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Paul Robeson 1898 -- 1976
Educational Packet | ||
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This educational packet is designed to accompany the Paul Robeson Educators Guide and Student Learning Activities for Grades 4 -- 12.
Contents:
Introduction to Paul Robeson Page 3 Achievements Page 4 Accomplishments Page 5 Biography Page 7 Paul Robeson Quotes Page 12 Paul Robeson and the Trade Union Movement Page 21
For More Information, contact Douglas Calvin PO Box 5372, Takoma Park, MD 20913 (301) 270-1456 lunasol@igc.org | ||
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Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson was one of the most inspiring and gifted artist-activists of this century. During his heyday, he was one of the best known Americans throughout the world. His father was a hard-working preacher and university graduate who was born a slave and escaped on the Underground Railroad. His mother was a Quaker schoolteacher who died when he was a child. He excelled as an athlete, scholar, actor, musician, activist and a formidable voice for peace, justice, and unity with movements around the world. He used his talents to address the aspirations of the worlds' oppressed and working classes, and to challenge institutional and cultural racism, bigotry and violence. As a leader in the African-American community, he extended his solidarity to peoples of diverse backgrounds throughout the world, in Africa, the Soviet Union, China, the Americas, to trade union movements, and peace activists internationally. He used his musical skills to express the oneness of the human spirit and to advance the cause of freedom. Due to his outspoken views, he was subjected to attacks by the extreme-right wing and was persecuted in the difficult days of McCarthyism. His memory is largely forgotten in his own country. He is an exemplary role-model for young people today. His legacy provides a wonderful forum to examine civil and human rights movements throughout this century. We invite you to continue that legacy for unity, solidarity and aspirations for peace into the 21st century. | ||
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Paul Robeson Achievements
The first African-American to be named All-American end in college football, an award that he received twice. One of the greatest ends in the history of the game.
An exceptional college athlete. Graduated Rutgers with fifteen varsity letters, including basketball, football, baseball, discus, shot put and javelin.
An all-around academic genius in college at Rutgers University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and valedictorian of his class.
One of the first African-Americans to play and star in professional football.
The third black graduate of Columbia Law School
The first black lawyer to enter one of New York's most prestigious law firms
The first concert artist, along with Ronald Hayes, to raise black spirituals to their rightful place of respect, in the best concert halls of the world, beginning with a 1925 concert in New York City.
The actor who gave highly acclaimed and historic performances and profound interpretations of Shakespeare's Othello in modern times. Has twenty curtain calls following the opening performance in London in 1930. In 1943 opens on Broadway and runs for 296 performances, a Broadway record for Shakespeare plays.
Founder of the first US African solidarity organization, the Council on African Affairs in 1937. This council supported anti-colonial movements, with particular emphasis on South Africa before and during the first years of Apartheid.
Brought a war to a halt for several hours, while both sides listened to him sing at the front-lines in Madrid, during the Spanish Civil War, in 1937.
Vice-President of the Civil Rights Congress in the 1940s
Leading athlete in challenging segregation in professional sports. Part of a Negro delegation in 1943 to the Baseball Commission to successfully plea for the removal of racial barriers in professional baseball, leading to the hiring of Jackie Robinson among other black players. | ||
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Performed at numerous -- probably in the hundreds -- labor union conferences, concerts and picket lines. His friendship with trade unions included close relationships with Welsh and Canadian miners.
The first international singer to perform at the Sydney Opera House in Australia while it was still under construction in 1960.
Paul Robeson Accomplishments
One of America's greatest concert and interpretive artists.
A symbol of black-Jewish friendship and solidarity.
The most significant early black actor in America on both stage and screen
The first black actor to rise in international prominence in film and bring dignity and respect to black characters
A hero for trade union and working-class people around the world.
A role-model for American youth
A world-wide symbol of the artist as activist and spokesperson for the poor and oppression in America and throughout the world.
A brilliant scholar of language and world culture, recognized as such by some of the world's most respected historians. He also spoke and sang in more than twenty languages, including several African languages, Chinese, Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew, and Arabic.
An accomplished musicologist, he studied folk and classical music from around the world. His concerts were often forums that discussed the development of music as an international language and an example of the oneness of all humanity.
Befriended the Soviet and Chinese people even at the height of the Cold War.
A symbol of friendship and harmony to millions of people around the world. | ||
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Paul Robeson Awards and Recognitions
NAACP Spingarn Award. (1944)
Given award and named a "champion of freedom" by the National Church of Nigeria. (1953)
Awarded the Stalin Peace Prize. (1953)
Russia named Mt. Robeson. (1949)
Zhitlovsky Award by the Zhitlovsky Foundation for Jewish Education. (1970)
A Rutgers University student center was named after him. (1971)
Black Psychiatrist Associations' Annual Award. (1972)
National Urban Leagues' Annual Whitney M. Young Memorial Award. (1971)
US Actors' Equity Award named after him. (1974)
Grammy Award winner (post-humously) (1998)
Paul Robeson received honorary degrees from: Howard University (DC) Lincoln University (PA) Humboldt University (GDR) Moscow State Conservatory of Music (honorary professor) Morehouse College (GA) University of Ghana's Institute of African Studies (invited lecturer).
Paul Robeson was made honorary member of: The National Maritime Union The International Longshoreman's and Warehouseman's Union The State, County and Municipal Workers of America. Internationally, he received awards from the Artists, Writers and Printing Workers Congress of Bucharest, Romania, and Welsh mining unions | ||
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Rediscovering Paul Robeson, A Role-Model for Today by Douglas Calvin
Linking Generations through Paul Robeson's Legacy The name Paul Robeson invokes a wide variety of responses, depending on who is asked. He may be remembered by some as a "trouble-maker," but, more likely, as a man of giant stature who suffered unfairly under the repression of McCarthyism. He may be remembered as an actor, an athlete, a singer, a scholar, a film star, an ethno-musicologist, a black freedom-fighter concerned with the aspirations for freedom of common people everywhere, a visionary human rights' activist. Indeed, he was all of these and more. A person of such moral integrity, stature and breadth is an ideal role-model for young people in the 1990s.
Introducing Young People to Paul Robeson The most common response of young people is to respond with the question, "Who was Paul Robeson?" In this era of rising poverty and violence, of racial and ethnic separatism, and of few well-rounded positive role-models for young people, the query, "Who was Paul Robeson," is a pertinent question to solicit and develop resources to provide answers for and stimulate further exploration. Finding these answers will open access to information about decades of US and world movement histories. Of equal importance, by examining the life of Paul Robeson, young people can learn about how social movements of the early and mid twentieth century influenced and helped shape the later parts of this century.
Paul Robeson lived his life believing culture and liberation would be indivisible, and he embodied this principle in action throughout all his activities. Unlike other, better remembered black leaders, such as Marcus Garvey, Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr., Robeson was not only an organizational and movement leader, but an artist who used his talents to embrace a wide spectrum of working people's struggles, to fight against fascism, and to communicate our oneness as humanity. Because of his outspoken political beliefs, he was not only persecuted during his lifetime, but largely erased from US history. A pertinent question to pose is what would our modern perceptions of history be if Martin Luther King Jr or other great leaders were not present in our history books or collective conscience. Rediscovering the history of Paul Robeson is a significant contribution to our understanding of the world.
Paul Robeson's approach was specifically multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and always supportive of young organizers. "Among the things I most cherish are the expressions of friendship and hope for the future which come to me from youth in all parts of the world. For Negroes, as for all oppressed peoples, so much depends on the course which the young generation takes their early involvement in the struggle for freedom..." Paul Robeson (1953) [Paul Robeson Speaks, p.483]
He excelled as an athlete, academic, theater and film star, singer, and political activist. From his own experiences, he grew to understand that the racism against black people worked hand-in-hand with anti-Semitism and class exploitation. He was dedicated to black self-determination within the United States and colonial powers, and fought tirelessly to aid national liberation movements in Africa and on behalf of working peoples' struggles throughout the world. His films, acting career and singing engagements challenged the negative stereotypes of African-Americans, protested the rise of fascism in the 1930s, and the post-war imperialism of his country.
He engaged in many struggles before they were "acceptable" or well-known, including anti-fascism, black self-determination within the US and globally, and friendship with communist countries. While his views were well publicized throughout his career, they did not stir controversy until the | ||
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advent of the Cold War, when ideas such as friendship with the Soviet Union and drawing international attention to the plight of black Americans became fodder for anti-Communist hysteria. Ironically, many of the very issues for which he was attacked would later become commonly accepted within just a few decades. In todays' world, he would be a likely candidate for president
Biographical Profile Paul Robeson lived from 1898 to 1976. His father was a preacher and an escaped slave and his mother came from a prominent abolitionist Quaker family, who died in his early years. He graduated with high honors from Rutgers University in 1919, as class orator, valedictorian, a member of Phi Beta Kappa Society and the Cap and Skull honors society of Rutgers, and winner of fifteen varsity letters. He was twice named All American football player and put himself through Columbia University School of Law by playing pro football and singing. It was his career as a singer, with his powerful bass-baritone voice, that would introduce him to people the world over.
Robeson's efforts on behalf of African-Americans encompassed activities in the cotton fields and industrial centers, top-dollar concert halls, on stage, in film, in the White House and the United Nations. He ardently promoted black American culture as a culture deserving the recognition and respect equal to all other great cultures. His efforts included a steadfast refusal to sing to segregated audiences. He chose instead to only sing in black churches and schools where all races were welcome. He spearheaded and co-chaired with Albert Einstein the 1946 100-Day Crusade to End Lynching, which included an argumentative meeting with President Truman. In 1943, he was part of a Negro delegation to plea for the removal of a ban against Negroes in major league baseball, before Baseball Commissioner Kenesay Mountain Landis and League officials, leading to the hiring of Jackie Robinson and others. In 1951, Robeson presented a petition to the Secretary General of the United Nations, charging the US with genocide against black Americans.
During the early 1920s, he began his professional career as an actor and singer. It would be these pursuits that would make Paul Robeson one of the best known Americans in the world during his heyday. In 1924, Robeson was threatened by the Ku Klux Klan in New York for performing in Eugene O"Neill's All God's Chillun, a play that includes a white woman kissing his hand. He also starred, to critical acclaim, in O'Neill's Emperor Jones. In 1925, he performed the first major concert of all Negro music, accompanied by pianist Lawrence Brown. Also in 1925, Robeson opened the musical Showboat in London, that featured a song expressly written for him, "Ole Man River." This song would become forever associated with Robeson. Over the next several years, he transformed the lyrics of "Ole Man River" into a compelling song of resistance. In 1943, his interpretation of Othello, on Broadway, would set the definitive portrayal of Othello for many years to come. Robeson also starred in eleven films through which he attempted to challenge the negative portrayals of Negroes. He said of his 1937 film, Song of Freedom, "I believe this is the first film to give a true picture of many aspects of the life of a coloured man in the West. Hitherto...he has been caricatured as a comedy character. This film shows him as a real man."
His time spent in the London theater in the 1920s introduced him to African student leaders, Welsh miners, high society and the British Jewish community. These friendships were important associations that refined his political views into an internationalist perspective. In 1933, Paul and his wife Eslanda were made honorary members of the West African Students Union. Later that year he performed a benefit concert of All God's Chillun for Jewish refugees. It was this experience that began his conscious political awareness.
It was also while in England that Paul began learning about the Soviet Union and it's experimentations in socialism. He already had a deep abiding love for Russian people through their music, but | ||
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now he began in earnest to learn about their history and learned to speak Russian as well. The following year he visited Russia for the first time, after having a brush with Nazi stormtroopers while en route. It was to be the first of many visits and -- even at the heights of the Cold War -- Paul Robeson continually advocated friendship with the Soviet Union and China.
While never joining the Communist Party, Paul's ideas about socialism were important in shaping his worldviews. His thinking was that in order for the world to survive, that there needed to be a system for all the people that allowed them to be a part of guaranteeing one's own existence -- something that was denied to many people under capitalism. The Soviet Union further appealed to Robeson for it's role in countering capitalist expansion in the Third World and applying pressure on the United States to improve the human rights of US citizens. It was the latter -- to improve democracy within America, that Robeson was most passionate.
In 1934, Paul expanded his repertoire to include folk music from other cultures, eventually singing in more than thirty languages (including several African languages, Chinese, Russian, Welsh, Arabic and German) and inspiring millions. He became an insightful ethno-musicologist, researching many forms of traditional music, and relating the historical development of music across cultures.
Throughout his life, Robeson struggled on behalf of black Americans and for all working-class people. In a 1937 interview with the Daily Worker (London) on joining the Labor Theater, he stated, "It must express the need for freedom not only of my own race. That's only part of a bigger thing. But of all the working-class here, in America, all over. I was born of them. They are my people. They will know what I mean...When I step onto a stage in the future, I go on as a representative of the working-class. I work with the consciousness of that in my mind. I share the richness they bring to art. I approach the stage from that angle." [Paul Robeson Speaks, p. 119]
Robeson was a central figure in the growing trade union movement in the 1930s and 40s, singing and speaking on picket lines, union halls and conventions throughout the US and internationally, including four concerts in Panama in 1947 for the United Workers of America, CIO, with over ten thousand attending. In a 1949 speech Robeson spoke of these activities, "As a consequence of my activities for Negro freedom, I had 86 concerts canceled out of 86. Of course, these were very special concerts. I don't blame the auto barons in Detroit for not wanting to pay to hear me sing when I was in Cadillac Square fighting for the auto workers. I don't blame the iron-ore owners of the Michigan and Minnesota iron-ore ranges for not wanting to hear me when I was on the picket lines for the steel workers of these regions. And so with the packing house owners of Chicago, or the ship owners of the east and west coasts, or the sugar plantation owners of Hawaii."
Among his many accomplishments, in 1937, after spending considerable time with African students in London, Robeson co-founded the Council on African Affairs to support national liberation movements throughout Africa. This US-Africa solidarity organization, a first, was to set the standard and impetus for solidarity work throughout this century, and helped topple the system of apartheid in South Africa nearly 50 years later through massive financial and political pressures. In one example of these efforts, Robeson lead a 1949 protest of 3000 in London against the racist policies of the South African Government. Co-sponsors included the South African Committee of India League, the League of Coloured Peoples, the West African Students' Union, and the East African Students' Union. In March of 1953, Paul Robeson wrote an analysis of the immediate impacts of the apartheid system of South African blacks and whites. [Spotlight on Africa, August 13, 1953. Paul Robeson Speaks, p. 353-362] It remains one of the best and most thorough articles on the early days of Apartheid written. The Council on African Affairs was disbanded in 1955 because, "continuing government harassment made its work impossible." [Paul Robeson Speaks, p.41] | ||
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In 1939, Robeson recorded the "Ballad for Americans" with the American Peoples Chorus. The audience response was the greatest since the reaction to Orson Wells "War of the Worlds." It was a perfect song to help unify the American public as they prepared to go to war. Over the next decade, Robeson reached a pinnacle of fame and popularity in the US, singing, acting and appearing in Hollywood films.
In the 1930s, Robeson devoted considerable energies to oppose rising fascism in Europe, singing benefits for Jewish refugees and at numerous events on behalf of the Republican forces and International Brigades in Spain. They were fighting against Franco's army, that was backed by Hitler and Mussolini (with vital support from US oil companies). In 1938, Robeson went to the front lines to sing. Troops on both sides of the trenches stilled their guns to hear him sing. While initially opposed to US involvement in a war in Europe, he soon became an ardent motivator and entertainer for US troops in Europe and the war effort at home, giving dozens of free concerts to raise US war bonds.
At the same time, Robeson spoke out against black oppression within the US, and continued to use the world arena to expose inequalities within US society and promote black self-determination. While his outspoken support for the Soviet Union, African independence, Progressive Party candidate Henry Wallace in 1948, and other political activities were tolerated without controversy in the 1920s, 30s and wartime 40s, with the advent of the Cold War and the red-baiting McCarthy era, Paul Robeson was a perfect target. In 1948, he was first called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), a slanderous committee that blacklisted thousands of Americans. While he had earlier testified before a California legislative hearing that he was not a member of the Communist Party, he refused, as did many others, to answer such charges before HUAC, because it was an infringement upon the rights of American citizens..
In 1949, Robeson spoke at the Paris Peace Conference, attended by thousands from over 60 countries. During his brief speech, he stated that he could see no reason why oppressed black Americans should go to war against the Soviet Union, a country that had outlawed racial discrimination. This speech was distorted in the US media, and the Cold War hysteria around him grew even louder. Later in 1949, a planned concert in Peekskill, NY, to benefit a New York civil rights organization, had to be canceled due to anti-Communist and racist violence. Robeson denounced these attacks and stated he would not be intimidated by cross burnings or racists anywhere. Twenty thousand people attended the re-scheduled concert a week later. Union members and war veterans set up a security parameter, sniffing out sharpshooters, and Jewish union members ringed Robeson as he sang. Following the show, however, police routed traffic along one narrow and slow road, allowing the anti-Communist throngs to brutally attack concert goers.
By 1950, Robeson was effectively blacklisted from pursuing his career in the US, and the US State Department revoked his passport, denying him travel abroad. For eight years Robeson was prevented from major performance halls in the US and from international travel. The effects of this period affected his health, but not his principles or dignity. During this time, many people feared any association with Robeson and he was shunned by many, including many labor unions that had previously welcomed him. There were notable exceptions. Musicians Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie spoke publicly in support of Robeson. Black churches and some universities provided small concert venues and some income. Some unions, such as the International Longshoremans and Warehouseman Union, continued to include Robeson in their programs. But his international trade union friends -- especially Welsh and Canadian miners -- never turned their backs to him.
His experiences with Welsh miners -- going into coal mines and living with their families while filming "Proud Valley" in the 1938 -- cemented a friendship that the Welsh people and Robeson | ||
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always treasured. He had a similar affection for the Canadian miners for whom he performed on many occasions. The Canadian and Welsh miners proved staunch allies during the years that Robeson's passport was revoked. They constantly applied pressure on the US government to grant him travel rights abroad to sing to their conventions. When permissions were refused, they arranged for Paul to sing to them anyway -- by phone hook-ups and the Peace Arch Concerts. In January, 1952 he was scheduled to sing to a convention of the Canadian Mine Mill and Smelters Union in Vancouver, but was prevented from crossing the border by the US government. He sang to the conference by telephone from Seattle. Four months later, the union organized a concert for Paul at Peace Arch Park, on the US-Canadian border. From the back of a flatbed trailer truck complete with an upright piano, with speakers pointed to the Canadian side, Robeson sang to an audience of forty thousand people. This became an annual event for the next few years.
The union successfully applied pressure in 1956 to allow Robeson to speak in Canada for a few days while his passport was still revoked. Speaking at their convention, Robeson stressed the need for international solidarity through the example of mineworkers. "All these struggling colonial people are fighting back and it's precisely possible because of the gains and the increased power of the workers of the metropolitan land. The workers have a natural solidarity with the colonial peoples because they have the same forces to fight against.
"The copper and iron and uranium bosses and the heartless corporations are here in Sudbury, Trail, Montana, Peru, on the Messabi Iron Ore Range, in Chile, also they reap some of their richest profits in gold, copper, uranium, platinum, manganese -- and in human suffering in the mines of South Africa, in the Belgian Congo, in Nigeria, in Tanganyika, yes, they are immense corporations. Yet they can fight you here harder in Canada because of the terrible conditions in existence in African and Peruvian and Chilean mines. So the struggle is one wherever the worker may be."
Robeson's popularity did not wane internationally despite his ban from travel abroad. Organizations and governments around the world applied pressure on the US to reissue Paul Robeson's passport. These included sixteen members of British Parliament, British Actors Equity, international unions, and many others. In 1958, Robeson's birthday was celebrated in India, the German Democratic Republic, Moscow, Peking and many African nations to increase political pressure. Later that year, the US Supreme Court ruled that the US State Department had acted illegally in revoking his passport, and ordered a reissue. Robeson announced this victory to a sold-out performance at Carnegie Hall, his first concert there in ten years. Almost immediately, Robeson set out on an extensive European concert tour, ending with a climatic concert at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. He was the first black person to stand at the lectern and to perform to a crowd of 4,000 persons in the cathedral and another 5,000 outside.
Over the next five years, Robeson remained in Europe, often interned in Soviet hospitals, suffering from ill health. His last concert tour took him to Australia and New Zealand in 1960, where he was received again with tremendous acclaim. He was the first professional singer to perform at the Sydney Opera House, while it was still under construction, as a guest of the Building Workers Industrial Association.
In 1963, he returned permanently to the US, where the civil rights movement was in full swing, with many activists not even knowing who he was. Due to his poor health, Robeson lived the remainder of his life in relative isolation in Philadelphia, battling arteriosclerosis, a degenerative disease, until his death in January, 1976. While Robeson did begin to gain recognition towards the end of his life within the US as a freedom-fighter, he is still largely absent in history books, film archives and public consciousness, despite the many prestigious awards honoring him throughout his lifetime | ||
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Paul Robeson in His Own Words
Determination and Dignity "My people are determined in America 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, as I say, across the world, to my forefathers in Africa, to Canada, all around the world, because I know that there is one basic 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, or wherever I may go, thinking of simple things. It seems so simple that all people should live in full human dignity and in friendship. But somewhere the enemy has always been around who tries to push back the great mass of the people, in every land -- we know that. But I said a long time ago that I was going to spend my day-to-day struggle down among the masses of the people, not even as any great artist up on top somewhere -- but right here in this park, in many other picket lines, wherever I could be to help the struggle of the people. And I will never apologize for that. I shall continue to fight, as I see the Truth, ...I'll continue this year, fighting for peace...And I want everyone 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." August 16, 1953, Peace Arch Concert.
In the South "I wouldn't sing to segregated audiences, so I sang in Negro schools and white people came. I was much impressed by a youth hungry for education." " The spirit of Negro youth in the South augurs much for the future. He is proving that he understands his role in the world-wide struggle against fascism." "The Negro must view the domestic scene in its relation to the global struggle against fascism because, since we no longer live in isolation, what happens in other parts of the world also happens here." Quoted in the People's Voice, May 22, 1943
On the Picket Lines "As a consequence of my activities for Negro freedom, I had 86 concerts canceled out of 86. Of course, these were very special concerts. I don't blame the auto barons in Detroit for not wanting to pay to hear me when I was in Cadillac Square fighting for the auto workers. I don't blame the iron-ore owners of the Michigan and Minnesota iron-ore ranges for not wanting to hear me when I was on the picket lines for the steel workers of these regions. And so with the packing house owners of Chicago, or the ship owners of the east and west coasts, or the sugar plantation owners of Hawaii. 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 ensure my freedom. I'll help, together with many other progressive artists, whenever I can get the time from freedom's struggle, to show how culture can be brought back to the people. We created it in the first place, and it's about time it came back to us! Today the fight is still on for peace and freedom. Concerts must wait. There is a fierce political struggle which must be won. However, I decided to go to Europe to resume my professional career for a very short period, in order to make it perfectly clear that the world is wide and no few pressures could stop my career. Let's go to the record: Albert Hall (London) with it's 8,000 seats sold out twice with a five dollar top; 10,000 in the Harringay Arena; thousands turned away all over Europe -- the most successful concert tour of my career. ...I finished my professional tour at is height and announced that never again would I sing at | ||
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a five 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. Ninety-five per cent of the Negro people are workers. 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!" Address at Welcome Home Rally, Rockland Palace, New York City, June 19, 1949, under the auspices of the Council on African Affairs.
Message to Canadian Mine-Mill and Smelters' Union " It is a great privilege and honor to be with you at this historic convention. This is a union which demands respect throughout the whole trade union movement, not only in Canada but on the whole continent. I am certain that tremendous sections of the American working class wish you well as you direct your own destinies, bound however in bonds of unbreakable friendship with the workers in America whose problems are so similar, struggling and wrestling as they do against the same corporations, the same exploiters, of your gainful and enriching labors.
It has been most inspiring to watch your courageous actions against the owners in the courts in support of all the workers of your beloved Canada, and I am sure that every day deepens the unity of this membership; in the words of powerful figures in this land, your Union represents the mine workers of Canada -- you are their spokesman. This speaks well for your understanding, for your leadership, wise and courageous, devoted men and women of all groups who have sacrificed that the workers shall have decent wages, better homes, better opportunities for their children, that discrimination of all kinds must be erased in the industry and the general life of the community that all Canadians whatever their background, English or Welsh, Scotch of French-Canadian, Irish, black, brown, yellow or white Canadian, shall walk this earth in full human dignity. (applause)
These kinds of struggles have been, are and have been, very close to my heart. My whole life has been, and is, dedicated to just such ideas and concrete realization. I have been on picket lines in Wales, London and Glasgow docks, in Windsor with the auto workers, in Chicago, in many parts of the world.
I come from a long suffering folk and, as one reads in your daily press, the suffering, the attempted humilities still persist, and there is no mystery about this oppression; the reactionary forces in the deep south want my people to be second-class citizens together with second-class poor white citizens, in order to exploit their cheap labor. They fight the Unions with the same ferocity. .... Union of Mine-Mill and Smelter Workers' of Canada Convention, 1956
The International Labor Movement and Colonial Liberation Struggles The end of exploitation, and colonial exploitation and poverty is cautiously and slowly approaching its end, one day Nigeria, the next the Caribbean, ...the next South Africa, the next Indo-China, tomorrow the Belgian Congo...the time is running out.
All these struggling colonial people are fighting back and it's precisely possible because of the gains and the increased power of the workers in the metropolitan land. The workers have a natural solidarity with the colonial peoples because they have the same forces to fight against.
The copper and iron and uranium bosses and the heartless corporations are here in Sudbury, Trail, Montana, Peru, on the Messabi Iron Ore Range, in Chile, also they reap some of their richest profits in gold, copper, uranium, platinum, manganese -- and in human suffering in the mines of South Africa, in the Belgian Congo, in Nigeria, in Tanganyika, yes, they are immense corporations. Yet | ||
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they can fight you here harder in Canada because of the terrible conditions in existence in African and Peruvian and Chilean mines. So the struggle is one wherever the worker may be.
But the world has changed. You see powerful working class parties in France, Italy, England, in America, in Canada, with different degrees of understanding, but all becoming more and more aware of their responsibilities and the need for full unity to preserve and increase that gain. Everywhere among workers, there is a basic fight for bread and butter, for food, for shelter, for a decent existence for their families, and also increased understanding that they must have political power...." Union of Mine-Mill and Smelter Workers' of Canada Convention, 1956
Youth in the Labor Movement "I am happy and proud to take part in this first National Convention of the Labor Youth League. I am glad that my son and daughter are a part of your vital organization, and are working, through it, to make their contribution to a world of peace, friendship and security. 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, China, Indonesia and Malaya, the youth of the Soviet Union and the New Democracies -- and sooner or later, the youth of Africa. They want you to sit still while the Stassens and 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. They want you to grow into a union-busting, scabbing generation in order to insure their dominance over labor and their ever-mounting, fantastic profits. They want young America to absorb the anti-Negro and anti-Sematic poison which their hack writers turn out in textbooks and newspapers and radio and movie-script -- all for the glory of what they call the American way of life. But YOU say, No! You say, No more war! Books not bullets! Bread, not cannon! Life, not death! You say, Peace! Friendship with the youth of the Soviet Union, of the New Democracies and all of Europe, of China and the East, of Africa and the West Indies, Latin America and Canada. You say strengthen the trade unions as a means of securing abundance for the nation and security for the youth -- apprenticeship training, adequate education, a chance for marriage without the specter of poverty, a well-rounded and fruitful youth and young adulthood. You say friendship, fraternity and equality of black and white. You say Negro and white youth cannot and must not live in the same land as strangers, or as enemies -- that their common future depends on their common action, their learning to build the future together, their social intermingling. Thus the issue joined between you the men of the trusts and monopolies. An increasing number of the American people know that you are right and they are wrong; that the future belongs to the youth. ....I know that you will sweep aside -- and that hundreds of thousands of American youth will join you in rejecting the backward creed that "youth should be seen and not heard," that you should leave world affairs in the hands of pot-bellied, addle-headed, jingoistic elders. Quite the opposite, you must insist, and the whole progressive movement in America must support your contention, that the peace cannot be won, that fascism cannot be defeated, without the proper and vital contribution of the young generation of mid-century Americans. I certainly know that the affairs of my people, the Negro people, must increasingly be placed in to the hands of the forward-looking young men and women among us -- and those of us older folks who share their young ideas...." | ||
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Address delivered to the First National Convention of Labor Youth League, November 24, 1950
Fighting for Peace "... It is not only important, it is absolutely essential, that if we are to achieve our ends we must put aside everything which tends to divide the ranks of the peace crusaders, and accentuate the common thirst for peace --no more war -- which is the universal urge in our hearts and minds. ...Just as in Europe, on the eve of World War II, we see today in America the persecution of political dissenters coupled with mounting terror against minority groups. In Europe it was the Jewish people. Here it is the Negro --with foreign language groups, the Jewish people, Mexican-Americans and other minorities numbered also among the victims. This too, is the price we pay for the war drive, for Operation Killer against the long suffering peoples of Asia who are determined to be free at whatever the cost. And as with the billion people of Asia, so with the hundreds of millions more in Africa, the West Indies, and our own Americas -- including the subject of our own colonial Southland. The fight for peace -- resistance against the exploiters and oppressors of mankind who want war to further their greedy ends -- the fight for peace is today the center of all these struggles, of all the aspirations of working people, artists, intellectuals the world over who form the world movement for peace. We here in America have the central responsibility to build, as the peoples of Europe and Asia have built, a powerful movement representative of every section of our country, which will develop from the he cease-fire in Korea into a genuine and lasting peace -- and freedom -- for all mankind. These are some of the reasons I am for peace, reasons which grow out of my life, my travels, my experiences with many people in many lands. They may not be -- all of them --your reasons, and you are undoubtedly are stimulated by experiences which I have not shared. But, for whatever reasons, whatever our background, we are united here, colored and white, worker, farmer, professional and businessman, youth, men and women, in the sacred search for enduring peace." Excerpts from speech at American Peoples Congress for Peace, Chicago, June 29, 1951
Art as a Weapon for Peace We still have a job to do to get rid of our atomic bombs, to abolish arms, and to give untold joy to the mothers of the earth so that their sons and daughters will take no further death dealing journeys over the oceans. Much of this is still up to us, and millions like us, but the peoples of the world want peace, know that they must have peace to survive, so in their united action there is no question in my mind that they will impose the peace.
I am proud to be here with you; to have contributed as an artist together with my friend Mr. Allan Booth to your joys and to have been a part of your convention. I am very honest about my art, it's no bric-a-brac, no petty ditties, no pure art song in my approach. My art, or call it what you will, is a weapon in the struggle for my people's freedom and for the freedom of all people. (Applause) I mean to continue as long as the breath stirs within me and no one from any quarter will force me to tread back one tiny bit of an inch. Union of Mine-Mill and Smelter Workers' of Canada Convention, 1955
"I don't want to be difficult because I am a peace fighter and I want everybody to be won to my side. But in my whole concert career I usually don't invite the critics. In the first place they don't like what I sing. They don't want me to sing Joe Hill. They don't want me to sing songs of live and brotherhood. They want me to sing songs of war. Toronto, 1956 | ||
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"We who labor in the arts, we who are artists, we who are singers, we who are actors, we must remember that we come from the people, our strength comes from the people and we must serve the people and be part of them. Speech to a group of artists in Britain on the formation of the Actors Equity (Union) during the 1930s
On His Travels "I chose to stretch out my hands across the oceans to the brave peoples of many lands, across the borders to Latin America, to Neruda in Chile, to the brave peoples of Africa and Cuba and Mexico, and to Asia to the peoples of the New China as they build a new life for 500 million people. And just as did Jefferson when he stretched out his hands to the revolutionaries of France so long ago, so today I stretch out my hands across the continents to shake the hands of the brave Soviet peoples. That is my right as an American. Peace Arch concert, May 1953, when he sang to 40,000 Canadians at the border after being barred from leaving the United States.
"My travels abroad to sing and act and speak cannot possibly harm the American people. In the past I have won friends for the real Americans among the millions before whom I have performed -- not for Walter, not for Dulles, not for Eastland, not for the racists who disgrace our country's name -- but friends for the American Negro, our workers, our farmers, our artists.
By continuing the struggle at home and abroad for peace and friendship with all the world's people, for an end to colonialism, for full citizenship for Negro Americans, for a world in which art and culture may abound, I intend to continue to win friends for the best in American life." From speech to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities, following which he was cited for "contempt." 1956
On Fascism "Every artist, every scientist, must decide now where he stands. He has no alternative. There is no standing about the conflict on Olympian heights...The battlefield is everywhere, there is no sheltered rear...Fascism fights to destroy the culture which Society has created; created through pain and suffering, through desperate toil, but with unconquerable will and loftly vision...What matters is a man's profession or vocation? Fascism is no respecter of persons. It makes no distinction between combatants and non-combatants...The artist must take sides; he must elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice. I have no alternative. The history of the capitalist era is characterized by the degradation of my people; despoiled of their lands, their women ravished, their culture destroyed...I say the true artist cannot hold himself aloof. The legacy of culture from our predecessors is in danger. It is the foundation upon which we build a still more lofty edifice. It belongs not only to us, not only to the present generation -- it belongs to posterity and must be defended to the death." Albert Hall (London) speech at a rally to support the Spanish Republic and reported in the South African magazine, "The Liberator" in 1937.
Southern Youth "...These thoughts flow from a moving experience I had the other day as I read what young Roosevelt Ward wrote about his experiences in a Louisiana prison. He's there, as are so many brave fighters, because of the most bare-faced kind of frame-up -- a "draft-evasion" charge, but they won't scare or deter him. In no time Ward became beloved in the place. The men recognized at once that here was one of the real leaders of his people, one who has deep faith in every human being. He gave aid and hope to those men who were for the most part victims of vicious Jim Crow and half-slave | ||
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economy and way of life. No wonder the Negro-baiting powers that want to stifle the powerful voice and example of Roosevelt Ward. If any people needs its youth, it certainly is the Negro people in the United States. The South of his birth can well be proud of Roosevelt Ward. He comes from our greatest traditions. Among many, I remember especially two journeys to the South, both to conferences of Southern Negro youth -- one at Tuskeegee and one at Columbia, South Carolina. Never have I been so proud of my heritage, never so sure of our future here in these United States as when I stood among those young men and women. Never was I so proud as then to be an artist of and for my people, to be able to sing and inspire these proud descendants of our African forebears, standing as they were with head and shoulders high in the deepest South. In one voice they demanded land for their struggling fathers and mothers, breathing space and free air, the full fruits of their back-breaking toil, full opportunity -- full freedom. That's what scares the powers that be in the arrogant ruling circles of this and other lands. That's what causes the terror. Roosevelt Ward was among these Southern youth. He has emerged as one of the young giants of our American struggle -- modest but assured-- trained and tried in the line of highest duty, the fight for freedom. We need him to give us the help and guidance of militant youth, unafraid of any challenge. He is one of the builders, like the young labor leaders gathering at Cincinnati, of a way of life in which his people, the Negro people, will share fully of this American earth and tread thereon in concrete realization of the fullest human dignity." From "Here's My Story", Freedom, October 1951
The Talented Tenth "It means so little when a man like me wins some success. Where is the benefit when a small class of Negroes makes money and can live well? It may all be encouraging, but it has no deeper significance. I fell this way because I have cousins who can neither read nor write. I have had a chance. They have not. That is the difference." Wisconsin, 1941
African-American and Jewish Connectedness My heartfelt greetings to the Jewish people, who are now celebrating three centuries of life and work in this land. It is good for all Americans to be reminded once again that the "Anglo-Saxon" image of America is a false-face. Certainly no Negro can hear the declaration of the Committee for the 300th Anniversary of Jewish Settlement in the USA -- "We have always been part of America" -- without reflecting that such has been our own insistent claim: "We too are America!" Self-evident since the days of Haym Solomon and Crispus Attucks, these claims have been denied by the racists and reactionaries of every generation; and never before have these foes been more powerful and arrogant than they are today. Not only is race, color and creed a continuing bar to a so-called "100 per cent American" status, but nowadays any person or organization can be officially branded "un-American" by a one-man ruling. The McCarran-Walter immigration act compares in foulness with the worst of nazi racism. The significant relationship of the Jewish people's interests with those of the Negro people has been pointed out by the Anniversary Committee: Let us make our anniversary a source of inspiration in the defense of our rights and liberties...Let us act in unison with all groups in America and especially the Negro people --who suffer most from reaction and fascism -- in order to defend our democratic rights." (Jewish Life, September, 1954). Yes, the cause of democracy, the rights of all other minorities, are inseparably linked with the liberation struggles of the Negro people. From the "Know-Nothing" party of a century ago to the Ku | ||
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Klux Klan and the McCarthys and McCarrans of today, history's handwriting on the wall has spelled out that lesson. He who would live must learn well. It is not likely that the first group of Jewish settlers who came to New Amsterdam in 1654 had heard about that first group of Negroes who were landed at Jamestown in 1619. The Jews came as pioneers, seeking freedom; the Negroes came as slaves, torn from their homeland. So, from this beginning it was inevitable that the history of the descendants of these two groups (and of all their kin who came in later years by slave-ship from Africa and steerage-hold from Europe) would develop on different paths. And yet, in all the diverse strands which make up the web of American history for the past three centuries, there are direct threads which link the interests of the Negro and Jewish people from the earliest days. Peter Stuyvesant, governor for the Dutch West Indies, who wanted to drive out the first Jewish settlers, has long since turned to dust, as has the Dutch slaver which brought the captive Africans; but anti-Semitism still lives and is nurtured on our soil, and the shameful heritage of slavery -- Negro oppression and exploitation -- still has its grip. Indeed, right here in New York the name of the man who first proclaimed anti-Semitism in the New World is known to us in connection with anti-Negro discrimination. We recall the long and bitter struggle against Jim Crow in the Stuyvesant Town houses. Here we saw progressive sections of the Jewish people united with the Negro people in a drive to make the racist walls come tumbling down. ...Who can forget the awful lesson of Hitler Germany? How many of those who thought that the Reichstag Fire frame-up was aimed at only the Left -- how many were duped to die? And so we can all agree with the Anniversary Committee when it warns that " the McCarthyite attacks upon the American people bring the danger of fascism." With confidence, the Committee asserts: "In this critical moment...the Jewish workers and common people will find the necessary strength and wisdom to stand firm on the side of progress and peace, against McCarthyism, fascism and war." Surely none of us who were at Peekskill can doubt that the Jewish workers will be second to none in standing firm against our common enemy. As for myself, I have always felt an especially close bond with the Jewish people; and to me, Peekskill, so terrible in its demonstration of reactionary barbarism, shall ever be a glowing symbol of the unity of Negro and Jewish workers against fascism. Some day soon I shall write at length, in the context of my life story, about the meaningful experiences I have had with the Jewish people. Much of this would deal with my early years as an artist, for here, in this field of music and the arts, all other Americans are deeply indebted to the creativity and cultural gifts of the Jewish people. ...If it has been true that the Jewish people, like so many other national groups for whom I have sung, have warmly understood and loved the songs of my people, it has also been true that Negro audiences have been moved by songs of the Jewish people. The Hassidic Chant, for example, has a profound impact on the Negro listener not only for its content -- but also because of its form: the phrasing and rhythm have counterparts in traditional Negro sermon-song. And here, too, is a bond that can be traced back through the centuries to a common heritage. In the early days of my singing career and in the theater, the Jewish artists I came to know not only introduced me to the world of Sholem Aleichem through the Yiddish language and folksong; but since many of these friends were Russian Jews, I also came to know the language of Pushkin and the songs of Moussorgsky. And so it happened that, before I had any knowledge of economic or political nature of the Soviet Union, I developed an abiding love for the culture of the Russian people. "Un-American!" say the Know-Nothing Knowlands of today -- and indeed, the whole world which cries out for peaceful coexistence, cultural exchange and trade between nations, seems altogether "un-American" to those here who are driving hell-bent for fascism and war..." | ||
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From Jewish Life, November 1954
African-American Art and World Cultures "Recalling my own work in music and theater, as I said back in the twenties and thirties, it is encouraging today to see the ever-increasing opportunities and widening horizons for our Negro playwrights, actors and actresses in theater, films, radio and TV; for our musicians in concert and in opera, and for our artists in almost every aspect of the cultural life of our country. It is also becoming known all over the world, by records, TV and personal appearances. It is equally interesting to note that audiences all over the world understand and respond to the best of our art and our artists, even as we here appreciate the visiting artists who come from abroad. Yes, our languages, our idioms, our forms of expression may be different, the political, economic and social systems under which we live may be different, but art reflects a common humanity. And further, much of the contemporary art reflecting our times has to do with the struggles for equality, human dignity, freedom, peace and mutual understanding. The aspirations for a better life are similar indeed all over the world and when expressed in art, are universally understood. While we become aware of great variety, we recognize the universality, the unity, the oneness of the many people in our contemporary world...." From a speech at a welcome home meeting organized by Freedomways, summer 1965.
Young People Leading the Fight "...It has been most gratifying to me in retirement to observe that the new generation that has come along is vigorously outspoken for peace and liberation; and that the forces of bigotry, which at the outset of my career sought unsuccessfully to block our interpretation of All God's Chillun because of its interracial theme, have since received many other setbacks. To all the young people, black and white, who are so passionately concerned with making a better world, and to all the old-timers among you who have long been involved in that struggle, I say: Right On!" From Robeson's message to Actors' Equity, 1974
The Artist as Anti-Fascist "The artist must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative. The history of the capitalist era is characterized by the degradation of my people: despoiled of their lands, their culture destroyed...denied equal protection of the law, and deprived their rightful place in the respect of their fellows. Not through blind faith or coercion, but conscious of my course, I take my place with you" Speech at London Rally for Spanish Loyalists, 1937
Cultural Identity "In my music, my plays, my films I want always to carry this central idea: to be African. Multitudes of men have died for less worthy ideals; it is even more eminently worth living for." London, 1935
A Review of Paul Robeson Performing at Swarthmore College Paul Robeson sang, read from Othello, and discussed world problems to a near-capacity audience at Clothier last Thursday evening under the sponsorship of the Forum for Free Speech (of Swarthmore College). While in his political opinions he stands in a minority in this country, the statement he is one of America's greatest artists should go unchallenged. April 19 marked his thirtieth year as a concert singer all over the world. As an actor his triumphs have been his portrayals of the Emperor Jones and | ||
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Othello. The high point of the evening was the reading of the closing speech from Othello. Mr. Robeson commented that, as he saw the part, Othello was to the end a man of great dignity, not one who had lost his pride but rather one of another culture in a strange land, who felt that he had been betrayed. Robeson's reading was intelligently suited to this interpretation. His physical stature and voice coupled with his acting skill made for a tremendously powerful Othello. Mr. Robeson's beautifully bass voice with its incredible fullness and resonance was perfectly and sensitively controlled. His powerful phrasing was full of warmth and understanding. Mr. Robeson's great interest in cultures all over the world is illustrated by the program of songs that he sang. He sang sixteen songs, ranging from the chorale to Bach's "Christ Lag en Todesbanden" to a Warsaw ghetto freedom song. He sang in English, German, Russian, Yiddish, Chinese, Persian, and an African language. The audience's response to Mr. Robeson's artistry was very enthusiastic. The consistently warm applause which followed each of his songs was exceeded by the near ovation called forth by the Othello reading. Mr. Robeson was accompanied by concert pianist Alan Booth. Mr. Booth soloed with an interesting group of pieces: one by the Brazilian Carmigo Guanieri, a Chopin Nocturne, and a piece by the Russian Gretchaninoff. During his song program, Mr. Robeson gave a musically illustrated talk of some of his views on world cultures. He stated that Africa leads the world in the rhythmic development of music; the Middle East, in tonal variations; the Orient in melodies, and the West in counterpoint. He felt that we have a rich world, full of different cultures, each with its own strong points, each worthy of respect and appreciation. At the same time, he has found basic similarities in music and cultures among the varied peoples he has known. Peace, he concluded, has a strong cultural basis. Later in the evening, Mr. Robeson went on to discuss some of the problems he finds most important to the world. His speech was followed by a question and answer period which continued for another hour in Somerville with about fifty students. As he spoke, he referred to his experiences living abroad, which he feels have greatly shaped his views. He emphasized the fact that any position he took was that of a humanitarian and an American who loved his country..." From Tim Shopen, Swarthmore Phoenix, Swarthmore College, May 3, 1955
All quotes compiled, edited and transcribed by Douglas Calvin. The primary source is Paul Robeson Speaks, edited by Philip S. Foner. Our sources include private collections in Canada, Australia and Washington, DC. | ||
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Paul Robeson and the Labor Union Movement A Study Guide
I come from a long suffering folk and, as one reads in your daily press, the suffering, the attempted humilities still persist, and there is no mystery about this oppression; the reactionary forces in the deep south want my people to be second-class citizens together with second-class poor white citizens, in order to exploit their cheap labor. They fight the Unions with the same ferocity. .... Union of Mine-Mill and Smelter Workers' of Canada Convention, 1956
Paul Robeson was a leading figure in trade union movements during his life. He sang, addressed, picketed and supported trade unions throughout the Americas and internationally. It was his firm belief that human rights for African Americans could only be won alongside improvements and in solidarity with all working-class people.
This special focus packet will give you an brief idea of the context that trade union organizing took place in the early part of this century. There are three sections to this packet 1) the lyrics to the song, "Joe Hill", 2) a glimpse into mining and textile organizing in the 1920s and 30s and 3) a chronology of some of Paul Robeson's trade union activities. | ||
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" Joe Hill"
A song that Paul Robeson often sang was "Joe Hill" It is about a man who was a singer and organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World, the IWW, also known as the Wobblies. The IWW believes that society should be run collectively by workers for the benefit of all society, rather than by the wealthy and company owners. Joe Hill was framed on a murder charge in Salt Lake City, Utah and executed on November 19,1915. His legacy has served to inspire generations of union organizers.
"Joe Hill" I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night, alive as you and me Says I, " But Joe, you're ten years dead" "I never died," says he (2x)
"In Salt Lake Joe" I said to him, standing by my bed "They framed you on a murder charge" Says Joe, "But I ain't dead" (2x)
"The copper bosses shot you Joe, they killed you Joe" says I "Takes more than guns to kill a man" Says Joe, "I didn't die" (2x)
Joe says, "What they could never kill Went on to organize" (2x)
"Joe Hill ain't dead" he says to me "Joe Hill ain't never died When workers strike and organize Joe Hill is by their side" (2x)
From San Diego up to Maine, in every mine and mill Where workers stand up for their rights It's there you'll find Joe Hill. (2x)
words by Alfred Hayes, 1938.
Discussion Questions: 1. Paul Robeson finished a 1946 top-dollar concert early in Salt Lake City, Utah by singing "Joe Hill". At the end of the song he announced that he would retire from professional singing to wealthy audiences and from then on sing to working people and others with whom he could sing what he pleased. What effect do you think this had on the audience members? What effect did it have on union members? What consequences do you think it had on Robeson's career? Why do you think he made this decision? 2. Imagine that you are a worker on strike in a small town. The famous Paul Robeson arrives to sings for your union and ends his performance with this song. He then joins you on the picket line. Discuss with one or two classmates how this song and Robeson's appearance made you feel about yourself, the strike and your union. 3. Name two other songs that tell the story of someone whose story can inspire people to persevere even in difficult times. 4. Write a short song about Paul Robeson. | ||
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A Look at Trade Union Struggles in the 1920s and 1930s
The following are excerpts from Political Repression In Modern America, by Robert Justin Goldstein. (Schenkman Publishing Co., Inc, Two Continents Publishing Group, Ltd. Cambridge/New York, 1978.)
...In 1920, the United Mine Workers (UMW) began a major organizational campaign in Mingo and Logan Counties, west Virginia, where 80% of the miners lived in "company-owned, company-financed, and company dominated towns carefully monitored by local authorities subservient to the mine owners. " Union organizers in these areas were barred from entering miners homes, barred from holding public meetings and regularly arrested and deported by deputy sheriffs on company payrolls. Federal troops were sent into West Virginia in the summer of 1920 after virtual civil war broke out in the coal areas, including gun fights between union men, private detectives and deputies which led to the death of sixteen men. The coal companies thereupon obtained injunctions under the Hitchman doctrine to bar further union organizing; after Federal Troops were withdrawn, martial law was declared and state troops were used to break up union meetings, suppress the local UMW newspaper, raid the UMW hall and arrest union leaders for unlawful assemblage. President Harding sent federal troops to West Virginia again in 1921 when thousands of miners who had been fired and evicted from company-owned property threatened to invade Logan County after a pro-UMW police official and a union officer were shot on the courthouse steps in Welch, Logan County, by a private detective. West Virginia grand juries returned eighteen hundred indictments charging UMW officials and strikers with treason, conspiracy to incite riot and other offenses. Although acquittals were eventually won in all of the cases, the union drive in West Virginia had been destroyed. As noted earlier, in 1927, a federal judge barred the UMW from further attempts to organize the West Virginia coal industry under the Hitchman doctrine. (p. 186)
The twenties also saw the frequent use of state militia during strikes, especially those in the first five years of the decade, before strike activity dropped off drastically. During 1920-24, about 90 percent of all national guard active duty was related to strikes. In a high percentage of cases in which troops were sent, there had been no violence. The combined effect of the massive use of troops and injunctions, and the various hostile court decisions, was that union membership and strike activity crumbled as the he decade proceeded. By 1926-30, the annual number of strikes had shrunk to 24 percent of that during the 1916-21 period, and the numbers of workers involved was 13 percent of the earlier period. In 1928, the number of strikes was lower than any year since 1884. Union membership declined from over 5 million in 1920 to about 3.4 million in 1929. There were other factors involved in this decline in union membership and strikes -- the general rise in the standard of living, the adoption of "welfare capitalism" and company union plans by many businessmen, the generally hostile climate with regard to labor, the timid attitude of the AFL and the development of the massive anti-union employer campaign known as the "American Plan". However, many of these factors may be indirectly traced also to the effects of the 1917-20 repression and the generally repressive climate of the twenties. (p.184-85)
The thirties again saw huge growth in labor union memberships to improve the living conditions of millions of workers and to strengthen union organizing. Struggles continued to be very difficult. Union members and organizers who were communist or radicals were particular targets of police and vigilante abuse. Many local police agencies established "red squads" that routinely harassed and terrorized union members, communists and suspected radicals. | ||
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Things were particularly difficult in the American South.
During the 1934 cotton textile strike -- the largest single strike until then in American labor history, during which about four hundred thousand workers walked out from Maine to Georgia -- the national guard was called out in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and the Carolinas. A total of twenty-five thousand national guard and armed deputies were mobilized to fight the strike in the south. Strike organizers were beaten and arrested throughout the strike area. Partial martial law and a state of "insurrection" were declared in South Carolina, where police and deputies shot and killed seven pickets. The governor of Georgia declared martial law in strike areas and put two thousand strikers in a concentration camp after mass arrests by the National Guard. Thirty-four key strike leaders were arrested and held incommunicado in Georgia, thus crippling strike relief efforts. Entire towns in Alabama were closed to union organizers, while the Alabama relief administrator, who was an official of the dominant industrial corporation of the state, cut off relief, although announced federal policy was that strikers were entitled to relief. Officials of the West Point Manufacturing Company in Chambers County, Alabama, purchased $1700 worth of tear gas and obtained seven machine guns to fight the strike. They were immediately deputized by the local officials and thereupon barricaded roads and assaulted union sympathizers. The strike ended in complete defeat for cotton textile workers.
Harlan County, Kentucky, remained a major site of repression through the mid-thirties. UMW attempts to organize there collapsed in the face of repeated use of the militia, assassinations and kidnappings of union organizers and sympathetic law-enforcement officials, and the regular deputizing of thugs and murderers by the local sheriff. A special commissioner appointed by the governor of Kentucky reported in 1935: It is almost unbelievable that anywhere in a free and democratic nation....conditions can be found as bad as they are in Harlan Country. There exists a virtual reign of terror.
Harlan County was finally cracked by the UMW in 1936 following public hearings by the LaFolletee Committee and federal indictments against forty-seven company officials and deputies and twenty-two coal mining companies for conspiracy to violate the Wagner Act. (p. 219-220)
Discussion Questions and Research Topics: 1. Imagine you are a mine or mill-worker on strike during this period. Write a two page description of what conditions are like for you and how do you feel about the union, the company, the police and government. 2. Research and compare governmental policies and public treatment of African-Americans, Latinos, Native American, Asian-American and white trade union organizers during this period. 3. Research contemporary mining operations and compare safety measures and union organizing with those in the 1920s and 30s. 4. Compare the role and portrayals in the media of the police forces in the 1920s and today. | ||
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Paul Robeson In the Labor Union Movement: Highlights
1938 Appears in Plant in the Sun, a play by Ben Bengal dealing with sit-down strikes and union organizing in the US, produced by Unity Theater under auspices of British Labour Party
1939. Stars in film, Proud Valley, portraying the life and struggles of Welsh Miners.
1941 Speaks at United Auto Workers rally in downtown Detroit to aid Ford organizing campaign
1942 Devotes time and talent to war effort, performing at War Bond rallies, and recording programs for American and Allied soldiers. Gives recitals, many at no fee, for such groups as the Washington Committee for Aid to China, Russian War Relief, Ford Workers Victory Chorus, Labor Victory Rally at Yankee Stadium, Concert to Aid Negro Soldiers, and more.
1942 May. Addressing Yankee Stadium meeting of 51,000 workers, calls for second front to shorten the war.
1942 September. Speaks and sings for workers at Englewood, CA, plant of North American Aircraft at invitation of Local 887, United Auto Workers -- Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO)
1942 September. At Los Angeles press conference, praises CIO unions for being "in the forefront of the fight to smash barriers of social discrimination in hiring..."
1943 December. As part of Negro delegation, presents plea for removal of ban against Negroes in major leagues, leading to the hiring of Jackie Robinson and others.
1944 May. State, County and Municipal Workers, CIO, establish Paul Robeson Scholarship Fund at New York University to train black students in business management.
1946 March. After singing "Joe Hill" at University of Utah, Salt Lake City -- the city where Joe Hill was executed in 1915 -- announces, " You have just heard my final concert for at least two years, and perhaps many more. I'm retiring here and now from concert work. I shall now sing for my trade union and college friends. In other words, only at gatherings where I can sing what I please."
1946. July. Marches on picket line in support of Dodge worker's strike in Windsor, Ontario.
1946 October. Speaks at waterfront strike meeting in San Francisco under auspices of Committee for Maritime Unity, as co-chairman of National Committee to Win the Peace.
1947. January. Testimonial dinner in Robeson's honor sponsored by Local 600, UAW (Ford Motor Company local) in Detroit.
1947 January. Stands on picket line in St. Louis to protest segregation of Negroes in American theater.
1947 June. Gives four concerts in Panama for United Public Workers of America, CIO, who were organizing predominately black Panamanian workers. Ten thousand turn out.
1947 June. Speaks for Local 22, Food and Tobacco Workers, mainly black, in Winston-Salem, NC | ||
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1947 September. Speaks at National Maritime Union convention, last to which he is invited, as union leadership under Joseph Curran turns anti-communist and supports Cold War.
1948 march. Transport Worker's Union for first time in ten years withdraws invitation to have Robeson attend its convention despite his honorary lifetime membership.
1948 March. Tours Hawaiian Islands for International Longshoreman's and Warehouseman's Union accompanied by Lawrence Brown and Earl Robinson.
1949 August. Pickets White House with members of CIO United Public Worker's to protest employment discrimination by Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
1949 August 27. Peekskill riots begin when Robeson concert is attacked and Robeson prevented from singing as many audience members are injured by rock throwers. Robeson announces, "I'm going to sing wherever the people want me to sing. My people and I won't be frightened by crosses burning in Peekskill or anywhere else."
1949 September 4. Second concert held successfully in Peekskill but turned into a nightmare as lawlessness breaking out after concert results in injuries to at least 140 persons, some serious, while state police either do nothing to prevent attacks, or, in some instances, encourage mob. Robeson denounces attacks as "fascist."
1949 September. National Maritime Union convention considers motion that his name be stricken from union's honorary membership list; motion withdrawn.
1949 September. All-China Art and Literature Worker's Association of Musicians of Liberated China protest Peekskill attack on Robeson.
1950 June. Speech to meeting of National Labor Conference for Negro Rights, attended by 900 delegates in Chicago, later published as pamphlet entitled "Forge Negro-Labor Unity for Peace and Jobs."
1952 Prevented by special order from entering Canada to attend union convention. Union organizes first Peace Arch Concert on US-Canadian border. Over 40,000 attend. Becomes an annual event.
1956 Attends Union of Mine, Mill and Smelters Worker's convention in Canada.
1956 March. Taped message read to "Let Paul Robeson Sing" meeting at Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England.
1957 April. British Actors' Equity Association votes to "make representation in whatever quarters may have influence in allowing him to perform in this country."
1957 December. Invited by Welsh Miners to be honored guest at 1957 Eisteddfod. Appeal to Supreme Court for passport turned down, but is able via trans-Atlantic telephone hookup between New York and Porthcawl, Wales, to sing on schedule.
1958 February. Delivers Negro History Week oration before Local 6 of International Longshoreman's and Warehouseman's Union. | ||
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1958 March. American Actors' Equity Association passes resolution to consider assisting Robeson in passport fight.
1958 May. First New York concert in ten years at sold-out Carnegie Hall. At end he tells cheering audience passport battle has been won. Critics acclaim his singing.
1960 July. Sings and speaks to plant worker's in Moscow.
1970 November. Local 1199, Martin Luther King Jr. Labor Center, celebrates opening of new 15-story headquarters with cultural program entitled, "A Tribute to Paul Robeson," produced by Moe Foner. Hosts for the evening are Ossie Davis and Mary Travers. Paul Robeson Jr. delivers tribute and Dizzy Gillespie closes show. Two auditoriums are needed because of great response.
1973 April. Salute to Paul Robeson Exhibition opens at Gallery 1199 of Drug and Hospital Worker's Union.
1974 June. Honored by Actors' Equity Association, AFL-CIO, as first recipient of annual award named for him. Message accepting award is last public statement.
Discussion Questions and Research Topics: 1. Pick any one union that Paul Robeson supported and research and write a brief history of that union. Write and discover if the union has any record of Paul Robeson in it's historical records. 2. Write a short paper comparing the policies of the IWW, the CIO and the AFL regarding the inclusion of African-American and other people of color between 1920 and 1960. 3. Paul Robeson was clearly an important and prominent figure in the labor movement between 1930 -- 1950. Why did many unions refuse their friendship to Robeson in the 1950s? Why is Robeson rarely mentioned in relation to labor union organizing history? | ||