Paul Robeson Quotes

I did a long concert tour in England and Denmark and Sweden, and I also sang for the Soviet people, one of the finest musical audiences in the world.

In Russia I felt for the first time like a full human being. No color prejudice like in Mississippi, no color prejudice like in Washington. It was the first time I felt like a human being.

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.

We [must] realize that our future lies chiefly in our own hands.

I found a special eagerness among the younger, and I am sorry to say, the more intelligent Negroes, to dismiss the spiritual as something beneath their new pride in their race. It is as if they wanted to put it behind them as something to be ashamed of ...

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.

Art is not just to show life as it is, but to show life as it should be.

Vast quantities of U.S. bombers, tanks and guns have been sent against Ho Chi Minh and his freedom-fighters; and now we are told that soon it will be 'advisable' to send America GI's into Indo-China in order that the tin, rubber and tungsten of Southeast Asia be kept by the "free world"-meaning white Imperialism .

In the early days of my carer as an actor, I shared what was then the prevailing attitude of Negro performers :;that the content and form of a play or a film scenario was of little importance to us. What mattered was was the opportunity, which came so seldom to our folks ... Later I came to understand that the Negro artist could not view the matter simply in terms of of his individual interests, and that he had a responsibility to his people who rightfully resented the traditional stereotyped portrayals of Negros on stage and screen.

The artist must elect to fight for Freedom or for Slavery.

Freedom is a hard-bought thing and millions are in chains, but they strain toward the new day drawing near.

But the deep desire for peace remained with the American people.

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

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.

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.

This United States Government should go down to Mississippi and protect my people. That is what should happen.

This is the basis, and I am not being tried for whether I am a Communist, I am being tried for fighting for the right of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this United States of America

We ask for nothing that is not right, and herein lies the great power of our demand.

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.

My father was a slave and my people died to build this country and I am going to stay here and have a part of it just like you.

The course of history can be changed but not halted.

I know that if the peace movement takes its message boldly to the Negro people a powerful force can be secured in pursuit of the greatest goal of all mankind. And the same is true of labor and the great democratic sections of our population.

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.

My future depends mostly upon myself.

And at home in the United States we found continued and increased persecution, first of leaders of the Communist Party, and then of all honest anti-fascists.

If the American Negro is to have a culture of his own he will have to leave America to get it.

The Korean war has always been an unpopular war among the American people.

In my music, my plays, my films, I want to carry always this central idea: to be African.

The patter of their feet as they walk through Jim Crow barriers to attend school is the thunder of the marching men of Joshua, and the world rocks beneath their tread.

I learned that along with the towering achievements of the cultures of ancient Greece and China there stood the culture of Africa, unseen and denied by the imperialist looters of Africa's material wealth.

At every step the vast majority have expressed horror at the idea of an aggressive war.

Americans will be amazed to find ho many of the modern dance steps are relics of the African heritage.

This is our home and this is our country. Beneath its soil lie bones of our fathers; for it some of them fought, bled, and died. Here we were born and here we will stay.

Films make me into some cheap turn ... You bet they'll never let me play a part in a film where a Negro is on top.

The talents of an artist, small or large, are God-given ... They are a sacred trust.

You know I am an actor, and I have medals for diction.

The faces and the tactics of the leaders may change every four years, or two, or one, but the people go on forever. The people- beaten down today, yet rising tomorrow; losing the road one minute but finding it the next; their eyes always fixed on a star of true brotherhood, equality and dignity- the people are the real guardians of our hopes and dreams.

Why should the Negroes ever fight against the only nations of the world where racial discrimination is prohibited, and where the people can live freely? Never! I can assure you, they will never fight against either the Soviet Union or the peoples' democracies.

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

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.

Freedom is a hard-bought thing.

The talents of an artist, small or great, are God-given. They've nothing to do with the private person; they're nothing to be proud of. They're just a sacred trust ... Having been given, I must give. Man shall not live by bread alone, and what the farmer does I must do. I must feed the people - with my songs.

We must join with the tens of millions all over the world who see in peace our most sacred responsibility.

In all spheres of modern life the influence of Stalin reaches wide and deep. From his last simply written but vastly discerning and comprehensive document, back through the years, his contributions to the science of our world society remain invaluable. One reverently speaks of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin - the shapers of humanity's richest present and future.

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

You want to shut up every Negro who has the courage to stand up and fight for the rights of his people, for the rights of workers, and I have been on many a picket line for the steelworkers too.

To be free ... to walk the good American earth as equal citizens, to live without fear, to enjoy the fruits of our toil, to give our children every opportunity in life
that dream which we have held so long in our hearts is today the destiny that we hold in our hands.

The intolerance of the few, or the risk of it, carries the day against the wider humanity of the many.

I shall take my voice wherever there are those who want to hear the melody of freedom or the words that might inspire hope and courage in the face of fear. My weapons are peaceful, for it is only by peace that peace can be attained. The song of freedom must prevail.

As an artist I come to sing, but as a citizen, I will always speak for peace, and no one can silence me in this.

I am truly happy that I am able to travel from time to time to the USSR the country I love above all. I always have been, I am now and will always be a loyal friend of the Soviet Union.