Let Robeson Sing is a song by Welsh alternative rock band the
Manic Street Preachers that was released twenty years ago this month on September 10th in tribute to the black American actor, singer and civil right
s campaigner Paul Robeson. It was the fourth single to be released from their record
Know Your Enemy.It shares its title with a book by Phil Cope published by the National Library of Wales in 2001, with a reprint being published in 2008.
The record also featured a cover of Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel on the B-sidePaul Robeson has been described as one of the Unites States’ greatest musicians,
scholars, athletes, actors, and activists of the 20th century. Certainly, Paul Robeson’s fame on the
football field, on the concert and theatre stage, in film, and through his own scholarship and
activism reached around the world. T
Robeson was born in 1898 in Princeton, New Jersey, to Maria and Reverend William
Robeson, an escaped slave and Union veteran. This was just
two years after the Supreme Court upheld racial segregation. Robeson
grew up during a period of overt racism, confronted by continual racist
abuse,but always managed to rise above it and went on to achieve much
success at every level of his life.Not only was he an exceptional
athlete, cultural scholar, a polyglot who spoke over a dozen languages,
actor and singer, he was also a man
dedicated to the causes of freedom and social justice, as a fearless
political
activist he was hounded and persecuted in the U.S for his opinions.
Robeson earned a scholarship to Rutgers University, where being selected for the
College Football All-American team in 1918 and 1919 was among his many accomplishments.
In 1923, he graduated from Columbia University with a law degree, but while financing his
education he played football professionally and joined a theatre company that traveled to Britain.
Encountering the intense racial divides that limited his ability to practice law at the level which
he desired, Robeson took his life in a more professionally artistic direction by acting in theatre,
later on screen, and eventually as a musician. After moving to London for almost a decade, he
began to further his interest in ethnomusicology, African culture, and politics. By the mid-1930s
Robeson had fully integrated these interests into his art. Not long after, Paul Robeson began very actively to participate politically in issues of labor rights, anti-colonialism, and human rights,
specifically in such political debates as Welsh unionization, British decolonization, the Spanish
Civil War, and ultimately the griping violation of human rights occurring in the United States. It was during his travels in Europe that Robeson became a socialist.
Paul Robeson is regarded as one the greatest U.S. vocalists, actors, and civil and labor
rights leaders. He holds the record for the longest running Shakespeare play on Broadway. He
was a member of an NFL championship team as well as the 1918 and 1919 All-American college
football teams (Harris 1998). He held a key to the city of Boston, three honorary doctorates, and
a law degree from Columbia (Ramdin 1987). In the early 1940s, Robeson was considered one of
the greatest African Americans alive, yet not ten years later, he was classified as one of the
greatest “un-Americans.”
People like Robeson who refused to abandon his socialist beliefs began to be regarded with suspicion.
In a speech to the
World Partisans for Peace Congress in Paris in April 1949, he stated
that he didn’t believe African Americans should, or would, fight
against the Soviet Union—a country which treated him, his people, and
other minorities immeasurably better than America did. This speech was
distorted by the American press as they ramped up anti-Communist
sentiment. And, by the time Robeson returned to his country that summer,
he had become a public enemy.
It was in this atmosphere that Robeson traveled to Peekskill to sing
on August 27. Encouraged by the press, local militia attacked the
organizers and the audience before the concert was due to start, forcing
it to be cancelled. Robeson returned to New York and announced at a press conference that he would be back to sing for racial equality and peaceful relations with the Soviet Union.
Another issue Robeson faced was that of antisemitism. His wife was
part-Jewish, his son had married a Jewish woman two months earlier, and
Paul himself was already a strong lover of Jewish culture, to the extent
that two of the many languages he spoke fluently were Hebrew and
Yiddish.
The concert went ahead on September 4, and labor unions had organized
a protective guard of a few thousand trade unionists to encircle the
20,000-strong crowd. This included about a dozen guards around Robeson
on stage, to shield him from any prospective sniper’s bullet. After his
set, he was immediately spirited away.
But, as audience members left, they were led by the police into an
ambush, where the local militia lay in wait to attack them. Dozens of
cars were damaged, and 135 people were injured, including one Black man who lost an eye. Yet again, the mainstream press reported the incident as violence initiated by Blacks, Communists, and Jewish supporters of the un-American Paul Robeson.
Another sad, striking irony here is that only two years previously,
Robeson had recorded these words, to great acclaim, describing America
as: "The house I live in, my neighbors, white and black / The people who just came here, or from generations back . . .
The man who penned these lyrics was Abel Meeropol, writing under the
alias of Lewis Allen, presumably in order to deflect attention from his
Jewish heritage, his membership in the Communist Party, and to protect
his position as a school teacher.
.
Robeson himself refused to hide behind anything or anybody. When a member of the
House Committee on Un-American Activities (known as HUAC) asked at his hearing in June 1956 if he had once been known by the name of John Thomas, he
retorted,
“
My name is Paul Robeson, and anything I have to say, I have said in
public all over the world, and that is why I am here today.”
In June 1946, Robeson gave a
speech at Madison Square Garden which showed why he was such a threat to the Establishment:
“
A day or two ago, Mr. Bevin, the British Foreign Minister said . . .
‘If we do not want to have total war, we must have total peace.’ For
once, I agree with him,” Robeson
told
the audience.
“But Mr. Bevin must be totally blind if he cannot see
that the absence of peace in the world is due precisely to the efforts
of the British, American, and other imperialist powers to maintain their
control over the peoples of Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa.”
As true today as they were then, such words demonstrate why Robeson’s voice, like his rendition of The House I Live In,
can be considered to be the soundtrack to a lost opportunity. It is the
opportunity to hear and heed messages of truth, peace, and justice such
as he delivered through his art, a weapon in defense of all the
oppressed people on Earth.
In 1950 Robeson's passport was withdrawn on the grounds that his
right to travel was against American interests. Robeson would challenge
this ban in the courts for eight years; meanwhile a campaign on his
behalf was spearheaded in Britain by trades unions, artists and the
Left.
With independence movements growing across the globe, MI5 were
adamant that even if Robeson were allowed to travel he must be banned
from the UK: "He is convinced that he has a mission to lead oppressed
negroes and colonial peoples everywhere. He is a fanatical communist and
intensely ambitious" [Internal memo, 13 July 1951; National Archives:
KV/2/1829].
MI5 regarded the campaigners as Moscow's dupes or worse ["Plenty of
thought has been given to the problem of getting suitable persons to
wring tears from the Home Office on Robeson's behalf"] but support was
intense and widespread.
In 1957, unable to accept countless invitations to perform abroad,
Paul Robeson sang for audiences in London and Wales via the
transatlantic telephone cable: "We have to learn the hard way that there
is another way to sing".
Finally - in June 1958 - the Supreme Court ruled that it was
unconstitutional to deny a US passport on political grounds. The
following month Robeson flew to London [Passport no.1145187]. In an
intense few months, he sang to millions on television and radio; he
became the first lay person - and the first non-White - to take the
pulpit in St Paul's Cathedral; he revisited the USSR; and he prepared
'Othello'.
Having been blacklisted, Robeson’s passport was revoked during the McCarthyism era
for his firm and outspoken Antifascist stance on social issues such as labor exploitation and
racism. Before, after, and during (via mail correspondence) this period Robeson developed a
widespread international influence through singing, acting, and speaking in areas such as Spain,
the Soviet Union, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Beyond any of the international
relationships he formed, his bond with Wales and the Welsh people was the strongest. He developed a special bond with Wales and its people because he recognised a culture built around the values of community, work and church and a musical tradition born out of struggle and oppression. He also saw parallels between the exploitation of black people in the United States and that of the Welsh coal miner..
Robeson’s association with South Wales dates from 1928 when,
whilst performing in ‘Show Boat’ in London’s West End, he met a group of
unemployed miners”who had walked to London from the Rhondda valley to draw attention to the hardship
and suffering endured by thousands of unemployed miners and their families in
South Wales. He marched and sang with them, then gave them the money for their train fare home, he recognised a shared
suffering, and a mutual bond was born.
Robeson visited South Wales many times between 1929 and 1939,
singing in various towns including Cardiff, Neath and Swansea. In 1938, he
sang to the 7,000 people who attended the Welsh International Brigades
Memorial at Mountain Ash to commemorate the 33 Welshmen who had died in Spain. He addressed the audience thus :- 'I
am here because I know these brave fellows fought not only because I
know these brave fellows fought not only for me but for the freedom of
the people of the whole world, I feel it's my duty to be here.'
Robeson’s links with South Wales were reinforced when in
1939, he starred in The Proud Valley, a film about life in a mining community
in the Rhondda. He starred as a Black American coal miner and singer named David Goliath who gets a job there and joins a male voice choir.It documents the harsh realities of coal miners' lives, which Goliath
shares. He becomes a hero as he helps to better their working
conditions, and ultimately, during a mining accident, sacrifices himself
to save fellow miners. One of the most iconic parts of the film occurs when he encounters
racism from a fellow miner who refuses to work alongside a black man.
This is quickly challenged by a Welsh miner who leaps to David's defence
with the fantastic line: "Damn it, well aren't we all black down the
mine?" also said it was the “first
time he felt human dignity” because of the lack of racial prejudice.He
was once recorded as saying about Wales: “It was there I first
understood the struggles of white and negro together – when I went down
into the coal mine in the Rhondda Valley, lived amongst them.
Every year between 1952 and 1957, Robeson was invited to sing
at the Miners' Eisteddfod in Porthcawl but he was unable to travel because n 1950 Robeson's passport was withdrawn on the grounds that his
right to travel was against American interests. Robeson would challenge
this ban in the courts for eight years; meanwhile outrage ensured with a campaign on his
behalf Let Robeson Sing spearheaded in Britain by trades unions, artists and the
Left.
With independence movements growing across the globe, MI5 were
adamant that even if Robeson were allowed to travel he must be banned
from the UK: "He is convinced that he has a mission to lead oppressed
negroes and colonial peoples everywhere. He is a fanatical communist and
intensely ambitious" [Internal memo, 13 July 1951; National Archives:
KV/2/1829].
MI5 regarded the campaigners as Moscow's dupes or worse ["Plenty of
thought has been given to the problem of getting suitable persons to
wring tears from the Home Office on Robeson's behalf"] but support was
intense and widespread.
In October 1957, however Robeson was able to
participate in the Miners’ Eisteddfod by means of a transatlantic telephone
link to a secret recording studio in New York.unable to accept countless invitations to perform abroad,
Paul Robeson sang for audiences in London and Wales via the
transatlantic telephone cable: "We have to learn the hard way that there
is another way to sing".
This occasion was an important gesture of international solidarity with Robeson, a fierce critic of American capitalism and imperialism, and it is supremely ironic that the attempts of the Eisenhower Government to silence Robeson, actually achieved the opposite of their obective, and secured his plce in history.. I just happen to have a copy of this lgendary recording, which is one of the most spine tingling things I've ever heard.
The South Wales miners added their voice and signatures to the
international petitions that eventually forced the US Supreme Court to
reinstate his passport in June 1958, ruling that it was
unconstitutional to deny a US passport on political grounds. The
following month Robeson flew to London [Passport no.1145187]. When Paul arrived he added his voice of support to the Musicians’ Union
who at the time were witholding the services of its members from The
Scala Ballroom in Wolverhampton after the colour ban by its owners.
In an
intense few months, he sang to millions on television and radio; he
became the first lay person - and the first non-White - to take the
pulpit in St Paul's Cathedral; he revisited the USSR; and he prepared
'Othello'.
On 4th August 1958 he attended the National Eisteddfod of
Wales in Ebbw Vale,where he was presented with a Welsh hymn book to
mark his visit, he sat alongside Aneurin Bevan a long term friend and
delivered an address to the people of Wales.Significantly was the first
man to be granted permission to speak English on the llwyfan (eisteddfod
stage) He spoke of the importance of his Welsh links:"You have shaped
my life - I have learned from you.I am part of the working class.Of all
the films I have made the one I will preserve is Proud Valley"
Having been blacklisted, Robeson’s passport was revoked during the McCarthyism era
for his firm and outspoken Antifascist stance on social issues such as labor exploitation and
racism. Before, after, and during (via mail correspondence) this period Robeson developed a
widespread international influence through singing, acting, and speaking in areas such as Spain,
the Soviet Union, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Sadly Robeson’s health deteriorated during the
1960s and after his wife’s death in 1965, he stayed out of the public eye.He lived the final years of his life in seclusion in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, and died there on January 23rd, 1976.
The Manics powerful, beautiful and respectful tribute is found over a recording of Robeson's wounded and soulful baritone. In the song, James Dean Bradfield expresses his (and presumably, his bandmate Nicky
Wire’s) admiration for and desire to emulate Robeson’s extraordinary
life, It is a lesson for artists everywhere, In a very clever touch is the brief snippet of applause heard at the end of
the track is actually a recording of Welsh miners clapping for Robeson when, he had sung their anthem to them through the telephone. Let Robeson Sing also contains a lyrical premonition, as the band like Paul Robeson in later months would also go "to Cuba and meet Castro."
The beauty of the art and the ballet dancers in the video accompanying the song gracefully making this song even more powerful. A great song by a great band about a truly great man. Sing it loud, sing it proud.
Robeson's connection with Wales has never been forgotten, he is fondly
remembered because he not only stood up for the injustices that
African-Americans
faced, but also was able to empathize and connect with other people’s
struggles, he funded Jews escaping Nazi Germany, spoke out
against the fascists in Spanish Civil War, campaigned against
colonialism in African countries and stood with laborers in the United
States and proudly with the people of Wales, an internationalist who
identified with the most important issues of freedom and social justice
of his time, and practiced what he preached. Because of all this and his
constant solidarity with the Welsh people he remains forever etched in
the nations heart. A powerful rich courageous presence in our collective
history.
Here is a link to a petition calling for a statue of Paul Robeson to be installed in the South Wales valleys to ceebrate his love of Wales and the mining communities that "shaped his life" Like the Manics great song it would be a truly great way of honouring Paul Robeson's rich legacy. After all the words and music of this legendary activist and singer are more relevant than ever in the era of Black Lives Matter. Paul Robeson recognised the need to fight racism and fascism with
solidarity and socialism. This giant man's lifelong struggle serves as
an inspiration as we carry on the same fight today.
Let Robeson Sing - Manic Street Preachers
Where are you now?
Broken up or still around?
The CIA says you're a guilty man
Will we see the likes of you again?
Can anyone make a difference anymore?
Can anyone write a protest song?
Pinky lefty revolutionary
Burnt at the stake for
A voice so pure, a vision so clear
I've got to learn to live like you
Learn to sing like you
Went to Cuba to meet Castro
Never got past sleepy Moscow
A giant man with a heavenly voice
MK Ultra turned you paranoid
No passport 'til 1958
McCarthy poisoned through with hate
Liberty lost still buried today
Beneath the lie of the USA
Say what you want
Say what you want
A voice so pure, a vision so clear
I've got to learn to live like you
Learn to sing like you
"Now let the Freedom Train come zooming down the track
Gleaming in the sunlight for white and black
Not stopping at no stations marked coloured nor white
Just stopping in the fields in the broad daylight
Stopping in the country in the wide open air
Where there never was a Jim Crow sign nowhere
And no lilly-white committees, politicians of note
Nor poll tax layer through which coloured can't vote
And there won't be no kinda colour lines
The Freedom Train will be yours
And mine"
A voice so pure, a vision so clear
I've got to learn to live like you
Learn to sing like you
Sing it loud, sing it proud
I will be here, I will be found
Sing it loud, sing it proud
I will be here, I will be found
Songwriters: James Bradfield / Nicholas Jones / Sean Moore
FURTHER READING:
Freedomways. Paul Robeson: The Great Forerunner. (New
York, 1965).
Paul Robeson Cymru Committee. Let Paul Robeson Sing! : a
celebration of the life of Paul Robeson and his relationship with Wales. (Bevan
Foundation, 2001).
Robeson, Paul. Here I stand: by Paul Robeson. (Boston,
1971, reprint of 1958 ed.)
Thompson, Allan Lord. Paul Robeson: artist and activist, on
records, radio and television. (Wellingborough, 2000).
