Quotes from Paul Robeson

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.

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

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

Yes, peace can and must be won, to save the world from the terrible destruction of World War III.

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.

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.

And, gentlemen, they have not yet done so, and it is quite clear that no Americans, no people in the world probably, are going to war with the Soviet Union.

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.

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

I do not hesitate one second to state clearly and unmistakably: I belong to the American resistance movement which fights against American imperialism, just as the resistance movement fought against Hitler.

The other reason that I am here today, again from the State Department and from the court record of the court of appeals, is that when I am abroad I speak out against the injustices against the Negro people of this land.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

My future depends mostly upon myself.

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

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.

My father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I'm going to stay right here and have a part of it, just like you. And no fascist-minded people like you will drive me from it. Is that clear?

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.

Like any other people, like fathers, mothers, sons and daughters in every land, when the issue of peace or war has been put squarely to the American people, they have registered for peace.

Yes, peace can and must be won, to save the world from the terrible destruction of World War III.