Paul Robeson sings to Scottish miners in 1949

This 1949 newsreel starts with the expected Mr Cholmondley-Warner commentary and ends with something sublime.

Joe Hill was a Swedish-American labour activist, songwriter and member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, familiarly called the Wobblies). He was controversially convicted of murder and executed in 1915.

Robeson's song was originally written as a poem by Alfred Hayes, and was set to music by Earl Robinson in 1936.