Paul Robeson Interview (1958)

Intro I have in the studio with me Paul Robson who needs no introduction and Harold Winkler who is president of Pacifica Foundation which operates kpfa as most of you know uh Mr Robson has been known and loved as an artist all over the world for many years but he has also I believe uh attracted considerable and worldwide attention in his role as a World Citizen and as a person who was uh very deeply concerned about the society in which he lived I wonder Mr Robson if we could kick off by asking uh when did you first become involved in the political aspects of May I first say how how how happy I When did you first become involved in politics am and privileged to be with you here and how deeply I thank uh this station for its kindness throughout the years I've been on two or three others this time but always have been know I've had a welcome here so I want to thank you I would say as I indicate in a recent book which is now out will be on the stands pretty soon here I stand story of my life as I tell it not too autobiographical it began when I was a a little boy in Princeton New Jersey strange to say I would technically this is the shaping of My Views a negro boy born in Princeton New Jersey in a college town where the students mainly came from the Deep South you know Princeton in Princeton Harvard and Yale was the sort of the Southern University of the north whether you know that or not and so I grew up in Jersey in a rather Southern atmosphere and so and my father was a minister and I was shaped against that background uh technically I entered the sort of the arena in the United States of fighting for social justice for my people in a concert when I was in a concert in St Louis in 1946 in the post dispatch where I was singing at the KE Auditorium one of the big auditoriums there and the nacp asked me in St Louis at that time to come on a picket line because negro people could not even sit in the theater which was just across the street and so I grabbed a a banner and lo and behold I saw Walter Houston coming down the street he was in the play so water walked out and joined the picket line too and a few nights later when I was doing the concert I said that I could not quite resolve the contradiction between singing to an audience in St Louis where there was no segregation of course but but also uh the same people uh had not to my mind were not fighting to see that might be could in the theater it's been corrected since and so I said that I was giving up my career technically for the moment to enter the realm of the day-to-day struggle of the Negro people especially and this was your first political uh action no that What was your first political action was within this country context this is very important to get into the context my first actual to come back to your question was in London in 1933 it isn't very well known which I clarify in the book that I went to play showbo in London in 1928 Jerry curan was with me and Oscar Hammerstein and we had a great success and then I did concerts in 1928 and I became domiciled and lived in England domiciled there paid my taxes there from 1928 until 1940 After the War Began does this mean Mr obson that you spent most of your time in England during this period it meant that I came back now and then for concerts I was here in Oakland many times but I went back and spent most of my time in Great Britain it's perf true I was there in 1930 played aell so again this is extremely important at that time I said for the public to see that I felt I I would explain it today in this slide we understand why many of my people have come to Oakland to the vicinity from Mississippi and from the south there have been migrations into California understand today from everywhere but for many years as you know many of my people have left the South because the conditions in the north were better okay I felt the pressure so much in 1928 that instead of stopping in New York I just went on to London that clear and did you feel no pressure there in theal I felt no nowhere near the Did you feel pressure in London pressure now that does not mean that you Haven the background of the English colonies and so forth yes I pressure but but I say it's a difference between right here now and say let's say the Mississippi of Mr eastand you understand yes this is quite different so America is quite different there are great differences so I found England that much more of a difference that's all I felt I found Canada that way when I was playing a fellow some years ago when we got to Toronto the cast said to me after a week well Paul why are you so different the the play is is much deeper you seem to be Freer I said that's quite true that's quite true I'm in a country where sh where there is no this is not a question I'm on a theater on the stage with many other white actors this is not a problem here so obviously I feel Freer that's right I'm me different but I don't now I don't uh uh feel the pressures that one would feel in the Deep South all the time but it would interest you to know and I've put it that I and I feel any negro if you were honest would have to say that even in our democracy as at that he is never any one second unconscious of the fact that he is a black American or a colored American he can never be unconscious of it in any part of the United States Mr Robson have you been back to England since the last war oh yes I was back in' Have you been back to England 49 uh the point I wanted to get at uh is that when I was in England last year I became aware of the large number of West Indians who are now about London and I heard rather nasty over tones and my talks with some Englishmen that frighten me about a change that might take place in England no I I again if you want to go further into nothing could be worse than South Africa and I'm only saying I put these things down what is most important is that at the height having lived many years out and enjoying the the the certainly the height of of of of of uh of success in Great Britain that I decided that I must come back to my own country to struggle in this and to make the sacrifices that I have that's the most important thing in this regard and I am here now would you spell this out again for me uh you you left England because England is not as attractive or because you feel you have a greater mission in the United States no no let's don't get in that there are many places in the world where personally it would be much easier to live than in the United States for an American negro in other words your commitment is Why are you back in the United States definitely to what you feel you can do in this country that's right and langson used in a in a in a in a in a in a book discussion before the book club in New York just a while ago pointed out that every important negro novelist not only Richard Wright but many others that that the great 95% of them live in Paris or somewhere else in the world why because the pressures personally are much simpler and yet in the forward of your book that I have before me you quote Frederick Douglas as saying a man is worked on by what he works on that's right he may carve out his circumstances but his circumstances will carve him out as well that's right is this part of the reason why you feel that you must be back in the United States I made the decision some years ago and I say certainly that I spring essentially from here uh like you the other day about the Indians in North Carolina if you recall that was in rson County yes I notic that in the item now this is a very interesting thing which I point out in my book and which explains a good deal too of how I feel now I was born on the edge of Robson County and my father is a Robson and was a Robson because he was a slave my own father a slave of the Scottish Robson who still control Robison county in North Carolina so my so I approach these problems from a very close point and so but I have a home and my people are tobacco workers and sharecroppers today on that on plantations in that county but a part of that soil belongs to me that's that's my roots these are my roots in this country on the other hand also I felt that uh uh somewhere the contributions that I had uh could make some contribution from my background traveling about the world however I never expected I am quite willing to say that I would be restricted from traveling yes well tell me Mr Robson was your commitment to the Was your commitment to the political scene political scene then largely as a result of your feeling about your own people or our own people let's put it uh or did it have other overtones of political conviction first it start as an American Negro ined my own people the other great change is very constant in my mind I was in the Welsh Valley and the Welsh people sing very much like we do in the Negro people yes I've heard many of our songs beautiful songs and I was one of the few Outsiders who who has sung at a Welsh EST for their their national festival which has gone on since the time of The Druids and I went down in the minds with the workers and they explained to me that Paul you may be successful here in England but your people suffer like ours we are poor people and you belong to us you don't belong to the to the big weeks here in this country and so I today feel as much at home in the Welch Valley as I would in my own negro section any city in the United States and I just did a broadcast by Transatlantic cable to the Welsh Valley a few weeks ago and here was the first understanding that the struggle of the Negro people or of any people cannot be by itself that is the human struggle and so I was attracted then to to met many members of the labor party and my politics embraced also the common struggle of all oppressed peoples including especially the working masses specifically the laboring people of all the world and that that defines My Philosophy it's a joining one of we are a working people a laboring people the Negro people and there is a Unity between our struggle and those of white workers in the South I've had white workers shake my hand and say Paul we're fighting for the same thing and so this findes my attitude toward socialism and toward many other things in the world I do not believe that a few people should control the wealth of any land that it should be a collective ownership in the interest of all is that a democratic What is a democratic socialism Socialism or I would have to be a democratic socialism there are many ways however to to struggle toward democracy as I see that in a place like China for example today the Soviet Union many other places or take our own problems uh of negroes if we were free in the South tomorrow to carry our weight to vote into everything do we now look around and try to find the 10 billionaires among our people would we attempt to build them up or would we try to answer the needs of the great millions of our people and so I see other ways of life socialism as trying to solve the problems of millions and tens of millions of peoples at once in a way instead of the con instead of we would start from the individual to the masses they start from the masses this way now there are two ways and their difficulties each way I I have made the decision to join in a collective struggle and the reason that my personal uh sacrifices mean very little in the struggle in one way when you see the children A Little Rock what does what does not giving a few concerts mean if you can make some other contribution it's in that context so nothing is perfect in the world we're going toward it from different angles I feel is a great burden of proof on every society on our own as well today day Mr Robson some years ago I was Giving up freedom talking to a French member of the Communist party yes and in the course of our discussion he said to me uh you Mr Winkler are a Jeffersonian Democrat you can afford it in your Rich uh uh land but in my land and in other lands we must give up our freedom now to certain men in order to achieve freedom for our children in the future this is an act of faith for me he said giving up my freedom now uh do you find yourself sympathetic with I don't think that is I would put it quite differently nor do I think that's any part of of any socialist philosophy or communist philosophy as far as I know uh that uh we struck it during the during the war under rosefeld for example we had to give up many privileges uh they're practically telling us we have to do that again I mean in any sort of a war economy in England England for example they have not eaten eggs almost for years and years because of certain pressures and it seems to me in the Socialist lands the Soviet Union China and many places that that's quite true it's one thing to say today that they don't have as as shining apparel as we do but they have uh made tremendous scientific progress and within a one generation so to speak within 40 years have become one of the most powerful countries in the world now they've done it by great sacrifices and not by to my mind they feel that the country in one sense the man in the street may not in every essence belong to him but he feels it's much more his than say I do in Charleston South Carolina when one Southern American explained to me that I was in the state of our great plantations I said are you sure about that our great plantations I don't feel that they're my plantations but in one sense some of the people in assous lands feel that the country does belong to them real sense now there are there are as far as the basic concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat and so forth uh I would say again bringing it back to our own history there was as we know a dictatorship of the north over the south in the days following the Civil War when that dictatorship was removed uh the the the color people reverted practically into a kind of servitude I could have conceived of uh of a dictatorship over the South for quite a longer period from my point of view quite quite frankly so this is The Power of Negro Action understandable in your book Mr OBS and here I stand you have a chapter entitled The Power of negro action which right uh what are some of the specific acts which you recommend and perhaps in the order of priority well I say any in any negro life you would say that nobody this is seems to be rather startling to many of my my friends nobody would be startled say with taking the vote of the power of Italian action or polish action in Detroit or Catholic action in New York and so forth I mean that the vote would be a block and the power of the Negro vote in the North in certain States this is one very important aspect uh very clear a kind of uh uh we have tremendous economic power in this uh in this land today uh there should be tremendous support of negro business of negro Banks and so forth loans associations and so forth but the prime thing is is that I'm convinced that yes take taking this last Negro Bankers uh uh illustration of yo have you not found that as negro Bankers uh uh uh become richer that they grow away from uh your people no I don't I I know do they remain a part of total negro action there's no way for as I said before for any American Negro however wealthy however famous to be anything at this period of our history at some point that an American Negro if he doesn't I can see if he doesn't know it he he he'll find it out from a racial standpoint Mr robon but from the political standpoint of socialism which you were discussing a few moments ago surely a negro capitalist uh if he had the opportunity would undoubtedly behave uh according to the lights of his own uh he has to but he but I know many of the most wealthy and they often I feel that they don't help as much as they should but he's forever conscious his children suffer the same things as the poor negro children and at some point he finds a way to uh to help it's it's it's a little different even there but that is tracks through in a different but I'm really not what I'm trying to say is that is that somewhere for our own dignity I see that is Africa would you understand Ghana today unifying as a with its own sort of you know National strength is that clear yes I feel in America strange to say especially in the South that uh that even with all the goodwi of white liberals in the country that is very important for the Negro people to know what they want and to unify to do it often in a very simple case of fighting segregation one group of negroes can be drawn aside because of political pressure other pressures we should unify too we should unify I feel there's got to be a unity in order to integrate that's what I feel I feel that we' we are we just can't integrate as individuals yes but isn't the example of Liberia uh for example a sorry example uh as it said against Gara well yes because that's very simple Firestone has taken care of that it has been exploited to its Hilt by Firestone rubber if you don't know the facts yes it Still Remains then an economic question racial rather than a racial Unity question it remains an economic uh uh question and its fundamentals rather than the of the neg people has the the unity of its own Nation same as Chinese or Indians very close to India India's just they have a a culture and a history that has its own National characteristics but what will prevent Ghana from becoming another Liberia that's the what do mean well from because liia today is completely controlled by Firestone not by Africans but I but I but I feel that enuma is going to control the economy of Ghana and at some time be strong enough to say to the European either you sit here and acknowledge that we run our own country like neru or else you go but I don't see the day when Liberia can tell Firestorm to do that oh they're quite different they're quite different Liberia is a complete vassel state of American Capital Finance Capital without question they have nothing to say nothing whatsoever what is your reaction to the Passive Resistance passive resistance as practiced in Montgomery was very I think there was a magnificent movement and nobody can I say this nothing as far as the general thing of a nonviolent solution to the problem this is the there could be no other solution within our uh within the frame of things today I mean this is a very important contribution uh nobody could think of a violent solution unless Negroes unless somebody wanted to to to ask somebody to be destroyed I mean that would be absurd on the other hand within that framework I think that that the Negro people have to be extreme extremely militant and and and demand a little more than they are demanding today and to do a little more not to do to to do something to do other things as well as pray let me put it as well as pray do you think there's been a change in the attitude of the Negro churches toward militant political and economic action Mr Rog I think there has because it's history you know take Frederick Douglas I belong to the am Zion Church uh there is one in this area and uh Douglas was a part of that church Harriet Tubman who formed the Underground Railroad who was called the Moses of our people they sang go down Moses when she came into the South to free the slaves and Harriet Tubman and we have a tradition of tremendous consistent speaking out you know for our rights like in the whole civil rights struggle I mean by militant uh letting people know that you that you want to be free like anybody else and I think the churches however a lot of the respons ility still rests upon our churches because that's where so many of our people you know go have tremendous influence to Mr Robeson do you think your Artistry as a singer and uh actor Artistry have suffered because of your involvement in political action are profited they have not I feel that they have profited they've only suffered when they've suffered by the fact that because of my political views which I certainly did not expect in a democracy that I've been prevented from exercising my craft however I've kept singing All Through the Years uh you may be able to test it pretty soon I just made a recording the other day for Vanguard which they felt was Superior to any records I have ever made my voice is still in a fine shape I've been in the area and as far as a fellow I've worked on it I feel I've just been invited to play at at Stratford on even Shakespeare's the Shakespeare Memorial Theater in England in you say in Pericles to play the part of gawer and I would certainly do a fellow at some point in London and I feel I would give a better performance H I feel that in every and I I've got a lot of things here which we won't be able to get to in my music comparing the folk music of the world I would say that my interest in my art has deepened just no end in the last years and I become interested in the music of Bak of Moki many folk things Unity of the folk music of the world which has sprung from my political conviction that all people should be unified I have seen it expressed in their music and I do a program which of all the songs of all the peoples in the world suggesting that we are all one human family comes to that so I feel that basically that it has deepened my uh my on the other hand I have never separated my work as an artist from my work as a human being I've always put it even more strongly that to me my art is always a weapon it's got to be good art a fellow was a weapon in racial relations or or at least showing that we can do some things too I played football my father explained to me that well a fell hit me I couldn't hit him back back because they'd say we were bad and Savage so I had to stand and be knocked all around I had to do well in my studies so I've never been able to divorce one thing from the other and luckily I don't sing the kind of songs that may you're here and you hit the high whatever it is the high B flat and the high this and the high that I sing songs that Express very much the emotions of different peoples like the Welch the scotch the Negro Chinese Russian so forth well what is Passport the present state to play on this passport business you were talking about your British invitations how are you going to get there well luckily I think at this point the basic case is before The Supreme Court it's the case of rocku kend uh contending that the which all the cases revolve around that when the state department put in its administrative Necessities that one sign a non-communist affidavit whether or not he is was or so forth that this is a violation of constitutional rights uh just wasn't just any any American now has designed this uh this particular proposal and this is before The Supreme Court and in its present temper uh it seems to me that the court might easily decide and this is what you refused to do you refused to sign such a document oh I completely refus this is a complete invis did you you know did you murder your wife yesterday or you know the day before or are you a Republican are you a Democrat this is no but my political opinions are my own business you know this is a complete uh complete and I say we have the background of the of the reversal in the Smith Act cases all over this country so somebody was framed I would say so it shows that all of it to my mind is a complete hoax from somewhere in other words you're hoping that on the basis of some of the current Court decisions that uh you may get your passport in time to go or I have now been invited to sing on April 6th in a national television uh broadcast maybe I could get special permission to go I mean there there and because of my background in England There is almost a national almost demand from England or request that I be allowed to come in April and even before the summer and also I take some optim optimistic point of view from the fact that where no passports are needed after restricting me for many years even in that area this was had to be lifted because the courts would certain I think have ruled that this was was completely illegal once I was stopped from going to Hawaii Puerto Rico which are parts of the United States so I can now go anywhere in this hemisphere oh you're not dangerous as long as you stick to the Western Hemisphere I'm just saying so I'm just saying what if a court is looking at this how can the state department argue that if I leave the country this is extremely dangerous that guy he got up in court the fellow and if I left it was going to be a catastrophe I don't know what would happen the next morning immediately I got on the plane but I can now be in Brazil I can be in the West Indies I can be in Canada I can be anywhere in the this hemisphere why can't I be in London doesn't make any sense to me so I I'm optimistic that I may get my passport Mr if we may change yes i' like to get my concert could I uh however ask you some questions along another line for a moment I have three small children of my own and I'm very much interested in the problems of uh children with relation to these larger problems of a man standing up for certain things have your children moved around the world with you uh in the course of your travels well I just have one boy oh you just have one boy just one boy and he as you know traveled around but from the time he was about two travel with me everywhere and lived in England and went to school for a part of his youth in the Soviet Union speaks Russian very well and uh he is now in this country with the Cornell and he has two beautiful grandchildren and uh uh he uh he is very happy his was a a mixed marriage in one sense he married a very wonderful Jewish girl of a Romanian Jewish background and they're extremely happy have two children live conting all the problems all the problems and they are very happy and get along very well in Harlem where they live and the Negro Community they are both may I say to use a much abused term Progressive Young Americans and and uh he's an electronics engineer and a very fine acoustical engineer we've done some work to together and uh she teaches in school teaches children there are two children in school so she teaches in young children school and they're very happy and my wife is an accredited correspondent at the United Nations and does a lot of work for different Publications throughout the world so we keep pretty busy and uh but I am very happy to get to the core beat back at my singing and to say that however I have talked this afternoon that I have great faith I wouldn't be here if I did not have great faith in our that somewhere we will realize the demog the Democratic potentials of our life of our of our society I deeply believe that I fight for peace I feel we've got to live with many other kinds of systems and other beliefs in the world we've been able to do it through many generations and centuries there reason why we couldn't find peace and not destruction uh and uh and a little faster in understanding the problem of oppressed peoples wherever they may be but very happy to be back in the area to sing in fact I've come back here you know sung of the Negro churches the Third Baptist in in San Francisco and I sang in Oakland and and I sang in Sacramento in Stockton and I've been back at my career now for quite some time mainly in the Negro churches has this been a change uh I was not aware that you had had been singing in the Negro churches up until Negro Churches recently yes uh well I wasn't able to sing anywhere else I wasn't able to get the auditoriums on the other hand we have a great tradition in negro life all of us Marian Anderson Hayes we all began in negro churches and my brother is pastor of a very large Church in New York and every Sunday afternoon you may go there and hear any of the top negro artists in the whole concert field Warfield anybody we always go back to the churches and so it's been a very fine way to walk into a church full of about 2,000 people and say well Paul's here this morning and it's just to see how he sounds comes out very well why why fine but I really have begun and been uh practicing and and my whole I mean come have come back into the swing of things in this area and I want to say that that I go so far as to say in this period some people have said no but I have found the Pacific coast especially the Bay Area vastly different I found it very different in feeling from some other sections of the United States other people have felt this many outside people have come here to the United Nations gather feel that you are a little more non-h hysterical that you have a little evidently deeper belief in our Democratic faith and I have I have felt that I felt that so much so that I may even come out to sit around for quite a while that here well we think it's a wonderful City when may we uh hear you sing in the near future well you're going to hear me I hope on Sunday afternoon February 9th at the Oakland Auditorium Theater it'd be very important it's the first time I've had Public Auditorium in the area for quite some time it's a it's sponsored by an a committee of negro life and honoring negro history week which you know is has been honored now for some time and Mr William Duncan Allen very gifted pianist who's who is accompanying me and who is Chairman of the bach Festival in the Berkeley area is uh playing many uh some compositions of leading negro composers it's an afternoon of music and poetry I'm reciting some Shakespeare and some negro and poetry from negro uh poets and uh singing as I say music that rang through all the folk music of the world and those composers like bartak and Moki and dorak who have used the folk idium in their in their in their extended and more complex works it sounds as if it will be a delightful afternoon I hope so and we are very grateful to you for coming along to kpfa I'm grateful to you Mr thank you Mr rsy