PEEKSKILL EVENING STAR

The benefit concert had been organized by a musical group called The People's Artists and it featured baritone Paul Robeson and folk singer Pete Seeger both great musicians with leftist political views. The beneficiary organization was The Civil Rights Congress which was fighting for a stay of execution for six African-American youths sentenced to death in New Jersey. Peekskill, only 25 miles from New York City had 3 major demographic groups: Lower and middle class white workers, middle class blacks who vacationed in the area, and liberal white intellectuals many of whom were Jewish who also vacationed in the area. Robeson had given a speech on Paris a few weeks earlier that was misquoted and the American Legion and others who had been fired up by this editorial and other anti-Communist, anti-Black and anti-Semitic rhetoric. The Concert was attacked by an organized white group who beat ticket holders and staff. The local police did not intervene, and in the aftermath of what had turned into an assault over 700 whites from the Peekskill area applied for membership in the KKK (Klu Klux Klan). See {72167} for Robeson's misquoted statement which was one of the triggers for this assault. The attack galvanized many groups of the area who were not going to let the thugs deny free speech and the following month the concert was performed. The concert itself was free from violence, though marred by the presence of a police helicopter overhead and the flushing out of at least one sniper's nest. An incredible Twenty thousand people showed up. Security, organized by labor unions, was tight with union men standing in a protective circle around the entire concert grounds and sitting with Robeson on the stage. The Musicians performed without incident.

The benefit concert had been organized by a musical group called The People's Artists and it featured baritone Paul Robeson and folk singer Pete Seeger both great musicians with leftist political views. The beneficiary organization was The Civil Rights Congress which was fighting for a stay of execution for six African-American youths sentenced to death in New Jersey. Peekskill, only 25 miles from New York City had 3 major demographic groups: Lower and middle class white workers, middle class blacks who vacationed in the area, and liberal white intellectuals many of whom were Jewish who also vacationed in the area. Robeson had given a speech on Paris a few weeks earlier that was misquoted and the American Legion and others who had been fired up by this editorial and other anti-Communist, anti-Black and anti-Semitic rhetoric. The Concert was attacked by an organized white group who beat ticket holders and staff. The local police did not intervene, and in the aftermath of what had turned into an assault over 700 whites from the Peekskill area applied for membership in the KKK (Klu Klux Klan). See {72167} for Robeson's misquoted statement which was one of the triggers for this assault. The attack galvanized many groups of the area who were not going to let the thugs deny free speech and the following month the concert was performed. The concert itself was free from violence, though marred by the presence of a police helicopter overhead and the flushing out of at least one sniper's nest. An incredible Twenty thousand people showed up. Security, organized by labor unions, was tight with union men standing in a protective circle around the entire concert grounds and sitting with Robeson on the stage. The Musicians performed without incident.