How New Deal Federal Arts Programs Rewrote American History
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Lynching and Antilynching: Art and Politics in the 1930s
M. Lee Stone Fine Prints

Paul Robeson -- Ballad for Americans
Written by John La Touche, with music by Earl Robinson, as part of a WPA theatre project in 1939, Ballad for Americans was first performed by Paul Robeson. The song emphatically asserts the democratic character of Amerian nationality from class, ethnic and racial, and religious angles, declaring that to be American is to be "Irish, Negro, Jewish, Italian, French and English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Polish, Scotch, Hungarian, Litwak, Swedish, Finnish, Canadian, Greek and Turk and Czech ... and lots more." For more Songs of Immigration, Deportation and Identity, go here.
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