83 quotes by Paul Robeson (1898-1976), American (Singer)

Quotes About

Peekskill Evening Star

... every ticket purchased for the Peekskill concert will drop nickels and dimes into the basket of an un-American political organization... the time for tolerant silence that signifies approval is running out.

The benefit concert had been organized by a musical group called The People's Artists and it featured baritone Paul Robeson and folk singer Pete Seeger both great musicians with leftist political views. The beneficiary organization was The Civil Rights Congress which was fighting for a stay of execution for six African-American youths sentenced to death in New Jersey. Peekskill, only 25 miles from New York City had 3 major demographic groups: Lower and middle class white workers, middle class blacks who vacationed in the area, and liberal white intellectuals many of whom were Jewish who also vacationed in the area. Robeson had given a speech on Paris a few weeks earlier that was misquoted and the American Legion and others who had been fired up by this editorial and other anti-Communist, anti-Black and anti-Semitic rhetoric. The Concert was attacked by an organized white group who beat ticket holders and staff. The local police did not intervene, and in the aftermath of what had turned into an assault over 700 whites from the Peekskill area applied for membership in the KKK (Klu Klux Klan). See {72167} for Robeson's misquoted statement which was one of the triggers for this assault. The attack galvanized many groups of the area who were not going to let the thugs deny free speech and the following month the concert was performed. The concert itself was free from violence, though marred by the presence of a police helicopter overhead and the flushing out of at least one sniper's nest. An incredible Twenty thousand people showed up. Security, organized by labor unions, was tight with union men standing in a protective circle around the entire concert grounds and sitting with Robeson on the stage. The Musicians performed without incident.

Popular Quotes

Paul Robeson

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.

Paul Robeson

Sometimes great injustices may be inflicted on the minority when the majority is in the pursuit of a great and just cause.

Paul Robeson

Every artist, every scientist, every writer must decide now where he stands. The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative.

Paul Robeson

Get them to sing your song, and then they will know who you are.

This advice for a singer is also a metaphor for Robeson’s active political approach. If the politician can inspire people, give them ideas, and stimulate people talking about his/her programs and ideas, the name recognition will follow.

Paul Robeson

The artist must elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative. the history of the capsulize era is characterized by the degradation of my people: despoiled of their lands, their true culture destroyed...denied equal protection of the law, and deprived their rightful place in the respect of their fellows.

Paul Robeson

The answer to injustice is not to silence the critic but to end the injustice.

Paul Robeson

I am being tried for fighting for the right of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this United States of America.

Paul Robeson

With Othello, Shakespeare posed this problem of a black man in a white society in the role that he's playing. And Shakespeare gave Othello such dignity - he came not from - as he said - not from hate but from honor, from a sense of his own human dignity. And to me, to my mind, there could be no greater character played.

Paul Robeson

For the first time since I began acting, I feel that I've found my place in the world, that there's something out of my own culture which i can express and perhaps help others preserve..i have found out now that the African natives had a definite culture a long way beyond the culture of the Stone age...an integrated thing, which is still unspoiled by western influences...I think the Americans will be amazed to find how many of the modern dance steps are relics of African heritage.

Paul Robeson

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.

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About the Author

Paul Robeson

Born: April 9, 1898
Died: January 23, 1976
Nationality: American
Profession: Singer, Actor, Social Activist, Lawyer, Athlete

Biography

Paul Leroy Robeson was an American bass baritone concert artist and stage and film actor who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his political activism. Educated at Rutgers College and Columbia University, he was a star athlete in his youth. He also studied Swahili and phonetics at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London in 1934. His political activities began with his involvement with unemployed workers and anti-imperialist students whom he met in Britain and continued with support for the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War and his opposition to fascism. In the United States he became active in the Civil Rights Movement and other social justice campaigns. His sympathies for the Soviet Union and for communism, and his criticism of the United States government and its foreign policies, caused him to be blacklisted during the McCarthy era.

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PAUL ROBESON

(Paul Leroy Robeson)