Peekskill Evening Star Quotes
... every ticket purchased for the Peekskill concert will drop nickels and dimes into the basket of an un-American political organization... the time for tolerant silence that signifies approval is running out.
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.
Peekskill Evening Star, Editorial On An Upcoming Concert, August 1949
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This very important historical quotations did not derive its importance for its content or the eloquence of the language. It is famous for what it triggered the examination of the role of the press that followed. His speech was at a Russian Sponsored "Peace Conference" and the Associated Press (AP) reported extensively on the role of the most prominent American participating in the conference. Exactly how it happened of why is still a mystery, but AP immediately sent back a wire story from Paris that quoted Robeson of having said, "We colonial peoples have contributed to the building of the United States and are determined to share its wealth. We denounce the policy of the United States government which is similar to Hitler and Goebbels.... It is unthinkable that American Negros would go to war on behalf of those who have oppressed us for generations against the Soviet Union which in one generation has lifted our people to full human dignity." This version was reprinted all over the United States and when a few weeks later, Robeson was to have given a concert for a civil right cause, at the instigation of a local newspaper in Peekskill NY motivated by the erroneous AP story triggered a riot where thugs beat concert goers and prevented Robson from singing that evening. See {583346} for the editorial and background. Bad reporting and irresponsible editorializing had triggered a terrible incident that at least luckily did not kill anyone.
This quotation was documented by an FBI illegal wiretap of King and his associates. The illegal wiretap had been insisted upon by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover who was a racist and somewhat of a paranoid about communists. However, Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy personally approved the illegal wiretap.
Lincoln had instituted the first draft in American History and it was terribly resented by many Americans. The draft laws allowed the wealthy and upper middle class to avoid service by paying a $300 fee of hiring a substitute just like in the Vietnam War the upper classes could get College Draft deferments. The mob led mostly by poor Irish, began by protesting the draft; then they attacked the mansions and houses of the wealthy; and then they went after Blacks. The Irish poor feared large numbers of Negroes coming out of slavery and competing for their jobs and lowering the prevailing wages. Blacks were beaten and lynched and 5,000 almost half of the then Negro population were driven to Brooklyn, New Jersey and the New York suburbs. It was the worst riot in United States History.
Earlier, a virtually all white police force in nearby 67% Black Ferguson, had shot an unarmed black young man who was 20 feet away with his hands up, 7 times killing him and then leaving the body uncovered on the street for over 4 hours. Many people of all races began to peacefully demonstrate in Ferguson and were met with military assault weapons pointed at them and military armored vehicles, with the police illegally (as later determined by the courts) were interfering with the right to protest. The demonstrations turned to riots and there was looting and arson of business establishments. The demonstrations started to spread to nearby St. Louis and other cities as the news spread. While the Ferguson officials had behaved so badly and stupidly, the St. Louis mayor exhibited democratic leadership that was an example for others. Slay was then a 4 term mayor, being reelected more than any other mayor in St. Louis history, and was one of the outstanding politicians in America.
Kennedy was initially very opposed to a civil rights march on Washington and seemed very annoyed to the Blacks in attended. But when faced with the reality of the fact that the March was going to take place and he could not prevent it, he turned around and did everything he could do to protect the marchers and enable the historic event.
His strategy was to fill the jails of Birmingham, and asked the young people to help. The next days saw virtually all the Birmingham high school students our of school and in the streets protesting which was then against the un-Constitutional laws of Birmingham and Alabama. The students were arrested by the droves and the white authorities, believing that they were being firm against “radical lawbreakers”, fell into the trap, and became a travesty to most of the country and the rest of the world and the hundreds of jailed students beaten and assaulted raised the consciousness of whites as well as Blacks.
At the time the Democratic Politicians of the South went to extremes from refusing to register Black voters to countenancing assault, torture and even murder of Blacks who organized voter registration. When the racists switched to the Republican party, is was Republican politicians who tried to make voter registration and voting more difficult for minorities, but the means and degree of these efforts were very mild compared to what is was when Rustin uttered this quotation.
Lowery was one of the senior Black leaders in the civil rights movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s. In this interview, he was describing the atmosphere in Mobile, Alabama. Clergy of most faiths were active in the Civil Rights Movement in the South with the exception of the Roman Catholic Church which was very institutionally conservative. The Catholic leaders had a problem in that Catholics had been heavily discriminated against in early America and this prejudice was heaviest in the South in the 20th century. They feared that Catholic Activism against the status quo would create more problems for Catholics so they were not very helpful or supportive. This was NOT true for Catholics in general. Many individual Roman Catholics marched in the demonstrations, and some Catholic clergy from outside of the South came to the Southern protests and demonstrations. In the 20th century, the Catholic Church was divided between social activist reformers and in some cases revolutionists and the conservative wing of the Church who had supported the status quo.
The Muslim Brotherhood Government had just been deposed by a popular coup d’etat carried out by the Egyptian military. The Brotherhood flooded into the streets to protest the coup and some of them attacked police with weapons. The military overreacted and in an effort to clear the demonstrators from the streets killed hundreds of them. This brought out signs like this.
The law enforcement officers were the ones who broke the law when they beat and brutalized the peaceful civil rights marchers. The “white niggers” refer to the white marchers including clergy.
His home was right in the midst of the major riot area. The government had just instituted the draft to provide soldiers for the Civil War. The rich could avoid the draft by paying a modest fee. The Irish of New York were at just slightly above the Negro in the New York Socioeconomic scale and the two groups competed for the low skilled jobs. Many Irish felt that they were being forced to fight to free the Southern Negroes who when free would come to New York and compete for their jobs. They rioted and killed over 100 Blacks.
This paraphrased quote originated with Martin Luther King, Jr. See related quote.
In November of each year protesters gather at Fort Benning, the site of the U. S. Army School of the Americas. The School provides training for Latin American Military Officers in Counter-Insurgency Training. The graduates of the school have included some of the worst Latin American killers and torturers (See {41061} for example) who rose to positions of power in their lands. It has also included many leaders who did not ever resort to war crimes and atrocities and also became leaders of their countries. It has been an institution of great controversy since it was discovered that the school at one point taught methods of interrogating insurgents that were tantamount to torture. Defenders of the school claim that but for the school, the military atrocities would have been worse and that it contributed to more human and democratic governments in the Americas. The annual protest has attracted more than 16,000 protesters, some of whom—like Bourgeois—have been guilty of trespass and interfering with a government facility and have served jail terms for those violations.
Goebel, a state senator, had campaigned against the railroad and corporate trusts. He was the first candidate in Kentucky to openly campaign for the Black vote and he, even though a Democrat, got it. The railroads and trusts campaigned hard for the incumbent. A very close election produced a crisis when the incumbent Republican Governor refused to give up the Statehouse and armed men converged on the capital. Somehow Goebel was shot and mortally wounded.
A daily newspaper publication in Peekskill NY that operated from 1922-1985. Also known as “The Evening Star.” Eventually became “The Star” published in White Plans, NY starting in the 1980’s.
