The Answer To Injustice Is Not To

I Did A Long Concert Tour In England And Denmark And Sweden, And I Also Sang For The Soviet People, One Of The Finest Musical Audiences In The World.

Whether I Am Or Am Not A Communist Is Irrelevant. The Question Is Whether American Citizens, Regardless Of Their Political Beliefs Or Sympathies, May Enjoy Their Constitutional Rights.

Yes, I Heard My People Singing!-in The Glow Of Parlor Coal-stove And On Summer Porches Sweet With Lilac Air, From Choir Loft And Sunday Morning Pews-and My Soul Was Filled With Their Harmonies. Then, Too, I Heard These Songs In The Very Sermons Of My Father, For In The Negro's Speech There Is Much Of The Phrasing And Rhythms Of Folk-song. The Great, Soaring Gospels We Love Are Merely Sermons That Are Sung; And As We Thrill To Such Gifted Gospel Singers As Mahalia Jackson, We Hear The Rhythmic Eloquence Of Our Preachers, So Many Of Whom, Like My Father, Are Masters Of Poetic Speech.

I Found A Special Eagerness Among The Younger, And I Am Sorry To Say, The More Intelligent Negroes, To Dismiss The Spiritual As Something Beneath Their New Pride In Their Race. It Is As If They Wanted To Put It Behind Them As Something To Be Ashamed Of.

The Faces And The Tactics Of The Leaders May Change Every Four Years, Or Two, Or One, But The People Go On Forever.