The Peekskill riots (1949) broke out at a Paul Robeson concert on Saturday, August 27th and again on Sunday, September 4th, 1949, both near Peekskill, New York, 40 miles north New York City.
On August 27th, the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), Catholic War Veterans, and Jewish War Veterans marched to the picnic grounds where concert-goers were waiting for the concert to begin. Fighting broke out. Three were stabbed, one was hit over the head and five others were injured. Robeson was taken away before he appeared for fear the veterans would try to hurt or kill him. Forty state troopers showed up – three hours later.
August 27th: 9 injured, 0 arrested.
The Civil Rights Congress: the concert was being held for the benefit of the Harlem branch of the Civil Rights Congress. The Justice Department listed it as a “subversive” organization.
As to Robeson himself:
- CBS News said he had “outspoken communist sympathies”.
- Eleanor Roosevelt said, “I have been told that what I once experienced, namely, seeing him turn his concert into a medium for Communist propaganda, is his constant practice”.
- The Associated Press in April quoted him as saying that black Americans would never fight against communist Russia. Jackie Robinson was brought before Congress to assure the nation that Robeson was wrong. (In 2017 we now know that AP made up the quote.)
This was a year before the McCarthy hearings in Congress started its witch hunt for communists in high places, but already the winds of the Red Scare were blowing.
September 4th: Robeson, not to be cowed, gave the concert a week later, getting a promise of police protection. This time there were 1,200 policemen, 1,500 veterans, 1,500 other protesters, and 15,000 concert-goers. There were police flying overhead in helicopters.
Governor Dewey, he of “Dewey Defeats Truman” fame, called the concert a “pro-communist” meeting, but also said the “rights of free speech and of assembly are guaranteed to all, regardless of political beliefs.”
The police were able to hold the protesters back as they shouted things like “White niggers!” and “Go back to Russia, you niggers!”
During the concert, the veterans tried to drown out Robeson’s singing. Robeson sang “Go Down Moses” and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising song.
After the concert, as buses and automobiles were leaving, protesters threw stones, bottles, sticks, and tree branches. Some threw things from out of trees, some from the tops of roofs. When one automobile lost control and hit a tree, they overturned it. They overturned at least eight other automobiles, setting one on fire. Two busloads of black people returning from the Roosevelt Memorial Library also had their buses stoned.
September 4th: at least 43 injured, 16 arrested.
Most of those injured were on buses.
Eleanor Roosevelt:
“I believe the average American should realize that rioting and lawlessness even when we can prove that they were, as some people are trying to prove in this case, incited by some Communists, are still not good propaganda for democracy in the world.”
– Abagond, 2017.
Sources: mainly the Chicago Tribune (page 21 on August 29th and pages 1-2 on September 5th, 1949), Eleanor Roosevelt (1949), CBS News (1949), Google Images.
See also:
- my 1949 media diet
- Words not in H.G. Wells:
- helicopter – a flying machine
- Paul Robeson
- Jackie Robinson
- Warsaw Ghetto
- Harlem
- Woodstock – 20 years later another open-air concert in upstate New York
549
Reblogged this on Project ENGAGE.
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Hmm. Substitute “communist” for “terrorist” or “identity politics” and the same dynamics at at play nearly 70 years later.
✔︎ Lots of empty words about “democracy” and “free speech” from political types.
✔︎ Thuggish behavior from reactionary adults and youths with too much time on their hands; complete with trophy photos.
✔︎ Police on hand to attack the less powerful, when they bother to show up at all.
✔︎ “Uncle Tom Negroes” assuring the powerful that Black people will fall in line when needed.
All that’s missing is a sacrificial lamb and the flock of Euro-Americans who are finally moved to action on behalf of said lamb. The lives, limbs and property of countless Black people are all worth less than the lamb.
Yes, still the same….
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@ Afrofem
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Nevertheless, time marches on, whether the so-called “good” Americans like it or not.
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@ Mack Lyons
Agreed.
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Jackie Robinson was used as a pawn by the House Un-American Activities Committee to bring Paul Robeson to ruin. Very sad how racist whites pit two black men against each other.
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“Allied with Robeson in the peace and civil rights campaigns was the old Niagara militant W.E.B. Du Bois, who was indicted and acquitted of charges that he participated in a peace movement which received funds from foreign governments. After the acquittal, Du Bois left America and settled in Ghana, where he died on the eve of the March on Washington.”–Before The Mayflower, A History of Black America. Lerone Bennett,Jr.
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Those savage whites in the Peekskill riot remind me of those animals from Charlottesville two weeks ago.
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In August 1949 I Left Dayton, Oh and drove south to San Antonio to integrate the all white Air Force.
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Robeson was working to integrate sports such as baseball so it’s ironic that Jackie Robinson was used to throw Robeson under the bus.
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So, Jewish War Veterans were there too. For what purpose? To protest against the concert? If this was the case I would ask myself if they had forgotten very fast that Blacks had contributed with their blood, as soldiers, to end Nazism in Europe!
Strange way to say thanks…
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Wow, i can’t say i’m surprised, but a clear example of early deep state/5th column the way the press statement went out. They go in a little more depth on wikipedia. Once something goes out like that… Wow.
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@ Allen Shaw
“In August 1949 I Left Dayton, Oh and drove south to San Antonio to integrate the all white Air Force.”
Would you be willing to share some highlights/low points of that adventure?
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“…they had forgotten very fast that Blacks had contributed with their blood, as soldiers, to end Nazism…”
Their actions were not surprising. By 1949, American Jews were still “honorary Whites” in many ways and faced some level of discrimination. However they were eager to be fully assimilated into full Whiteness.
Bashing Black people and other outgroups is a time-honored way of achieving the status of full Whiteness in the USA. That prize is enough to throw people under the bus, even if they shed blood for you and yours.
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