Peekskill USA: Inside the Infamous 1949 Riots by Howard Fast

unnecessary, and at the time we did not know about them. The topography of the place was such that these beatings were not visible even to the line of guards, much less to the audience below.
    Meanwhile, close to twenty-five thousand people were gathering in the hollow below to hear the concert. They had seated themselves, on the ground for the most part, in a half circle around the inner ring of guards; and I might mention that these guards were a precaution against the possibility of the infiltration of a small fascist gang with intent to assassinate Paul Robeson. Though this sounds somewhat dramatic in the telling, subsequent events proved that Leon Straus dealt with cold reality, and dealt with it very well indeed.
    I think it was about noontime that Robeson arrived. The singers and musicians from People’s Artists had arrived a little earlier, and since I had to make up the program, we sat down below, next to the sound truck, and talked it over. Under advice of the security people, Robeson remained in his car.
    There were Pete Seeger, Sylvia Kahn, and a number of others, one of them a young concert pianist of talent and importance. They were thrilled by the occasion, the crowd, the sea of human beings. When had there been a chance to sing to a mass of people as great as this?
    â€œAnd it’s all yours,” I told them. “Whatever has to be said here today aside from my own remarks, you’ll have to say with your music and songs.
    â€œThat’s the moment we always dreamed of,” Pete Seeger grinned. “To do it with songs and with nothing else.”
    â€œWell, that’s the way you’ll have to do it. Suppose we start some group singing in about a half hour. Then you’ll lead off. Then the piano pieces; then Paul; then we’ll take a collection; then you people again, and then Paul to close the program.”
    â€œIt sounds good.”
    â€œThen write down the titles of your numbers, so I can announce them.”
    I walked to Paul’s car and said hello to him. It was the first chance to speak to him since the Saturday before, and I was full of the contrast between the two occasions and understandably proud of that wall of trade unionists which surrounded the whole area.
    â€œA little different,” I remember saying.
    He nodded, but he was sober and troubled. He felt what was in the making, but I was full of our own strength and our own discipline and full of contempt for the creatures on the road. Nothing was going to happen; this was our day!
    I walked over to the sound truck and was standing there talking to the engineer, when the man responsible for security at the center came over and motioned me aside.
    â€œHoward,” he said, “I want you to set the sound truck under that big oak, right under it.”
    (You will recall that there was one great oak in the center of the arena area.)
    â€œHow can we? If we put the sound truck under the tree, our people will be singing through the branches. That doesn’t make sense.”
    â€œIt makes sense.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause we’ve had our scouts out in the woods and up there on the hills since early this morning, and we just learned that they flushed up two local patriots who had made a little nest for themselves up there overlooking the valley. And they had high-powered rifles with telescopic sights. In other words, they want to kill Paul, and they will stop at very little to do it. So put the sound truck under the tree.”
    You do not equate fascism with sanity; I had learned that. You do not equate it with reason, with intelligence, with civilization or decency or morality. The impossible becomes possible, the incredible credible; what is evil is matter of fact and part and parcel of the whole.
    I had the sound truck placed under the tree. Then I took the program notes, went up to the microphone, and announced that we would begin our concert. Believe me, I did not feel good or