Honolulu Record, August 19, 1948, vol. 1 no. 3, p. 5
By Walter Warner
(By Special Correspondence) NEW YORK—As the pitcher deliverd, the big Negro took a quick step forward and shouted, "Here she comes!"
The hitter wasn't Jackie Robinson—he's chunky, but not big— and it wasn't Larry Doby, or Satchel Paige. It was a man who has struck heavier blows than any of these for the right of Negro ballplayers to compete on even terms with Caucasians, a man who has fought for the right of his people to eat at the same restaurants, live in the same hotels, or attend the same theaters as John Rankin of Mississippi, or Harry Truman of Missouri.
The hitter was Paul Robeson and the ball game was at Camp Wo-Chi-Ca, one of the few interracial camps for children in these parts.
Songs of Many Nations Robeson was up for his annual visit. For several years, he has visited Wo-Chi-Ca one day each year, but this year it was something special. This year he was dedicating the huge recreation hall that he had more part in building than any other individual—the PAUL ROBESON PLAYHOUSE.
By a concert at Carnegie Hall, 'Robeson raised more than $5,000 for the purchase and erection of the 100-foot Quonset hut which is now the most imposing structure of the whole camp, and which resounds daily with the songs and dances of many nations, all executed by the children. But dedication or not, Robeson's day at Wo-Chi-Ca is his day to play. Although he was usually surrounded by ten yards of children, counsellors, and parents, he had a grin, a joke, a story for everyone. For the luckier and closer of the children, the stories were tall.
Words For Everyone .
There were songs for everyone, of course. In the big Quonset that bears his name, Robeson sang his famous rendition of Old Man River with the substituted lines, "get a little spunk and you land in jail," and "I'll keep on fighting till I'm dying." He sang in German, Spanish, and Chinese, too, and in a half-humorous mood dropped into a duet with his accompanist of the old Negro spiritual, "Up in the Middle of the Air." There were words for everyone, too, fighting words. Even on his day of play, a man as full of his people's struggle as Robeson does not forget his chief purpose.
"We who fight now look to you," he told the children and the counsellors who are only a few years older. "There will still he much to do when you are ready and we have faith in you."
Popular Hawaiian Counsellor
There was Jenny, the counsellor from Puerto Rico, who sings Yiddish songs as well as she sings Spanish, There was trim, neat Carolyn Ogata, a Hawaiian nisei, too, who has become one of the camp’s most popular counsellors by her songs and stories of Hawaii. Come what may, these who listened will never forget Robeson and the things he said that day.
The price of Robeson's struggle for his people has not been cheap. He told how a scheduled nation-wide, post-election concert tour has been cancelled in all the cities where he was to have appeared. The sponsors of music in America, he explained, didn't want music sung by a backer of Wallace. So Robeson has taken his music, out of the expensive concert halls to use it as an instrument in the battle for his people's rights, and for all people's rights. You felt, after leaving the big Quonset hut, that he'd won something the money of the sponsors could never buy for themselves.
Famous artist Paul Robeson towers over this group of lobbyists, part of an army of 4,000 who converged on Washington in the closing days of the special session to protest congressional inaction on inflation, housing and civil rights.