Local events mark 75th anniversary of Peekskill Riots around activist/singer Paul Robeson

The shocking outbreak of violence in Cortlandt Manor in 1949 surrounding performances by Paul Robeson, the renowned Black bass-baritone and civil rights activist, still resonates 75 years later.

Attacks on concert venues and concertgoers postponed a first scheduled concert, which was to benefit a Harlem-based civil rights group. A rescheduled event a week later, with Pete Seeger in the warm-up band, ended with another round of brutality against the concertgoers.

Those events, long known as the Peekskill riots, will be remembered this week in Cortlandt Manor and Peekskill. On Thursday evening, the Robeson in Peekskill Project will hold a fundraising dinner and concert at the Hollow Brook Country Club, the site of the first planned Robeson concert. Back in 1949, the property along Oregon Road was a private picnic grounds and swimming facility called Lakeland Acres.

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On Sunday, a concert of Negro spirituals, folks songs and classical masterpieces featuring Grammy Award-winning singer Mark S. Doss and Pegasus: The Orchestra, will be reprised at the Paramount Hudson Valley Theatre in Peekskill at 3 p.m. Tickets are $30, or half price for students and seniors. Attendees under 18 years old can attend for free by contacting the Paramount.

The Robeson in Peekskill Project aims to raise awareness of the civil rights struggle in northern Westchester County in the late 1940s, and the calamitous events that took place under the sway of anti-Communist fervor during the Red Scare in the years following World War II.

Robeson in Peekskill Project Director Wendy Talio, founder of the Living Artist Society in Cortlandt Manor, began putting the event together a year ago after she learned what happened in 1949, just a two-minute walk from her home.

“These events were a part of our history, and there are lessons to be learned from it,” she said. “We hope to raise some money so we can create something visible in terms of public art, and continue telling the story.”

The Lakeland Acres site, which was owned by the Jameson family, was sold to golf course developers decades ago. But the family retained the adjacent farm stand — now called Homestead Floral Designs — along Oregon Road. The farm stand for years was named Curt’s Fruits and Vegetables for Curt Conklin, now 78, who still helps run the operation.

Conklin said the family was aghast at the events that unfolded at the site on Aug. 27, 1949.

“They wanted a concert, not a problem,” he said.

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Robeson's legacy and what led to 'Peekskill Riots'

Robeson, a football standout and scholar at Rutgers University, emerged as a singer and actor in the 1920s after studying at Columbia Law School. He was the first African American to play the lead in Shakespeare’s drama, "Othello," played lead roles in numerous theatrical productions, and by 1928 was singing “Ol’ Man River,” which became his signature song, at a production of "Showboat" in London.

He became a lightning rod in the 1940s when he became more deeply involved in the struggle for workers rights in Wales, and then the nascent civil rights movement in the U.S. He was a vocal critic of the Ku Klux Klan, which had adherents in the Hudson Valley

Robeson frequented the Soviet Union as a performer in the 1930s and 1940s, where he felt accepted as an equal, said Talio.

He also appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee, chaired by Sen. Joe McCarthy, to oppose a bill that would require communists to register as foreign agents.

Robeson became a villain among anti-communist forces as well as those who opposed civil rights.

Violence erupts twice in Cortlandt Manor

The events of Aug. 27, 1949 unfolded on the grounds of Lakeland Acres, which had rented out the site for the concert. A band of protestors, including veterans affiliated with the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Catholic War veterans, crashed the venue before the concert began. Robeson never sang that day. Chairs were piled up to create a bonfire. Printed music from the bandstand was tossed in the pyre. The New York Daily News reported 13 injuries that day, including one person in critical condition from a stabbing.

Progressive groups mobilized to reschedule the concert on Sept. 4 — further north by what’s now the traffic circle at Oregon Road and Red Mills Road. More than 1,000 supporters, including local members of the Communist Party and those affiliated with left-leaning unions, linked arms around the perimeter, keeping safe Robeson and an estimated 20,000 concert goers.

One historical account noted that Pete Seeger gave one of the first performances of his peace anthem, If I had a Hammer.

But in the aftermath of the concert, veterans and critics of Robeson coalesced into an angry mob that lined the exit routes. The attackers threw rocks that had been placed there at departing cars and buses as they chanted racial epithets, shattered windshields and overturned cars, leading to as many as 150 injuries.

Among those attending the fundraising gala will be Robeson's grand nephew, the Rev. Gregory Robeson Smith, pastor of Mount Hope AME Zion Church in White Plains. He hopes the events this week lead to a deeper understanding of race relations in Westchester County during the 1940s, and a growing appreciation for one of our nation's artistic and civil rights icons.

“We hope this can be embryonic so other parts of this country understand why it happened, when it happened and think about where we are now,” said Smith in a recorded interview with Talio. “There’s still work to do. But you are the seed, and from the smallest acorn a mighty oak can grow."

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David McKay Wilson writes about tax issues and government accountability. Follow him on Twitter @davidmckay415 or email him at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Paul Robeson celebrated in Westchester 75 years after Peekskill Riots