Hold The Line: Echoes of the Peekskill Riots by Russ Chandler

Author:Russ Chandler [Chandler, Russ]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781912926480
Publisher: Red Words
Published: 2019-08-29T16:00:00+00:00

The rival currents of resistance and reaction that were tearing at each other through the immediate post war United States would find a fault line through which it could vent at the Hollow Brook Golf Course in Cortlandt near Peekskill on Sunday 4 September 1949.

4

A Long Bloody Alley

Paul Robeson sings on 4 September 1949 near Peekskill, NY, surrounded by bodyguards, many of whom were left-wing union members

The second concert. The second riot.

Sunday 4 September saw the second Peekskill concert. This time the concert would go ahead organised and protected by the ordinary folk themselves but things would turn ugly as the concert goers left to go home.

The Hollow Brook Country Club had a similar layout to the Lakeland picnic grounds used for the first concert. A banked road leading to an enclosed bowl that was suitable for staging an event.

Security for the concert was to be handled by the organisers themselves. Upon seeing the measures put in place the local police protested and threatened to withdraw their support – and somewhat to their chagrin this offer was accepted.1 The organisers were very confident about the arrangements they had put made.

Thousands of trade unionists (some estimate 3,000) from New York City were formed into a solid line around the perimeter of the concert ground. Standing shoulder to shoulder a few hundred yards from the audience these men stood in the hot sun for the entire duration of the event, forming a barrier even the most determined thug would think twice about taking on.

However, even the wall of muscle around the perimeter of the event would have been rendered useless by long range rifle fire and the discovery of at least two sniper positions located in the surrounding hills caused some alarm.2 In an act of startling bravery, a small group of a dozen or so trade unionists formed a line close around the stage for the duration of Robeson’s performance, offering themselves as a human shield to create a barrier to protect the singer from bullets.

Speaking in a 2001 interview, Robeson’s son Paul Robeson Jnr commented:

‘Peekskill had a massive impact on my father. He always believed that white workers could be anti-racist. But it was at Peekskill that he believed it in his heart. Before the concert started, snipers were spotted in the hills surrounding the venue. The rednecks wanted to assassinate my father. A union organiser asked a group of white trade unionists to volunteer to protect him. He was asking them to take the bullet and sacrifice their lives. So many volunteered that they had to organise a ballot. One trade unionist who was not picked cried. What humanity! I always use this story to demonstrate that white workers are prepared to fight racism and injustice.’3

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