tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1786438112933136892.post2279633362380807509..comments2023-03-30T13:55:57.743+01:00Comments on Random Blowe: The Artist Who Took SidesKevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00003057501738525190noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1786438112933136892.post-21795582092120445642009-10-29T19:27:51.180+00:002009-10-29T19:27:51.180+00:00I see the News from Nowhere Club are running a wor...I see the News from Nowhere Club are running a workshop on 14 November entitled "The Life and Times of Paul Robeson" in Leytonstone - see http://www.newsfromnowhereclub.org/<br /><br />Thanks Louise, I am feeling better than I was at the start of the week, but I still feel like I've been run over by a truck...Kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00003057501738525190noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1786438112933136892.post-27068035802781495932009-10-29T10:06:53.605+00:002009-10-29T10:06:53.605+00:00Btw: hope you feel better soon.Btw: hope you feel better soon.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1786438112933136892.post-68960589769225113912009-10-29T09:56:20.457+00:002009-10-29T09:56:20.457+00:00"the basis for his eventual persecution by th..."the basis for his eventual persecution by the House Unamerican Activities Committee in the late 1940s".<br /><br />I read Robeson's transcript when he was interrogated at the HUAC some time ago and had another look today. It is powerful and eloquent.<br /><br />“You are the un-Americans, and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves”<br /><br />"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. 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. I stand here struggling for the rights of my people to be full citizens in this country. And they are not. They are not in Mississippi. And they are not in Montgomery, Alabama. And they are not in Washington. They are nowhere, and that is why I am here today. 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. And that is why I am here today. . . . "<br /><br /><br />"Whatever has happened to Stalin, gentlemen, is a question for the Soviet Union, and I would not argue with a representative of the people who, in building America, wasted sixty to a hundred million lives of my people, black people drawn from Africa on the plantations. You are responsible, and your forebears, for sixty million to one hundred million black people dying in the slave ships and on the plantations, and don’t ask me about anybody, please."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1786438112933136892.post-628063408770374972009-10-29T06:28:57.468+00:002009-10-29T06:28:57.468+00:00Sounds absolutely fantastic! My favourite recordin...Sounds absolutely fantastic! My favourite recording artist he was, his biography is on my list of books to read next.Chris Hallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18319782662130679058noreply@blogger.com