Wednesday, May 27, 2020

SAN FRANCISCO Paul Robeson sings again

Tribune (Sydney, NSW : 1939 - 1991)  Wed 16 Oct 1957  Page 6

Paul Robeson sings again
SAN FRANCISCO:

Back in the full swing of his concert' career, Paul Robeson has appeared five times in
California and sung to 10,000 people in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

"There were 5,000 people in the park in Los Angeles," Robeson told the Canadian Tribune, "who
were there under the auspices of the- Foreign Born  committee. The First Unitarian Church brought in 2,400 more for two concerts, and my concert at the Third Baptist Church inSan Francisco brought in 1,100 more."

All these appearances were sold out within three days after they were, announced and the
great. American artist said he could do 15 more within six weeks, if he were not going back to New York. Response to his concerts by the Negro community, said Robeson, was "magnificent."
The successful Robeson concerts on the West Coast have not been noticed—or reviewed— by the
commercial press. "And what's more," said Robeson, "I don't care."

The resumption of his concert career has taken place under the auspices of ordinary people, work
ing people, he said. "I will probably- not go back to the regular concert or theatrical management of the past.

"If you attend the opening of the Opera House," Robeson said,"you will see the sort of audience the concert managements of our country cater to — the well to-do snobs. Some of them may know something about music and some of them may not. But I have no desire to sing for them again.

"My labors in the future will remain the same ; as they have in the past. They will be based on my whole experience— in the anti-fascist struggle that saw its finest expression in Spain, in the worldwide struggle of working people against their oppressors. "This struggle is going on and has reached a new height. Not only abroad—where the colonial peoples are leading the fight and where three-quarters of the human race has refused to be kick ed around "any longer— but also here in my own United States, where the Negro people of in South—who are also a semi-colonial people — are leading fight."

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