 First edition | |
| Author | Paul Robeson |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Othello Associates |
Publication date | 1958 |
| Pages | 128 |
Here I Stand is a 1958 book written by Paul Robeson with the collaboration of Lloyd L. Brown. While Robeson wrote many articles and speeches, Here I stand is his only book. It has been described as part manifesto, part autobiography. [1] It was published by Othello Associates and dedicated to his wife Eslanda Goode Robeson. [2]
Foreword
Robeson acknowledges his roots and dedicates himself to winning freedom for his people in America. He says he intends the book not to be an autobiography, but one that gives insight into his thinking.
Prologue
Robeson recalls his childhood and upbringing.
I Take My Stand
Robeson traces his development as actor/ singer from America to England which became his home from 1927 to 1939. There, he started to learn more about Africa, its cultures and languages. In 1934 he travelled to the Soviet Union where he says he experienced an absence of racism. He opines that communism would be helpful to overcome colonialism. Robeson affirms his belief in socialism, but also asserts that he never joined the Communist party. Robeson discusses his remarks at the World Peace Conference at Paris in 1948 where he asked Blacks to realize that the fight for a free world begins at home and the reactions to his speech. He says he fully concurs with the Ten Principles of Bandung.
Love Will Find Out the Way
Robeson says that while in England he connected to the common man, "This belief in the oneness of humankind.. has existed within me side by side with the deep attachment to the cause of my own race", [3] a concept he first felt through song. With the rise of fascism in Europe in the thirties, he says he recognized that the struggle for black liberation was inseparable from the anti-fascist struggle. He further relates that he managed to maintain some international bonds during the years he has been restricted from travelling abroad by the State Department's revocation of his passport, and describes how the documentary The Song of the Rivers was created.
Our Right to Travel
Robeson's passport was revoked in 1950 and he argues this was done because he is a spokesperson for Black people and their freedom. He describes his position as fighting for freedom, and as being "American", while describing the State Department and John Foster Dulles's position as "un-American". He says that he right to travel is an important part of full citizenship. He acquaints the reader with Ira Aldridge who could only achieve artistic greatness by travelling abroad, and says of W. E. B. Du Bois, whose passport had also been revoked, that his presence at international congresses would have enhanced the standing of the United States.
The Time Is Now
Robeson, rejecting segregation and gradualism, demands full citizenship for Black people immediately. He views the people of the newly freed nations in Africa and Asia as natural allies of the Black cause. Realizing that he cannot change individual prejudice, he demands that racist laws limiting Black equality must end.
The Power of Negro Action
Robeson argues that the moral support of the American people would be on the side of the Black people when they claim their "lawful rights with... earnestness, dignity, and determination..." [4] He says that Black people have the power of numbers, of organization, and of spirit to be successful now, and that important examples have been set such as the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in Washington DC on May 17, 1957, and events in Little Rock and Montgomery. Robeson calls for concerted action and effective leadership.
Our Children, Our World
In the epilogue Robeson is optimistic. He says that progress has been made, as seen in Little Rock, that the appearance of Sputnik sends a message to work for peace, and that racism is the enemy.
The 1971 Appendix contains a number of essays, including one by Benjamin C. Robeson about "My Brother, Paul," and a statement by the author after having regained his passport. Also, Robeson includes an essay about the significance of the pentatonic scale. He claims to have discovered common links in folk songs though the use of the pentatonic scale and opines that this pattern also extends into Chinese and African languages. [5] The last section contains "A Later Statement by the Author" from August 1964 that reviews the progress in the struggle for freedom of the Black people, ending with "we surely can sing together: "Thank God Almighty, we're moving!"
In 1971, Lloyd L. Brown added the Preface to the book upon its reprinting. He recalls the difficult position Robeson was placed in when his rights as a citizen were denied although he was never charged with an illegal action. Robeson's book, Brown asserts, is indispensable to understand his viewpoint. The preface describes the initial reception of the book. It was ignored by the mainstream American press and not even mentioned in new book sections, in contrast to the black, left-wing and foreign press. Brown sees him as the "Great Forerunner" of Black liberation.
The title echoes Martin Luther's famous statement in front of worldly authorities. The book is partly biographical, partly a manifesto. Robeson says that his primary allegiance is to his "own people" and that the trade-unions and the black church are the vanguard institutions. [1] He declares that he is a "scientific socialist", a reference to a term made famous by Friedrich Engels. He says that the time for black liberation is in the present, calls for unity, and maintains that this liberation must be directed by Black leaders, not by outside organizations that have other interests. [1] While the white mainstream press largely ignored the book, the black press did not. "I Am Not a Communist Says Robeson" was the headline in The Afro-American . [1] The first edition was sold out within six weeks and Robeson reemerged after his enforced banishment. [1]
Paul Robeson: Here I Stand , 1999 documentary
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American bass-baritone concert artist, actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his political stances.
Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was an American playwright and writer. She was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. Her best-known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of black Americans in Chicago living under racial segregation. The title of the play was taken from the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes: "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" At the age of 29, she won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award — making her the first African-American dramatist, the fifth woman, and the youngest playwright to do so. Hansberry's family had struggled against segregation, challenging a restrictive covenant in the 1940 U.S. Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee.
The Peekskill riots took place at Cortlandt Manor, New York in 1949. The catalyst for the rioting was an announced concert by black singer Paul Robeson, who was well known for his strong pro-trade union stance, civil rights activism, communist affiliations, and anti-colonialism. The concert, organized as a benefit for the Civil Rights Congress, was scheduled to take place on August 27 in Lakeland Acres, just north of Peekskill.
"Ol' Man River" is a show tune from the 1927 musical Show Boat with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, who wrote the song in 1925. The song contrasts the struggles and hardships of African Americans with the endless, uncaring flow of the Mississippi River. It is sung from the point of view of a black stevedore on a showboat, and is the most famous song from the show. The song is meant to be performed in a slow tempo; it is sung complete once in the musical's lengthy first scene by the stevedore "Joe" who travels with the boat, and, in the stage version, is heard four more times in brief reprises. Joe serves as a sort of musical one-man Greek chorus, and the song, when reprised, comments on the action, as if saying, "This has happened, but the river keeps rolling on anyway."
Roy Ottoway Wilkins was an American civil rights leader from the 1930s to the 1970s. Wilkins' most notable role was his leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), in which he held the title of Executive Secretary from 1955 to 1963 and Executive Director from 1964 to 1977. Wilkins was a central figure in many notable marches of the civil rights movement and made contributions to African-American literature. He controversially advocated for African-Americans to join the military.
William Lorenzo Patterson was an African-American leader in the Communist Party USA and head of the International Labor Defense, a group that offered legal representation to communists, trade unionists, and African Americans in cases involving issues of political or racial persecution.
We Charge Genocide is a paper accusing the United States government of genocide based on the UN Genocide Convention. This paper was written by the Civil Rights Congress (CRC) and presented to the United Nations at meetings in Paris in December 1951.
Benjamin Jefferson Davis Jr., was an African-American lawyer and communist who was elected in 1943 to the New York City Council, representing Harlem. He faced increasing opposition from outside Harlem after the end of World War II. In 1949 he was among a number of communist leaders prosecuted for violating the Smith Act. He was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.
Randall LeRoy Kennedy is an American legal scholar. He is the Michael R. Klein Professor of Law at Harvard University and his research focuses on the intersection of racial conflict and legal institutions in American life. He specializes in contracts, freedom of expression, race relations law, civil rights legislation, and the Supreme Court.
Paul Leroy Robeson Jr. was an American author, archivist and historian.
Eslanda "Essie" Cardozo Goode Robeson was an American anthropologist, author, actress, and civil rights activist. She was the wife and business manager of performer Paul Robeson.
Paul Robeson: Here I Stand is a comprehensive and award-winning documentary film that explores the life and career of Paul Robeson, the controversial African-American athlete-actor-singer-activist. It was directed by St. Clair Bourne for the PBS series American Masters. Spanning Robeson's whole life, it features interviews with Robeson himself, his son Paul Robeson Jr. and others close to its subject, celebrities, and several scholars on African-American cinema. It also includes extensive excerpts from Robeson's movies and musical recordings.
My Song Goes Forth, is the first documentary about South Africa as apartheid was being imposed. The film features singer, actor and civil rights activist Paul Robeson singing the title song and adding a prologue that asks the viewers to interpret the remainder of the film against the producer's intentions. Alternately entitled "Africa Sings", the initial purpose of the film was as a pro-white supremacy short-subject documentary which serves as an advertisement for the birth of apartheid in South Africa but with a conflicting message in the voice-over. Primarily the documentary has been associated with Robeson and early Anti-Apartheid activism due to his re-editing and rewriting of the films' narration.
Entertainer and activist Paul Robeson's political philosophies and outspoken views about domestic and international Communist countries and movements were the subject of great concern to the western mass media and the United States Government, during the Cold War. His views also caused controversy within the ranks of black organizations and the entertainment industry.
Manning Rudolph Johnson AKA Manning Johnson and Manning R. Johnson was a Communist Party USA African-American leader and the party's candidate for U.S. Representative from New York's 22nd congressional district during a special election in 1935. Later, he left the Party and became an anti-communist government informant and witness.
The US congressional testimony by Jackie Robinson, the first African-American Major League Baseball player of the modern era, against the famous entertainer and international civil rights activist Paul Robeson, was an American Cold War incident. Its events were precipitated when, at an international student peace conference held in Paris on April 20, 1949, Robeson allegedly made a speech to the effect that African Americans would not support the United States in a war with the Soviet Union, due to continued second-class citizen status under United States law. This subsequent controversy caused the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) to investigate Robeson and Robinson, as a famed African-American baseball player, was called on to impugn Robeson.
Lloyd Louis Brown was an American labor organizer, Communist Party activist, journalist, novelist, friend and editorial companion of Paul Robeson's, and a Robeson biographer.
Lawrence Benjamin Brown was an American singer, composer and pianist born in Jacksonville, Florida. He is best known for his arrangements of Negro spirituals, many of which he performed as accompanist for Paul Robeson, performing on piano and singing harmony.
Freedom was a monthly newspaper focused on African-American issues published from 1950 to 1955. The publication was associated primarily with the internationally renowned singer, actor and then officially disfavored activist Paul Robeson, whose column, with his photograph, ran on most of its front pages. Freedom's motto was: "Where one is enslaved, all are in chains!" The newspaper has been described as "the most visible African American Left cultural institution during the early 1950s." In another characterization, "Freedom paper was basically an attempt by a small group of black activists, most of them Communists, to provide Robeson with a base in Harlem and a means of reaching his public... The paper offered more coverage of the labor movement than nearly any other publication, particularly of the left-led unions that were expelled from the CIO in the late 1940s... [It] encouraged its African American readership to identify its struggles with anti-colonial movements in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. Freedom gave extensive publicity to... the struggle against apartheid."
Blaxit is a social movement that promotes the repatriation of Black/African Americans from the United States and Europe to Africa. The term now includes all people of African heritage who desire to move to Africa for many reasons, including new economic growth opportunities and cultural reasons. Combined with African countries which are now seeking to gain skilled and educated migrants, a growing movement has been formed, with the Ghanaian president Nana Akufo-Addo declared that 2019 was the "Year of Return" and in accordance with his declaration, he made immigration to Ghana easier for members of African diaspora communities.
