Viewing page 55 of 102

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

ESSAYS     ROBESON

No one could, in his wildest moments, call the Moores nor the NAACP radical or subversive.

But certain UnAmericans in Florida, in what is fast becoming the typical American Way, disapproved of Harry Moore's democratic activities, and arrogantly reprimanded, then threatened him; when he declined to agree with them and obey them, they simply blasted him to death on Christmas night. Christmas night!

UnAmerican citizens in high places are behaving this way in Europe, in Asia, at the truce table in Korea, and in the United Nations Organization: Agree with, obey us, or else.

Now there are an awful lot of people in this world who are never going to agree with nor obey Americans, especially when they are arrogant and aggressive. There are an awful lot of people right here in the United States-good, solid loyal American citizens-who are also never going to submit to arrogance and aggression, whether it be foreign or domestic, and who will resist it to the end.

The present Administration recognizes this increasing resistance, and has already passed "laws' to punish it, and is now preparing concentration camps to house the citizens of this "free Nation" who not only refuse to agree and obey, but who work and fight to resist and prevent the destruction of our sacred rights and traditions as set forth in our Constitution.

Florida and some of her sister southern States have long used concentration camps in the form of peonage farms, prison lumber camps, chain-gangs; now, with the new "laws" on the Federal statute books, they have become bolder, and have taken to open force and violence-dynamiting and blasting non-conformers to death.

At this particular time, when American citizens regardless of color and religion are being asked hour after hour, day after day, to give blood, to man Civilian Defense, to buy Defense Bonds, and are being forced to pay enormous taxes; when our young women are being urged and our young men being drafted into military service and are giving their lives in distant places to preserve Freedom and Democracy (current American style); at this particular time it is the urgent and immediate duty and obligation of every loyal American citizen, especially every Negro citizen, and more especially every Negro soldier to stop right here and now and take time out to re-examine and re-evaluate this Freedom and Democracy (current American style).

Do we really want the Freedom and Democracy defined and guaranteed by our Constitution, or do we wan this UnAmerican

351

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-09 17:01:40