Paul Robeson Quotes
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.
Robeson, Paul. Here I Stand. Beacon Press, 1988, p. 110.
Having endured centuries of near slavery and discrimination, 70,000 Irish people signed this petition urging American-Irish immigrants to understand the similar plight of African-Americans and to join together with abolitionists. Irish immigrants were nevertheless reluctant to join the abolition movement because the movement was often tied to anti-Catholicism and many feared that the emancipation of Blacks would increase competition for the low-paying jobs immigrants held.
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.
