The Monsters Are Due on Hillside Avenue: Paul Robeson and the Racialization of the Peekskill Riots of 1949

On August 27, 1949, a burning cross pierced the night sky in the quiet hills of Westchester County. As Howard Fast later recounted in Peekskill USA: There was a moment of silent cessation, and one of the men leaped up on the truck and cried, 'A cross is burning!' We could only see the glare, but the symbolic meaning was not lost upon us. In the sweet land the movement had been rounded out; the burning cross, the symbol of all that is rotten and evil in our land had blessed us. Our night was complete and we could do well to kneel before the new patriots.1 The Peekskill Riots were a powder keg of racial and political violence, ignited around a concert organized for Paul Robeson, a renowned Black performer, civil rights activist, and accused “communist.” Originally scheduled for August 27, 1949, the event was to take place at Lakeland Acres, ironically located in Cortlandt just outside Peekskill, New York, and was intended to raise funds for the Harlem chapter of the Civil Rights Congress (CRC). This left-leaning legal defense group supported Black defendants in highly racialized trials in the 1940s and early 1950s across both the South and North. But the concert never happened. It was met by hostile demonstrations from residents and pro-American veterans who hurled rocks, burned effigies, and invoked racist and anticommunist rhetoric. Organizers rescheduled the concert for September 4 at a nearby venue, the Hollow Brook Golf Course in Cortlandt Manor, New York. This time, the concert grounds, heavily guarded by trade unionists and volunteers, added more rage to an already deadly concoction. Thus, violence escalated. As attendees left, they were ambushed in their cars by mobs lining the roads, while police and local officials largely stood by.