Viewing page 51 of 102

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

ESSAYS  ROBESON

But Hitler, in his insistence upon the superiority of the few, his few, over the many, in his ruthless enslavement of some peoples and the extermination of others, has shown clearly that race inferiority, tolerated so complacently yesterday because it meant the non-white, today comes out to mean the non-Aryan, the non-Nazi; that slavery so complacently tolerated yesterday because it meant the African, the Negro, comes our today to mean all the conquered peoples.

When an aroused world, at last determined not to continue to waste its wealth and manpower in periodic destructive wars, carefully considers the securing of a permanent peace, realist statesmen will have to consider seriously the freedom of peoples.

Millions of soldiers (including Africans and Negroes) have been fighting in remote places of the earth for Democracy and the Four Freedoms—for themselves, and for their people.

Since these millions are men of all nations, all colors, all creeds, they are fighting for Democracy and the Four Freedoms for all the peoples of the world.

Many of these soldiers, have, alas, died for this high goal.

I believe there will never be peace in the world until people achieve what they have fought and died for.

Africans are people.

December, 1944. Enfield, Conn.

THE ACCRA CONFERENCE

I FINALLY WAS ABLE to attend an African Conference. I missed all the five Pan-African Conferences held over the years in England, France, Belgium. And I missed the Afro-Asian Conference at Bandung. But happily I was able to attend the All African Peoples Conference at Accra, Ghana, December 5-12, and it turned out to be the most important of all the conferences for Africa. For the first time in modern history Africans for North, East, Central, South and West Africa met in conference on African soil to discuss African Affairs.

The official delegates to the conference represented trade unions and political parties of every shade from all parts of Africa. There were also fraternal delegates, observers and representatives of the press from all over the world. Interestingly, the United States sent more observers than any country—more than 30, eleven of whom

347