I’m standing with filmmaker Jon Scott Bennett on the fairway at Hollow Brook Golf Club in the town of Cortlandt, just outside Peekskill. This is the site of perhaps the most disturbing incident in the Hudson Valley’s 20th-century history: the night of August 27,1949, when an angry mob used violence to prevent the singer Paul Robeson, a vocal supporter of civil rights and labor movements, from holding a performance at what was then a privately owned picnic ground.
Robeson had been invited by residents of largely Jewish summer colonies in the Peekskill area who supported the singer’s stance for racial equality and workers’ rights. But other locals were furious over Robeson’s praise, at a press conference, for the Soviet Union—and angry over the influx of summer residents into the area. Days before the concert, the Peekskill Evening Star published a letter calling on “loyal Americans” to “leave no doubt in their minds that they are unwelcome around here either now or in the future.”
“Imagine 300 people coming down the road, wanting to throw rocks at you and beat you up.” —Jon Scott Bennett, filmmaker
As concertgoers lined up to enter the site, protesters threw rocks, shattered car windows, and slashed tires, as state and local police stood by. People who appeared to be Black or Jewish were pulled from their vehicles and beaten. Then the mob stormed the picnic ground and ignited a bonfire of chairs, concert programs, and political pamphlets. A burning cross illuminated a hillside—the symbol of the Ku Klux Klan. Nobody died in the melee, but dozens, if not more, were badly injured.
Refusing to be intimidated, Robeson returned the following week and performed at a different site one mile away (now a housing development) to an audience of over 20,000, a daring demonstration of resilience and solidarity. Again, as concertgoers left the area, a mob attacked with stones, clubs, and bottles. Again, police refused to intervene.
A native of nearby Putnam Valley, Bennett is the creator of a five-part docuseries, The Peekskill Riots, which can be streamed on YouTube (he plans to finish the last installment this spring). Weaving together archival footage, documents, and news accounts with his own detailed narration, Bennett explores not only what happened in 1949 but how the memory of the riots came to be obscured and largely forgotten in the annals of local and national history. After learning about the incident while studying at Manhattanville College, he was astonished that an event of such significance was not better known.
Bennett hopes his work gets local residents talking about the riots and thinking about how the past continues to shape the present. The feedback so far has been promising, though not everyone is eager to unearth the tragic events that took place on this site. Ultimately, he believes, an official state historic sign should be installed along the busy county road outside the golf course, noting what occurred here. “If we fail to understand our past,” Bennett says, “we fail to understand ourselves. And without that, there’s no hope for building a better future.”
Related: 10 Inspiring Women Who Made History in the Hudson Valley
