• Valedictorian of his college class at Rutgers
  • NFL athlete
  • Hollywood actor
  • Shakespearean stage actor (his portrayal of Othello was considered definitive)
  • World-class bass-baritone singer
  • TankieTanuki [he/him]
    hexagon
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    His righteous indignation gives me life. :stalin-feels-good:

    Gentlemen, in the first place, wherever I have been in the world, Scandinavia, England, and many places, the first to die in the struggle against Fascism were the Communists, and I laid many wreaths upon graves of Communists. [...]

    [T]he reason that I am here today [...] is: I should not be allowed to travel because I have struggled for years for the independence of the colonial peoples of Africa. For many years I have so labored and I can say modestly that my name is very much honored all over Africa, in my struggles for their independence. [...]

    The other reason that I am here [...] is that when I am abroad I speak out against the injustices against the Negro people of this land. [...] This is the basis, and I am not being tried for whether I am a Communist, I am being tried for fighting for the rights of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this United States of America. [...]

    I stand here struggling for the rights of my people to be full citizens in this country. And they are not. They are not in Mississippi. And they are not in Montgomery, Alabama. And they are not in Washington. They are nowhere [...] You want to shut up every Negro who has the courage to stand up and fight for the rights of his people, for the rights of workers, and I have been on many a picket line for the steelworkers too. And that is why I am here today.

    Source