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Black VIP's Hail ALB Anti-Fascist Fighters
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Paul Robeson
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During the 1930's, Paul Robeson witnessed at first hand the rise of the Nazis in Germany, and suffered their contempt for Black people as inferior. He went to Spain and sang for the Loyalist forces there, including the Black and white Americans of the ALB.

By his song and speech, by his courageous stand in travelling to Spain in 1937 to visit with the Veterans, sing with them the songs of liberty and encourage them to fight heroically--The Fascist Beast--Paul has earned the respect and love, not only of the veterans, their families and friends but of all antifascist mankind. He is the first noncombatant who was presented with honorary membership in the VALB.

Paul's credo was:

To be free...To walk the good American earth as equal citizens, to live without fear, to enjoy the fruits of our toil, to give our children every opportunity in life- that dream which we have held so long in our hearts is today the destiny that we hold in our hands.

In his book "Here I Stand" Paul spells out his credo in reference to Spain:

"I went to Spain in 1938, and that was a major turning point in my life. There I saw that it was the working men and women of Spain who were heroically giving 'their last full measure of devotion' to the cause of democracy in that bloody conflict, and that it was the upper class-- the landed gentry, the bankers and industrialists-- who had unleashed the fascist beast against their own people. From the  ranks of the workers of other lands volunteers had come to help in the epic defense of Madrid, and in Spain I sang with my whole heart and soul for these gallant figures of the International Brigade. A new, warm feeling for my homeland grew within me as I met the men of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion-- the thousands of brave young Americans who had crossed the sea to fight and die that another 'government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.' My heart was filled with admiration and love for these white Americans, and there was a sense of great pride in my own people when I saw that there were Negroes, too, in the ranks of the Lincoln men in Spain. Some of them, like Oliver Laws and Milton Herndon, were to be

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[[image - Paul Robeson in Spain]]

among the heavy casualties suffered by the volunteers and would be buried with their white comrades in the Spanish earth...a long way from home. From home? Yes, from America, my own home, and I knew in my heart that I would surely return there some day."

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Speaking at a rally sponsored by the National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief in Aid of the Basque Refugee Children, Royal Albert Hall, London, June 24, 1937:

"I am deeply happy to join with you in this Appeal for the greatest cause which faces the world today...

"Like every true artist, I have longed to see my talent contributing in an unmistakably clear manner to the Cause of Humanity. I feel that tonight I am doing so.

"Every artist, every scientist, every writer must decide now where he stands. He has no alternative. There is no standing above the conflict on Olympian heights. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction in certain countries-- of the greatest of man's literary heritage, through the propagation of false ideas of racial and national superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. The struggle invades the formerly cloistered halls of our universities and other seats of learning. The battle front is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear...

"The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for Freedom or for Slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative. The history of this era is characterized by the degradation of my people: despoiled of their lands, their culture destroyed, they are in every country, save

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