#freedomways

[bring-it-all-down]

“But even more important, in addition to those who cannot permit themselves to admit the existence of a black culture, there are some, more sophisticated and insidious, who fear that if we read and cherish Langston Hughes, are exhilarated by the magnificence of Paul Robeson, become aroused by the stinging anger of LeRoi Jones, learn pride in our African heritage through the poetry of Leopold Senghor or Aime Cesaire, we, the oppressed, will become conscious of ourselves as a creative, culturally rich, significant people. And when that time comes, we shall no longer permit the past to rule the present. What was tolerated then will be impermissible now. Crude ferrous shackles will, by cultural alchemy, be transmuted into unshatterable weapons. For such is the inescapable connection between culture and freedom. 

That is why most southern states made it a crime to teach a slave to read or write. That is why those who have ruled this nation have done their best to convince black Americans that they were without a culture and could not produce one. Thus it was that the Bourbons who ruled the south, and the profiteers who dominated the north, either knew or instinctively sensed the signal relationship between culture and freedom, art and liberation. 

To repeat then, if much of black America was unlettered in black culture, primary responsibility was due to white hegemony over black institutional life, and that control was permeated through and through with mendacity. The underlying premise, whether conscious or not, was that if we did not know who we were, we could not possibly find ourselves” (pg. 321).

Richard G. Hatcher, “Art and Liberation: Culture and Freedom,” Freedomways 10, no. 4 (1970): 319-325.

[newmanology]

Freedomways, A Quarterly Review of the Freedom Movement, 1970s.

Art by (top to bottom): Jacob Lawrence, Leo and Diane Dillon, Elizabeth Catlett, Romare Beardon, C.W. Byron.

See more Freedomways covers via Factr.

[bring-it-all-down]

“The struggles and bitter experiences I have had in prison are very valuable to me. Only when you see man at his lowest can you appreciate him at his highest, therefore I consider these experiences a most worthy contribution to my understanding and love of oppressed humanity. I have seen how people who extol the so-called dignity of the individual can mercilessly reduce other men to a bestial existence. I have seen with my own eyes that human love and kindness cannot be abolished by even the most insensitive tyrants. I have learned in the dirt and blood of battle, that it is better to have a brain of passion, than a passion of the brain. And, above all, I have learned to love life and to love more the endless struggle for a better life” (343).

-Frank E. Chapman Jr., “Pages from the Life of a Black Prisoner,” Freedomways 11 no. 4 (1971): 332.345.

[bring-it-all-down]

“It is not enough to love peace, it is necessary to fight for it, it is not enough to sympathize with someone’s grief, it is necessary to help to create happiness.”

–Slava Tynes, “Paul Robeson: Great Friend of the Soviet People,” Freedomways 11, no. 1 (1971), 98.

[bring-it-all-down]

“Paul linked the struggle of black America with the struggles of black Africa, brown India, yellow Asia and the blacks of Brazil and Haiti and the peons of Mexico and South America—all seeking justice and freedom from oppression, exploitation and degradation. This made him dangerous. He moved back and forth across the continents and oceans—a ubiquitous voice of freedom everywhere he passed. Then, against the oppressors of the Afro-American, he laid the charge of Genocide of his people before the United Nations. 

So there came a time when he had to be stopped—the political and economic bosses of our society decided that he had gone too far—the name of Paul Robeson had come to be synonymous with exposure of harsh and embarrassing truths. First it was sought to put him behind bars. He refused to share his conscience and the privacy of his political convictions with the agents of the zealots. Then it was sought to immobilize him—this time with more success—without a passport he could not travel—indeed, he would not choose to do so. Lastly came the greatest and most effective blow of all, the consortium between government, industry, organized labor, the cultural media and the press, to destroy him as an artist—to cut the ground from under his feet—to deny him the stage and the forum in the hope that he would be silenced. A venial theatre, an opportunistic clergy and the jealous, insecure and cowardly leadership of the organizations of the black people, made it possible to curb through circumscription, the artistic, cultural and political work of Robeson, the freedom fighter” (366-367).

-Hope R. Stevens, “Paul Robeson––Democracy’s Most Powerful Voice,” Freedomways 5, no.3 (1965): 365-368.

[bring-it-all-down]

“Yes, our languages, our idioms, our forms of expression may be different, the political, economic and social systems under which we live may be different, but art reflects a common humanity. And further, much of the contemporary art reflecting our times has to do with the struggles for equality, human dignity, freedom, peace and mutual understanding. The aspirations for a better life are similar indeed all over the world and when expressed in art, are universally understood. While we become aware of great variety, we recognize the universality, the unity, the oneness of the many people in our contemporary world.

Paul Robeson, “It’s Good to be Back,” Freedomways 5, no. 3 (1965): 374.

[bring-it-all-down]

“At first  many  young  people  believed  the  dream  we  are  all  fed: the dream of a world where freedom and equality are a part of every human experience. Now that they have studied us and each other firsthand, they have learned that we are the carriers and spreaders of the sickness that grips our society, spewing it all  over  the world, like  some  humanity-defoliating chemical, which they (or at least some of them) have vowed to resist-by not becoming like us. Yes, some few of them have learned and now know that in order to make their dreams come true, they must place themselves in direct opposition to the basic structure of American society. 

Throughout its history, our establishment has always been willing to risk the health, sanity, safety and even the lives of its youth in order to entrench its political, social, and economic dogmas both at home and throughout the world: witness the countless lynchings and mur­ders of blacks in the south and the thousands of American military dead resting in the soil of nations all over the world, where American interests had to be defended. Those who claim not to understand our youth, fail to grasp the concept: "Hunger with dignity is preferable to bread eaten in slavery." And so they see those young people who refuse to prostitute themselves to the system culturally, econ­omically and/or socially as brainless, anarchistic rebels who deserve whatever repressive tactics are used against  them including murder on college campuses.

[...]They could now see that racism, shrouded in the trans­parent gossamer of liberalism, functioned just as intensely in the streets of San Francisco, Philadelphia and New York. They compared the attitude of the rural "red-neck" Alabaman to those of the northern suburbia "liberal" and found that, when all the rhetoric is scraped away, both are in fact identical personalities. They began to examine and question the values of their own parents only to discover that their so-called values were not values at all but, instead, adaptations to any and all pressures which seem to threaten their social position or comfortable lifestyle. They could now see the widening discrepan­cies between their parents' avowals of libertarianism and their self­ motivated actions.

[...]When  these  young rebels speak of "revolution," they do not mean the superficial concept of rebellion espoused by George Washington, Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry, men who envisioned changing  the establishment in order that they could assume the power positions. Today's young American radi­cals are committed to changing the system in order to create a truly revolutionary and new society, one  which will address itself to the needs of the people, all of the people. They know that the American government as it exists and operates today maintains a position which is deliberately outside of the periphery of its people and that only a revolutionary process can refocus the attentions and intentions of the government where they belong-on  the needs of the people” (311-314).

-Porter Kirkwood, Jr., “America’s Youth Culture: A Revolutionary Potential?,” Freedomways 10, no. 4 (1970): 310-319.

[bring-it-all-down]

From Freedomways 10, no. 3 (1970): 258.