A Changed Nation

Negroes want to be treated like men
~James Baldwin

It is difficult to understand the extent to which Paul Robeson and those whom he influenced have impacted our country because one must first imagine a society which does not recognize black culture. One must imagine art museums with, at best, pitiful displays of savage African art. One must imagine an entire culture trying desperately to forget its roots and to put on the mask of a separate people. Paul Robeson spent his life using art to tear down every rule that said it was shameful, second-best, to be black. He told his people to stand tall and to stand proud as valued individuals, set solidly on a history of magnificent human beings.

“Young colored people have always in the past been urged to be as good as the white people-the young lawyer is told to be as good as the white lawyer. That’s ridiculous. To be as good as anyone else is no high ideal, especially when the models held up to the colored youth are just the white people in general. The art form is one in which I am myself.”