Every artist, every scientist, must decide now where he stands. He has no alternative. There is no standing above the conflict on Olympian heights. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction, in certain countries, of the greatest of man's literary heritage, through the propagation of false ideas of racial and national superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. The struggle invades the formerly cloistered halls of our universities and other seats of learning. The battlefront is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear.

I am being tried for fighting for the right of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this United States of America.

Artists are the gatekeepers of truth.

We ask for nothing that is not ours by right, and herein lies the great moral power of our demand.

I shall take my voice wherever there are those who want to hear the melody of freedom

This United States Government should go down to Mississippi and protect my people. That is what should happen.

And at home in the United States we found continued and increased persecution, first of leaders of the Communist Party, and then of all honest anti-fascists.