intervening in Vietnam in order to perpetuate foreign domination of that country. In an October 4, 1953 speech in Chicago to the Convention of the National Negro Labor Council, for example, Robeson said the following:

"...Will dropping some bombs on Vietnamese patriots who want to be free of French domination help American Negroes reach a plane of equality with their white fellow-citizens?...To ask the question is to answer it. No!...We must not approve the squandering of billions of American taxpayers' money on the `dirty war' in Indo-China--we must insist that the French rule in France and leave the Vietnamese to govern themselves...What Negroes need, and all America needs, is PEACE..."

And in the March 1954 issue of his Freedom journal, Robeson also wrote the following:

"As I write these lines, the eyes of the world are on a country inhabited by 23 million brown-skinned people...It's a fertile land, rich, in minerals; but all the wealth is taken away by the foreign rulers, and the people are poor.

"I'm talking about Vietnam...

"Vast quantities of U.S. bombers, tanks and guns have been sent against Ho Chi Minh and his freedom-fighters; and American GIs into Indo-China in order that the tin, rubber and tungsten of Southeast Asia be kept by the `free world---meaning White Imperialism...

"That's the picture, and I ask again: Shall Negro sharecroppers from Mississippi be sent to shoot down brown-skinned peasants in Vietnam--to serve the interests of those who oppose Negro liberation at home and colonial freedom abroad?

"What are our Negro leaders saying about this? They are all too silent...

"Today, more than ever, is the time for plain speaking.

"Peace can be won if we demand it. The imperialists can be halted in their tracks..." 

Paul Robeson Spoke Out In Support of ANC's Anti-Apartheid Campaign In 1953

In an April 13, 1953 statement, U.S. protest folk singer and civil rights/anti-war movement activist Paul Robeson expressed solidarity with the struggle against apartheid in South Africa (over 30 years before a mass-based anti-apartheid student campaign for U.S. university divestment of its stock in U.S. corporations that invested in South Africa developed on many U.S. campuses) by saying the following:

"We Colored Americans will especially want to support our African brothers and sisters in South Africa who are now being jailed by the Malan Government for peacefully resisting segregation and discrimination..."

Paul Robeson's December 1952 Letter Revisited

In a December 1952 letter, U.S. protest folk singer and civil rights/anti-war movement activist Paul Robeson wrote the following:

"...For the past several years a vicious effort has been made to destroy my career. Hall-owners, sponsors and even audiences have been intimidated. Recently, in Chicago, 15,000 persons who wanted to attend one of my concerts had to assemble in a park because the hall-owner had been threatened.

"The outrageous denial of my passport bars me from accepting contracts to appear in England, France, China and many other lands.

"Although I have recorded for nearly every major recording company and sold millions of records both here and abroad, these companies refuse to produce any new recordings for me.

"What is the meaning of this? It is an attempt to gag artistic expression, to dictate whom the people shall hear and what they shall hear. It is an attempt to suppress not only one, but every artist, Negro and white, whose heart and talent are enlisted in the fight for peace and democracy..."

Paul Robeson's July 1952 `Freedom' Journal Article Revisited

In the July 1952 issue of his Freedom journal publication, U.S. protest folk singer and civil rights/anti-war movement activist Paul Robeson wrote the following:

"The Council on African Affairs called a press conference the other day. It has to do with the present disobedience campaign in South Africa in particular...

"Now, whatever our difficulties and disabilities, the South Africans are even more fiercely oppressed. Pass laws, curfew laws, unbelievable conditions in housing, jobs, all the stigmas of segregation in stations, public places, stores, and so forth.

"So what do they do?...

"They declared on April 6th [1952] their determination to oppose the new oppressive laws--and it started on June 26th [1952]. They refuse to obey Jim Crow and submit to arrest at this stage. Just imagine if we started something like that in the South--or even in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Louisville and Los Angeles...

"These South Africans aren't afraid of baiting. They march in thousands with raised clenched fists. They sing their songs of protest...

"And finally, these Africans realize that the old political parties (the so-called Liberals and Conservatives, equivalents of our Democratic and Republican Parties) serve the interests of those who rule, who own. They do not and cannot serve the masses of the people, Black or white. So they have had to form their own Congress and look forward to their own party, springing from themselves and serving the people..."

Paul Robeson's November 5, 1951 Conference for Equal Rights for Negroes in the Arts, Sciences and Professions Speech Revisited

In a November 5, 1951 speech to the Conference for Equal Rights for Negroes in the Arts, Sciences and Professions, U.S. protest folk singer and civil rights/anti-war movement activist Paul Robeson said the following:

"One great creation, modern popular music, whether it be in theatre, film, radio, records--wherever it may be--is almost completely based upon the Negro idiom. There is no leading American singer, performer of popular songs, whether it be a Crosby, a Sinatra, a Shore, a Judy Garland, an Ella Logan, who has not listened (and learned) by the hour to Holiday, Waters, Florence Mills, to Bert Williams, to Fitzgerald, and to the greatest of all, Bessie Smith. Without these models, who would ever have heard of a Tucker, a Jolson, a Cantor?....

"...Whence stems even Gershwin? From the music of Negro America joined with the ancient Hebrew idiom. Go and listen to some of the great melodies. Here again is a great American composer, deeply rooted, whether he knew it or not, in an African tradition, a tradition very close to his own heritage.

"I speak very particularly of this popular form. This is very important to the Negro artists, because billions, literally billions of dollars, have been earned and are being earned from their creations, and the Negro people have received almost nothing.

"At another stage of the arts there is no question, as one goes about the world, of the contribution of the Negro folk songs, of the music that sprang from my forefathers in their struggle for freedom--not songs of contentment--but songs like `Go Down Moses' that inspired Harriet Tubman, John Brown, and Sojourner Truth to fight for emancipation...

"...What heartbreak for every Negro composer! Publishing houses taking his songs for nothing and making fortunes...

"...You know, the people created our art in the first place.

"Haydn with his folk songs--the people made it up in the first place...

"So, in the end, the culture which we deal comes from the people..."

Paul Robeson's July 1949 `Songs of My People" Article Revisited

In a July 1949 article, titled "Songs of My People, U.S. civil rights movement and anti-war movement activist and protest folk singer Paul Robeson wrote the following:

"...Recent investigations have for the first time revealed a whole new field of Negro songs--songs of protest, songs directly calling the Negroes to the struggle for their rights, and against lynch-law, against their exploiters, against capitalists...

"A special place in the corpus of Negro songs is occupied by songs of protest, which were first collected in the southern states in the 1920s by the American journalist, L. Gellert. These songs manifest in full measure the Negro workers' heroic revolutionary spirit, their hatred of their exploiters, and their yearning for the struggle for their human rights and freedom...

"...Let me just say that under capitalist conditions, where all forms and expressions of American art must subordinate themselves to the demands of the market, our native Negro music has been subjected to the very worst of exploitation. Commercial jazz has prostituted and ruthlessly perverted many splendid models of Negro folk music and has corrupted and debased many talented Negro musicians in order to satisfy the desires of capitalist society..."

Paul Robeson's June 14, 1949 Rockland Palace Speech in NYC Revisited

In a speech at Rockland Palace in New York City on June 14, 1949, U.S. protest folk singer Paul Robeson said the following:

"...As a consequence of my activities for Negro freedom, I had 86 concerts cancelled out of 86...

"Well, they can have their concerts! I'll go back to their cities to sing for the people whom I love, for the Negro and white workers whose freedom will insure my freedom...

"Today the fight is still on for peace and freedom. Concerts must wait...

"I finished my professional tour at its height and announced that never again would I sing at a $5-dollar top, that I would sing at prices so that workers could come in comfort and dignity. I did this because I belonged to working people. I struggled as a boy in the brick-yards, on the docks, in the hotels to get a living and an education...So I said that my talents would henceforth belong to my people in their struggle. And I acted on this. Thousands and thousands came. That's my answer to the bourbons who think they can end my career!..." 

Paul Robeson's July 1939 Theatre Arts TAC Interview Revisited

After interviewing African-American protest folk song and spirituals singer Paul Robeson in 1939, Julia Dorn wrote an article that appeared in the July-August 1939 issue of the Theatre Arts Committee's TAC publication. Following are some excerpts from this article about this 1939 interview of Paul Robeson:

"After ten years of successful concerts, movies and stage engagements abroad, Paul Robeson has come home...

"`When I sang my American folk melodies in Budapest, Prague, Tiflis, Moscow, Oslo, 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 mines, they understand each other in the common language of work, suffering and protest...

"`Many of the old folk songs which are still young today echoed the terrific desire to escape bondage, such as the Negro protest song, "How long must my people weep and mourn."...

"`When I sing "Let my people go," I can feel sympathetic vibrations from my audience, whatever its nationality. It is no longer just a Negro song--it is a symbol of those seeking freedom from the dungeons of fascism...'"

Paul Robeson's June 4, 1939 Interview Revisited

After interviewing African-American protest folk song and spirituals singer Paul Robeson in 1939, Eugene Gordon wrote an article that appeared in the Sunday Worker newspaper on June 4, 1939. Following are some excerpts from this article about this 1939 interview of Paul Robeson:

"It is difficult to imagine another combination of artistic abilities equaling that of Robeson's on his campaign of education among the people:...singing in an unsurpassed bass the folk songs of the world to the common people of the cities and the countryside...This is Paul Robeson today...

"I have alluded to Robeson's going out among the people and singing the world's folk songs. This is chiefly his new role as an artist...

"`I used to think of myself as a concert artist, after the fashion, say, of Marian Anderson. From years of experience I know now that I am best as a singer of folk songs. And when I say that, I don't mean the songs of the Negro, only.'...

"He has from the beginning considered Negro folk songs great music, although they were generally looked upon as nothing more than simple plantation melodies.

"`If there is one thing I am proud of it is that I have been able to do something, along with others, towards giving this Negro American folk music its rightful place in the world.'

"When he goes on concert tours hereafter his program will consist of folk songs of the people of various nations...There will be Negro songs of protest, revolutionary spirituals of slavery days..."

Did Paul Robeson Protest Against Korean War More Than The Weavers Did?

On June 27, 1950 Democratic U.S. President Harry S. Truman ordered the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy to intervene militarily in the civil war in Korea; and on June 30, 1950 Democratic U.S. President Truman authorized the beginning of U.S. military air strikes and the use of U.S. military ground forces against targets in North Korea and against North Korean troops in both southern and northern Korea.

But in a speech at a Civil Rights Congress [CRC] anti-war rally of 18,000 people in New York City's Madison Square Garden on June 28, 1950, U.S. anti-war movement and civil rights movement activist and folk song singer Paul Robeson said the following:

"...The people's will for freedom is stronger than atom bombs and we may be sure the people of Korea, Indo-China, the Philippines and Formosa will not treat their invaders lightly any more. We have supported, not only the bankrupt Chiang in China, but all the little Chiangs--equally corrupt and lacking in favor among their people--all over the Far East.

"And the American people must resent this forced alliance of our proud nation with the dishonorable quislings who stand, momentarily, in the way of their peoples' strivings for freedom and independence.

"Our place has always been on the side of the Lafayettes, the heroes of the French Revolution, Touissaints, the Kosciuskos, the Bolivars--not the Quislings of Europe and the Chiangs, the Bao Dai's and the Syngman Rhee's of Asia.

"The meaning of the President's order that the lives of our airmen and sailors must be sacrificed for the government's despicable puppet in Korea, shall not be lost to the millions in the East whose day of freedom is not far off...

"Least of all will the meaning of the President's order be lost to the Negro people. They will know that if we don't stop our armed adventure in Korea today--tomorrow it will be Africa. For the maw of the warmakers is insatiable. They aim to rule the world or ruin it. Their slogan is all or none.

"It has already meant our intervention not only in Korea, but in Formosa, the Philippines and Indo-china with arms, ships, aircraft, and men.

"I have said before, and say it again, that the place for the Negro people to fight for their freedom is here at home--in Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas--in the Chicago ghetto, and right here in New York's Stuyvesant Town!...

"...It falls upon our shoulders here in the United States to halt our government's intervention on behalf of the corrupt Rhee regime..."

And in a November 24, 1950 speech before 5,000 people in New York City's St. Nicholas Arena at the First National Convention of the Labor Youth League, Robeson also said the following:

"I am happy and proud to take part in this first National Convention of the Labor Youth League...You know, and I know, that there are people in our country who are NOT happy about your meeting. They want you to be quiet while they herd you off to fight the youth of Korea...

"They want you to sit still while the...Eisenhowers turn the universities into barracks and bludgeon your young, inquiring minds into a meek conformity with the policies of the war-minded, the racists, and the rich...

"But YOU say, No!

"You say, No more war! Books not bullets! Bread, not cannon! Life, not death!

"You say, Peace!..."

In the January 1952 issue of his Freedom newspaper, Robeson also wrote:

"Six months ago the truce negotiations began in Korea. But today the bloodshed continues, and American diplomats and top brass persist in carrying on the most shameful war in which our country has ever been engaged...

"A 100,000 Americans dead, wounded and missing have been listed in this war which nobody--not even the most cynical politician--bothers to call a `police action' any more. And more than that, we have killed, maimed and rendered homeless a million Koreans, all in the name of preserving western civilization. U.S. troops have acted like beasts, as do all aggressive, invading, imperialist armies. North and South of the 38th parallel, they have looked upon the Korean people with contempt, called them filthy names, raped their women, lorded it over old women and children, and shot prisoners in the back...

"In Indo-China, Indonesia, Malaya--which side are we on?...In each case we have been on the side of the Dutch, the French and the British colonial powers who stand arrogantly,arms akimbo, feet spread wide, blocking the road to national liberation and independence...

"...We must demand: End War--Make Peace Now! An immediate truce in Korea! A meeting and peace agreement among the 5 major powers!..."

Coincidentally, according to a footnote in the 1978 Paul Robeson Speaks book that Philip Foner edited, "with recording companies refusing to issue his records or record new ones and all concert halls, theaters, etc. closed to him, Robeson, who had been listed among top ten highest paid concert artists of 1941, sees his income dwindle from a high of over $100,000 (equal to around $1.1 million in 2016 U.S. dollars) to about $6,000 (equal to around $54,000 in 2016 U.S. dollars) in 1952..."

Members of the commercially-oriented folk song group, the Weavers, however, apparently did not publicly express opposition to U.S. military intervention in the Korean Civil War between 1950 and 1952 as much as did Robeson; and, coincidentally, the commercially-oriented Weavers folk song group earned a lot more money between 1950 and 1952 than did Robeson (before members of the Weavers were also eventually blacklisted in 1952, because of their 1940's association with left or left-liberal popular front groups, Decca Records Corporation apparently stopped distributing their records or recording new Weavers single records or vinyl albums and most U.S. concert halls and theaters were closed to the Weavers until they were allowed to publicly perform again in a 1955 Carnegie Hall concert in Manhattan).  As Ronald Lankford, Jr. recalled in his book Folk Music USA: The Changing Voice of Protest:

"...The Weavers...signed with Decca...Old friends from People's Songs, a radical booking agency, and Sing Out!, the folksong magazine, seemed...distrustful of the Weavers' newfound success...They believed that [they]...had sold out their principles for popular success...The Weavers...stopped attending trade union potlucks...When Mother Bloor...keeled over in August 1951, the Weavers didn't even bother to send flowers...It was pretty clear that the Weavers were avoiding their former haunts..."

And as Dick Weissman recalled in his 2010 book Talkin' `Bout A Revolution: Music and Social Change in America: 

"...Gordon Jenkins, an arranger-producer at Decca Records, loved the group and signed them to the label. Between 1950 and 1952 they sold over 4 million records. One of their major hits was Lead Belly's song `Goodnight Irene.' The group shared composer credits with Huddie Ledbetter on `Kisses Sweeter Than Wine,' reworking his adaptation of an Irish melody into the song...

"...The Weavers' managers tried to keep them from performing at radical rallies, or having any direct associations with radical movements...It would have been difficult for conservatives to object to the content of the Weavers' Decca recordings. `On Top of Old Smokey" was a traditional English-American love ballad, `Goodnight Irene' was a sad song about an unfortunate love affair...The Weavers were scolded by the left; Irwin Silber, who was now running People;s Artists, criticized the group in the magazine Sing Out! for not having any black members when they performed so much African American music...The Weavers were listed as communists in Counterattack and Red Channels, two publications run by three ex-FBI agents...As a result of these listings, the Weavers began to lose bookings, a prospective television show disappeared, and Decca Records cancelled their record deal..."

A month after the U.S. military intervention in Korea's civil war began in late June 1950, the Weavers found that their Decca record version of a pro-Zionist movement folk song, "Tzena, Tzena", and their version of Lead Belly's "Goodnight Irene" folk song were among the ten hit records that were being played by U.S. commercial radio station DJs and on U.S. commercial jukeboxes; and by August 5, 1950, while U.S. military intervention in Korea escalated, the Weavers' "Goodnight Irene" record was number 2 on Billboard magazine's hit record chart at the same time the Weavers' "Tzena, Tzena" record was still number 4 on Billboard magazine's hit record chart.