I've learned that my people are not the only ones oppressed... I have sung my songs all over the world and everywhere found that some common bond makes the people of all lands take to Negro songs as their own.
Paul RobesonRead
We ask for nothing that is not ours by right, and herein lies the great moral power of our demand.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the justness of demanding what one is entitled to. It highlights the moral strength behind such demands.
Paul Robeson’s quote speaks to the principle of rightful entitlement, suggesting that when individuals demand what is inherently theirs, their claims carry immense moral weight. This idea underscores that demands rooted in justice and fairness are powerful because they are based on legitimate rights, making it not just an assertion but a moral imperative.
In practice
During a rally advocating for civil rights, this quote can affirm the legitimacy of the movement’s demands.
I've learned that my people are not the only ones oppressed... I have sung my songs all over the world and everywhere found that some common bond makes the people of all lands take to Negro songs as their own.
My mother was born in your state, Mr. Walter, and my mother was a Quaker, and my ancestors in the time of Washington baked bread for George Washington's troops when they crossed the Delaware, and my own father was a slave.
The intolerance of the few, or the risk of it, carries the day against the wider humanity of the many.
I shall take my voice wherever there are those who want to hear the melody of freedom
And at home in the United States we found continued and increased persecution, first of leaders of the Communist Party, and then of all honest anti-fascists.
Art is not just to show life as it is, but to show life as it should be.
Our capital system is haunted by the demon of error: error in determining guilt and error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die. What effect was race having? What effect was poverty having?
For a lawyer to do less than his utmost is, I strongly feel, a betrayal of his client. Though in criminal trials one tends to focus on the defense attorney and his client the accused, the prosecutor is also a lawyer, and he too has a client: the People. And the People are equally entitled to their day in court, to a fair and impartial trial, and to justice.
People who have lost their hunger for justice are not ultimately powerful. They are like sick people who have lost their appetite for what is truly nourishing. Such sick people should not frighten or discourage us. They should be prayed for along with the sick people who are in the hospital. "The love for justice that is in us is not only the best part of our being but it is also the most true to our nature."
From the beginning, Mandela and Tambo was besieged with clients. We were not the only African lawyers in South Africa, but we were the only firm of African lawyers. For Africans, we were the firm of first choice and last resort.
Are whisper networks good? That question itself is a little flat. Whisper networks arise in a vacuum of justice. They alleviate an untenable condition; they do not actually address it.
It was clear to me as a civil rights leader in the '60s that unless we put the social and economic underpinnings beneath the political and the civil rights, we wouldn't go anywhere.
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