The Marxist-Leninist Daily

Today we celebrate the 115th anniversary of one of the greatest American personalities, the great African-American singer, actor and champion of the battle of democracy in the United States, Paul Robeson, stellar advocate for the civil rights movement and for a world of peace in which societies uphold the rights of all.

We urge our readers who are not already familiar with Robeson's life and work to learn about his achievements and contributions. Most importantly, we call on our readers to pay first rate attention to Robeson's fidelity to the principles which guide humankind's road to progress, no matter what the conditions, no matter what the circumstances.

On this occasion, TML Daily is providing excerpts from the transcript of Robeson's appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1956, after the government decided that Robeson and his wife, Eslanda Goode, were members of the American Communist Party. The transcript shows how Robeson refused to be cowed down by the anti-communist witch-hunt which blacklisted him, deprived him of his livelihood and prohibited him from leaving the United States. Robeson's income dropped from $104,000 in 1947 to $2,000 in 1950 but Robeson stood firm. When one of the Congressmen at the hearings, Gordon Scherer of Ohio, commented that if he had felt so free in the Soviet Union why had he not stayed there, Robeson replied: "Because my father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay here, and have a part just like you."

The government was finally compelled to return Robeson's passport in 1958, the same year he published his autobiography, Here I Stand.

Amongst his many talents, Robeson was an outstanding scholar and athlete, pictured here during his time at Rutgers University in New Jersey. At left, Robeson was in Rutgers Class of 1919 and one of four students selected into the Cap and Skull honour society -- based on excellence in academics, athletics, the arts and public service -- in his senior year. He was also valedictorian for his year.

Robeson performing in Shakespeare's Othello, one of his most famous roles. Left: with Peggy Ashcroft in the 1930 London production. Right: with Uta Hagen in the 1943-44 production in New York.

Robeson was active in supporting the Republican cause against the fascists in the Spanish Civil War, including travelling to Spain where he sang for the Republican troops and the international brigades. Top left: Robeson in Spain in 1938. Top right: flyer for public meeting featuring Robeson January 8, 1939 in London to support the international brigades. Bottom: singing for the Republican troops near the battlefields in Teruel, Spain.

Robeson leads Oakland, California shipyard workers in singing the Star-Spangled Banner, September 1942, during their lunch hour. He told them: "This is a serious job -- winning this war against fascists. We have to be together." Robeson himself was a shipyard worker in World War I.

Protesting the racist Jim Crow laws at the Whitehouse, 1948.

Robeson participates in the protests against Ford's Theatre in Baltimore, Maryland. The protests at Ford's Theatre, where blacks were forced to sit in the balcony, began in 1946 and lasted seven years. Many of the popular plays during this time bypassed Baltimore because the producers and actors would not condone the policy of segregation.

Due to U.S. anti-communism and discrimination, the U.S. revoked Paul Robeson's passport in 1950. Despite this, on May 18, 1952, Robeson held a famous concert at Peace Arch Park between Washington State and British Columbia, where he stood on the back of a flat bed truck and gave a rousing concert of progressive music to some 40,000 people gathered at the U.S.-Canada border. He would return for three more concerts there in 1953, 1954 and 1955.

Paul Robeson singing at the May Day rally in Glasgow’s Queen’s Park in 1960.

Robeson is warmly received during his visit to the Soviet Union in June 1960.

Concert for Australian workers building the Sydney Opera House, November 9, 1960.

Paul Robeson's grave. Memorials were held across the U.S. and around the world when he passed away and he is
remembered to this day by people around the globe for his stands against fascism and in defence of rights,
peace and justice.

Speech: Artists Can't Stand Aloof

(Photos:U.S. National Archives, Paul Robeson Archives, P. Henderson, Glasgow Trades Union Council Archives, RIA Novosti)

"You Are the Un-Americans, and You Ought to be Ashamed of Yourselves"

- Paul Robeson Appears Before House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), June 12, 1956 -

Any African-American witnesses subpoenaed to testify at the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) hearings in the 1950s were asked to denounce Paul Robeson (1898-1976) in order to obtain future employment. Robeson, an All-American football player and recipient of a Phi Beta Kappa key at Rutgers, received a law degree at Columbia University. He became an internationally acclaimed concert performer and actor as well as a persuasive political speaker. In 1949, Robeson was the subject of controversy after newspaper reports of public statements that African Americans would not fight in "an imperialist war." In 1950, his passport was revoked. Several years later, Robeson refused to sign an affidavit stating that he was not a Communist and initiated an unsuccessful lawsuit. In the following testimony to a HUAC hearing, ostensibly convened to gain information regarding his passport suit, Robeson refused to answer questions concerning his political activities and lectured bigoted Committee members Gordon H. Scherer and Chairman Francis E. Walter about African-American history and civil rights. In 1958, the Supreme Court ruled that a citizen's right to travel could not be taken away without due process and Robeson' passport was returned.

Testimony of Paul Robeson Before the House Committee on
Un-American Activities, June 12, 1956

The Chairman: The Committee will be in order. This morning the Committee resumes its series of hearings on the vital issue of the use of American passports as travel documents in furtherance of the objectives of the Communist conspiracy....

Mr. Arens: Now, during the course of the process in which you were applying for this passport, in July of 1954, were you requested to submit a non-Communist affidavit?

Mr. Robeson: We had a long discussion -- with my counsel, who is in the room, Mr. [Leonard B.] Boudin -- with the State Department, about just such an affidavit and I was very precise not only in the application but with the State Department, headed by Mr. Henderson and Mr. McLeod, that under no conditions would I think of signing any such affidavit, that it is a complete contradiction of the rights of American citizens.

Mr. Robeson: What do you mean by the Communist Party? As far as I know it is a legal party like the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Do you mean a party of people who have sacrificed for my people, and for all Americans and workers, that they can live in dignity? Do you mean that party?

Mr. Robeson: Would you like to come to the ballot box when I vote and take out the ballot and see?

Mr. Arens: Mr. Chairman, I respectfully suggest that the witness be ordered and directed to answer that question.

Mr. Robeson: I stand upon the Fifth Amendment of the American Constitution.

Mr. Arens: Do you honestly apprehend that if you told this Committee truthfully --

Mr. Robeson: I have no desire to consider anything. I invoke the Fifth Amendment, and it is none of your business what I would like to do, and I invoke the Fifth Amendment. And forget it.

Mr. Arens: I respectfully suggest the witness be ordered and directed to answer the question as to whether or not he honestly apprehends, that if he gave us a truthful answer to this last principal question, he would be supplying information which might be used against him in a criminal proceeding.

Mr. Robeson: Gentlemen, in the first place, wherever I have been in the world, Scandinavia, England, and many places, the first to die in the struggle against Fascism were the Communists and I laid many wreaths upon graves of Communists. It is not criminal, and the Fifth Amendment has nothing to do with criminality. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Warren, has been very clear on that in many speeches, that the Fifth Amendment does not have anything to do with the inference of criminality. I invoke the Fifth Amendment.

Mr. Robeson: Oh, please, does somebody here want -- are you suggesting -- do you want me to be put up for perjury some place? "John Thomas"! My name is Paul Robeson, and anything I have to say, or stand for, I have said in public all over the world, and that is why I am here today.

Mr. Scherer: I ask that you direct the witness to answer the question. He is making a speech.

Mr. Friedman: Excuse me, Mr. Arens, may we have the photographers take their pictures, and then desist, because it is rather nerve-racking for them to be there.

Mr. Robeson: I am used to it and I have been in moving pictures. Do you want me to pose for it good? Do you want me to smile? I cannot smile when I am talking to him.

Mr. Arens: I put it to you as a fact, and ask you to affirm or deny the fact, that your Communist Party name was "John Thomas."

Mr. Arens: Now, tell this Committee whether or not you know Nathan Gregory Silvermaster.

Mr. Robeson: It is a laughing matter to me, this is really complete nonsense.

Mr. Arens: Do you honestly apprehend that if you told whether you know Nathan Gregory Silvermaster you would be supplying information that could be used against you in a criminal proceeding?

Mr. Robeson: I have not the slightest idea what you are talking about. I invoke the Fifth --

Mr. Arens: I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that the witness be directed to answer that question.

Mr. Scherer: The witness talks very loud when he makes a speech, but when he invokes the Fifth Amendment I cannot hear him.

Mr. Robeson: I invoked the Fifth Amendment very loudly. You know I am an actor, and I have medals for diction.

The Chairman: This is legal. This is not only legal but usual. By a unanimous vote, this Committee has been instructed to perform this very distasteful task.

Mr. Robeson: Of the coal-mining workers and not United States Steel, by any chance? A great patriot.

Mr. Robeson: You are the author of all of the bills that are going to keep all kinds of decent people out of the country.

Mr. Robeson: Colored people like myself, from the West Indies and all kinds. And just the Teutonic Anglo-Saxon stock that you would let come in.

The Chairman: We are trying to make it easier to get rid of your kind, too.

Mr. Robeson: Could I say that the reason that I am here today, you know, from the mouth of the State Department itself, is: I should not be allowed to travel because I have struggled for years for the independence of the colonial peoples of Africa. For many years I have so labored and I can say modestly that my name is very much honored all over Africa, in my struggles for their independence. That is the kind of independence like Sukarno got in Indonesia. Unless we are double-talking, then these efforts in the interest of Africa would be in the same context. 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. I sent a message to the Bandung Conference and so forth. That is why I am here. 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....

Mr. Robeson: I went first to England, where I was with the Philadelphia Orchestra, one of two American groups which was invited to England. I did a long concert tour in England and Denmark and Sweden, and I also sang for the Soviet people, one of the finest musical audiences in the world. Will you read what the Porgy and Bess people said? They never heard such applause in their lives. One of the most musical peoples in the world, and the great composers and great musicians, very cultured people, and Tolstoy, and --

Mr. Arens: And while you were in Paris, did you tell an audience there that the American Negro would never go to war against the Soviet government?

Mr. Robeson: May I say that is slightly out of context? May I explain to you what I did say? I remember the speech very well, and the night before, in London, and do not take the newspaper, take me: I made the speech, gentlemen, Mr. So-and-So. It happened that the night before, in London, before I went to Paris . . . and will you please listen?

Mr. Robeson: Two thousand students from various parts of the colonial world, students who since then have become very important in their governments, in places like Indonesia and India, and in many parts of Africa, two thousand students asked me and Mr. [Dr. Y. M.] Dadoo, a leader of the Indian people in South Africa, when we addressed this conference, and remember I was speaking to a peace conference, they asked me and Mr. Dadoo to say there that they were struggling for peace, that they did not want war against anybody. Two thousand students who came from populations that would range to six or seven hundred million people.

Mr. Robeson: They asked me to say in their name that they did not want war. That is what I said. No part of my speech made in Paris says fifteen million American Negroes would do anything. 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. Now, in passing, I said --

Mr. Robeson: Listen to me. I said it was unthinkable to me that any people would take up arms, in the name of an Eastland, to go against anybody. Gentlemen, I still say that. This United States Government should go down to Mississippi and protect my people. That is what should happen.

Mr. Arens: I lay before you a document containing an article, "I Am Looking for Full Freedom," by Paul Robeson, in a publication called the Worker, dated July 3, 1949.

At the Paris Conference I said it was unthinkable that the Negro people of America or elsewhere in the world could be drawn into war with the Soviet Union.

Mr. Robeson: Is that saying the Negro people would do anything? I said it is unthinkable. I did not say that there [in Paris]: I said that in the Worker.

Mr. Robeson: I did not say that in Paris, I said that in America. 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. So I was rather prophetic, was I not?

Mr. Robeson: I certainly did, and I understand that some people in the American Embassy tried to break up my concert. They were not successful.

Mr. Robeson: In good company, I usually listen, but you know people wander around in such fancy places. Would you please let me read my statement at some point?

Mr. Arens: "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."

Mr. Robeson: Just like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman were underground railroaders, and fighting for our freedom, you bet your life.

The Chairman: I am going to have to insist that you listen to these questions.

Mr. Arens: "If the American warmongers fancy that they could win America's millions of Negroes for a war against those countries (i.e., the Soviet Union and the peoples' democracies) then they ought to understand that this will never be the case. 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."

Mr. Robeson: I do not remember that. But what is perfectly clear today is that nine hundred million other colored people have told you that they will not. Four hundred million in India, and millions everywhere, have told you, precisely, that the colored people are not going to die for anybody: they are going to die for their independence. We are dealing not with fifteen million colored people, we are dealing with hundreds of millions.

Mr. Kearney: The witness has answered the question and he does not have to make a speech. . . .

Mr. Robeson: In Russia I felt for the first time like a full human being. No color prejudice like in Mississippi, no color prejudice like in Washington. It was the first time I felt like a human being. Where I did not feel the pressure of color as I feel [it] in this Committee today.

Mr. Robeson: Because my father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay here, and have a part of it just like you. And no Fascist-minded people will drive me from it. Is that clear? I am for peace with the Soviet Union, and I am for peace with China, and I am not for peace or friendship with the Fascist Franco, and I am not for peace with Fascist Nazi Germans. I am for peace with decent people.

Mr. Robeson: I am here because I am opposing the neo-Fascist cause which I see arising in these committees. You are like the Alien [and] Sedition Act, and Jefferson could be sitting here, and Frederick Douglass could be sitting here, and Eugene Debs could be here.

The Chairman: Now, what prejudice are you talking about? You were graduated from Rutgers and you were graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. I remember seeing you play football at Lehigh.

The Chairman: There was no prejudice against you. Why did you not send your son to Rutgers?

Mr. Robeson: Just a moment. This is something that I challenge very deeply, and very sincerely: that the success of a few Negroes, including myself or Jackie Robinson can make up -- and here is a study from Columbia University -- for seven hundred dollars a year for thousands of Negro families in the South. My father was a slave, and I have cousins who are sharecroppers, and I do not see my success in terms of myself. That is the reason my own success has not meant what it should mean: I have sacrificed literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars for what I believe in.

Mr. Arens: While you were in Moscow, did you make a speech lauding Stalin?

Mr. Arens: Did you say, in effect, that Stalin was a great man, and Stalin had done much for the Russian people, for all of the nations of the world, for all working people of the earth? Did you say something to that effect about Stalin when you were in Moscow?

Mr. Robeson: I said a lot about Soviet people, fighting for the peoples of the earth.

Mr. Robeson: 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.

Mr. Arens: I am glad you called our attention to that slave problem. While you were in Soviet Russia, did you ask them there to show you the slave labor camps?

The Chairman: You have been so greatly interested in slaves, I should think that you would want to see that.

Mr. Robeson: The slaves I see are still in a kind of semiserfdom. I am interested in the place I am, and in the country that can do something about it. As far as I know, about the slave camps, they were Fascist prisoners who had murdered millions of the Jewish people, and who would have wiped out millions of the Negro people, could they have gotten a hold of them. That is all I know about that.

Mr. Arens: Tell us whether or not you have changed your opinion in the recent past about Stalin.

Mr. Robeson: I have told you, mister, that I would not discuss anything with the people who have murdered sixty million of my people, and I will not discuss Stalin with you.

Mr. Arens: You would not, of course, discuss with us the slave labor camps in Soviet Russia.

Mr. Robeson: I will discuss Stalin when I may be among the Russian people some day, singing for them, I will discuss it there. It is their problem.

Mr. Arens: Now I would invite your attention, if you please, to the Daily Worker of June 29, 1949, with reference to a get-together with you and Ben Davis. Do you know Ben Davis?

Mr. Robeson: One of my dearest friends, one of the finest Americans you can imagine, born of a fine family, who went to Amherst and was a great man.

Mr. Robeson: I say that he is as patriotic an American as there can be, and you gentlemen belong with the Alien and Sedition Acts, and you are the nonpatriots, and you are the un-Americans, and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

Mr. Robeson: I think it should be, and you should adjourn this forever, that is what I would say....

Congress, House, Committee on Un-American Activities, Investigation of the Unauthorized Use of U.S. Passports, 84th Congress, Part 3, June 12, 1956; in Thirty Years of Treason: Excerpts from Hearings Before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1938-1968, Eric Bentley, ed. (New York: Viking Press, 1971), 770.

"They Want to Muzzle Public Opinion": John Howard Lawson's Warning to the American Public, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6441

"The World Was at Stake": Three "Friendly" HUAC Hollywood Witnesses Assess Pro-Soviet Wartime Films, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6442

"A Damaging Impression of Hollywood Has Spread": Movie "Czar" Eric Johnston Testifies before HUAC, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6443

"Have You No Sense of Decency": The Army-McCarthy Hearings, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6444

"Communists are second to none in our devotion to our people and to our country": Prosecution and Defense Statements, 1949 Trial of American Communist Party Leaders, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6446

"Damage": Collier's Assesses the Army-McCarthy Hearings, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6449

"Not Only Ridiculous, but Dangerous": Collier's Objects to Joseph McCarthy's Attacks on the Press, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6453

"I Cannot and Will Not Cut My Conscience to Fit This Year's Fashions": Lillian Hellman Refuses to Name Names, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6454

"Enemies from Within": Senator Joseph R. McCarthy's Accusations of Disloyalty, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6456

"I Have Sung in Hobo Jungles, and I Have Sung for the Rockefellers": Pete Seeger Refuses to "Sing" for HUAC, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6457

"We Must Keep the Labor Unions Clean": "Friendly" HUAC Witnesses Ronald Reagan and Walt Disney Blame Hollywood Labor Conflicts on Communist Infiltration, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6458

"National Suicide": Margaret Chase Smith and Six Republican Senators Speak Out Against Joseph McCarthy's Attack on "Individual Freedom," http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6459

115th Anniversary of the Birth of Paul Robeson

115th Anniversary of the Birth of Paul Robeson

Speech: Artists Can't Stand Aloof

"You Are the Un-Americans, and You Ought to be Ashamed of Yourselves"

Testimony of Paul Robeson Before the House Committee on
Un-American Activities, June 12, 1956

115th Anniversary of the Birth of Paul Robeson

115th Anniversary of the Birth of Paul Robeson

Speech: Artists Can't Stand Aloof

"You Are the Un-Americans, and You Ought to be Ashamed of Yourselves"

Testimony of Paul Robeson Before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, June 12, 1956

Testimony of Paul Robeson Before the House Committee on
Un-American Activities, June 12, 1956