Frases de Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Data de nascimento: 9. Abril 1898
Data de falecimento: 23. Janeiro 1976
Paul LeRoy Bustill Robeson foi um renomado ator, atleta, cantor, escritor e ativista americano dos direitos políticos e civis.
Robeson foi o primeiro ator negro a interpretar o Otelo, de Shakespeare, na Broadway. Ator conceituado, em sua época, tanto no teatro, quanto no cinema, Robeson foi responsável por abrir as portas para outros atores negros, tais como Sidney Poitier e Harry Belafonte.
No auge de sua fama, Robeson decidiu tornar-se um ativista político contra o fascismo e o racismo. Adepto dos ideais socialistas, foi perseguido pelo Macartismo, investigado pelo FBI e o MI5.
O arquivo de Paul Robeson no FBI é, até hoje, um dos mais extensos já produzidos para um membro do meio artístico.
Em 1952 recebeu o Prêmio Lênin da Paz .
Citações Paul Robeson
„I am the son of an emancipated slave and the stories of old father are vivid on the tablets of my memory.“
— Paul Robeson
Context: One does not need a very long racial memory to loose on oneself in such a part … As I act, civilization falls away from me. My plight becomes real, the horrors terrible facts. I feel the terror of the slave mart, the degradation of man bought and sold into slavery. Well, I am the son of an emancipated slave and the stories of old father are vivid on the tablets of my memory.
Regarding the his work with the playwright Eugene O'Neill, as quoted in Paul Robeson: Artist and Citizen (1989) by Charles Musser, "The Troubled relations: Robeson, O'Neil and Micheaux", p. 94
„But beyond the personal tragedy, the terrible agony of Othello, the irretrievability of his world, the complete destruction of all his trusted and sacred values — all these suggest the shattering of a universe.“
— Paul Robeson
Context: It was deeply fascinating to watch how strikingly contemporary American audiences from coast to coast found Shakespeare's Othello — painfully immediate in its unfolding of evil, innocence, passion, dignity and nobility, and contemporary in its overtones of a clash of cultures, of the partial acceptance of and consequent effect upon one of a minority group. Against this background, the jealousy of the protagonist becomes more credible, the blows to his pride more understandable, the final collapse of his personal, individual world more inevitable. But beyond the personal tragedy, the terrible agony of Othello, the irretrievability of his world, the complete destruction of all his trusted and sacred values — all these suggest the shattering of a universe.
"Some Reflections on Othello and the Nature of Our Time." in The American Scholar (Autumn 1945); also quoted in Paul Robeson : The Whole World in His Hands (1981) by Susan Robeson, p. 150
„Films make me into some cheap turn... You bet they'll never let me play a part in a film where a Negro is on top.“
— Paul Robeson
As quoted in Paul Robeson : The Whole World in His Hands (1981) by Susan Robeson, p. 92
„In the early days of my carer as an actor, I shared what was then the prevailing attitude of Negro performers — that the content and form of a play or a film scenario was of little importance to us. What mattered was was the opportunity, which came so seldom to our folks … Later I came to understand that the Negro artist could not view the matter simply in terms of of his individual interests, and that he had a responsibility to his people who rightfully resented the traditional stereotyped portrayals of Negros on stage and screen.“
— Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson : Here I Stand (1958), p. 124
„The artist must elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative. The history of the capitalist era is characterized by the degradation of my people: despoiled of their lands, their true culture destroyed... denied equal protection of the law, and deprived their rightful place in the respect of their fellows.“
— Paul Robeson
As quoted in Paul Robeson, The Whole World in His Hands (1981) by Susan Robeson, p. 60
„If the United States and the United Nations truly want peace and security let them fulfill the hopes of the common people everywhere – let them work together to accomplish on a worldwide scale, precisely the kind of democratic association of free people which characterizes the Soviet Union today.“
— Paul Robeson
Daily Worker (15 November 1945)
„Yes, all Africa remembers that it was Litvinov who stood alone beside Haile Selassie in Geneva, when Mussolini's sons flew with the blessings of the Pope to drop bombs on Ethiopian women and children. Africa remembers that it was the Soviet Union which fought the attempts of the Smuts to annex Southwest Africa to the slave reservation of the Union of South Africa... if the peoples of the Congo refuse to mine the uranium for the atom bombs made in Jim Crow factories in the United States; if all these peoples demand an end to floggings, an end to the farce of 'trusteeship' in the former Italian colonies.... The Soviet Union is the friend of the African and the West Indian peoples.“
— Paul Robeson
p. 238
„Vast quantities of U. S. bombers, tanks and guns have been sent against Ho Chi Minh and his freedom-fighters; and now we are told that soon it will be 'advisable' to send America GI's into Indo-China in order that the tin, rubber and tungsten of Southeast Asia be kept by the "free world"-meaning white Imperialism.“
— Paul Robeson
p. 378
„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.“
— Paul Robeson
As quoted in Paul Robeson : I Want to Make Freedom Ring (2008) by Carin T. Ford, p. 97, Ch. 9
„For the first time since I began acting, I feel that I've found my place in the world, that there's something out of my own culture which i can express and perhaps help others preserve.. i have found out now that the African natives had a definite culture a long way beyond the culture of the Stone age... an integrated thing, which is still unspoiled by western influences... I think the Americans will be amazed to find how many of the modern dance steps are relics of African heritage.“
— Paul Robeson
As quoted in Paul Robeson : The Whole World in His Hands (1981) by Susan Robeson, p. 72
