[Marxism] Paul Robeson and Cuba: Happy Birthday, Paul!

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

PAUL ROBESON AND CUBA: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PAUL!
by Walter Lippmann, April 9, 2004

April 9 is the birthdate of Paul Robeson, a fighter
for peace and social justice if there ever was one.

If you take the opportunity to listen to the full
40 minute interview which Robeson gave in 1958 on
Pacifica, and reproduced on Democracy NOW, you'll
see he was one of the best socialist educators who
ever spoke publicly in this country.

One would have to go quite some distance to find a
positive political act to occur during the period
since George W. Bush became President of the USA,
but there actually are a small number of things.

These include his returning of Cuban hijackers to
the island after negotiating the charges which the
perpetrators faced on their return. This took place
after three armed hijackers were executed in April
of last year. Bush's administration also arrested,
charged and convicted Adermis Wilson and another
band of six other Cuban airline hijackers and had
James Cason participate in Cuban efforts to stop
the hijackings by going to the Jose Marti airport
and declaring that hijackers, should they succeed,
would be charged, prosecuted and convicted, which
in fact they were. Cason's public declaration to
this effect, which was printed on the front page
of Cuban daily newspapers, and read out loud on
Cuban radio and television, were completely new
and unprecedented in the history of US-Cuban
relations for the entire history of the Cuban
Revolution.

He never did get to Cuba during the period of the
Revolution, but he wanted to go. And so today as
we fight for the right to travel to Cuba and any
other place we want, we have to look back to the
struggles of people like Paul Robeson and William
Worthy and others who fought these issues long
before most people reading these lists were born.

And the Bush administration also issued a stamp
to commemorate Robeson's life, details of which
are given below. This was another progressive
act by the Bush administration. You have to
wonder what was going through their minds when
they gave this campaign, which was organized by
Communists and progressive Black people, the
final approval. Well, it's good that they did.

WAS ROBESON DRUGGED TO PREVENT HIS TRIP TO CUBA?
Counterpunch, 1 April 1999. In the spring of 1961,
Robeson planned to visit Havana, Cuba to meet with
Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. The trip never came
off because in Moscow, where he had gone to give
several lectures and concerts, he had slashed his
wrists in a suicide attempt after suffering
hallucinations and severe depression.
Robeson's son, Paul Robeson, Jr., believes that
his father was slipped a synthetic hallucinogen
called BZ by US intelligence operatives.

The timing of Robeson's trip to Cuba was certainly
a crucial factor. Three weeks after the Moscow party,
the CIA launched its disastrous invasion of Cuba at
the Bay of Pigs. It's impossible to overstate
Robeson's stature at the time and his threat to
the America government as a black radical. Through
the 1950s Robson commanded worldwide attention and
esteem. He was the Nelson Mandela and Muhammad Ali
of his time. He spoke more than twenty languages,
including Russian, Chinese and several African
languages. Robeson was also on close terms with
Nehru, Jomo Kenyatta and other Third World leaders.
His embrace of Castro in Havana would have seriously
undermined US efforts to overthrow the new Cuban
government.
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/431.html

DEMOCRACY NOW SEGMENT ON ROBESON (40 minutes, excellent)
http://www.webactive.com/pacifica/demnow/dn980127.html

DYNAMIC: Newspaper of the Young Communist League, USA:
http://www.yclusa.org/article/articleview/1550/1/293/

UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE PDF ON THE STAMP:
http://www.usps.com/communications/news/stamps/2003/sr03_067.pdf

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY AND PASSPORT FIGHT
In 1950, the U.S. revoked Robeson's passport,
leading to an eight-year battle to resecure it
and to travel again. During those years, Robeson
studied Chinese, met with Albert Einstein to
discuss the prospects for world peace, published
his autobiography, Here I Stand, and sang at
Carnegie Hall. Two major labor-related events
took place during this time. In 1952 and 1953,
he held two concerts at Peace Arch Park on the
U.S.-Canadian border, singing to 30-40,000 people
in both countries. In 1957, he made a transatlantic
radiophone broadcast from New York to coal miners
in Wales. In 1960, Robeson made his last concert
tour to New Zealand and Australia. In ill health,
Paul Robeson retired from public life in 1963.
He died on January 23, 1976, at age 77,
in Philadelphia.
http://www.cpsr.cs.uchicago.edu/robeson/bio.html

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY:
http://ur.rutgers.edu/medrel/viewArticle.html?ArticleID=3716

US STATE DEPARTMENT: (which had taken Robeson's
passport away from him, which prevented him from
traveling to many places, even across the bridge
to sing at a concert in Canada once.)
http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/blackhis/stamps.htm

BLACK ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION:
http://www.bet.com/articles/0,,c3gb7970-8815,00.html

FINDLAW:
http://news.findlaw.com/prnewswire/20040120/20jan2004134244.html

ONE PAGE DEVOTED TO WILLIAM WORTHY:
http://www.walterlippmann.com/worthy.html



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