Peekskill USA: Inside the Infamous 1949 Riots (14 page)

In reply to Mrs. Brody's telegram, Mr. Gerlach answered by telegram on August 26:

“The right of free speech and free assemblage is not limited to any particular group or person. The rights of others, of course, must be protected. I have referred your telegram to the District Attorney's office and have every confidence that the matter will receive all necessary and proper attention from our law enforcement departments. I am advised that an identical telegram had already been received in the office of the District Attorney.”

The competent law enforcement agencies in the area, and the supreme law enforcement agencies of the state, were appealed to. Yet no police protection was accorded the concert-goers.

That violence was generally expected, and that the withholding of adequate police protection therefore bordered on the criminally negligent, was shown in the
Peekskill Star's
account on August 27, which stated that more than 7000 persons—including 5000 marching veterans and 2000 concert-goers—were expected at the concert. Significantly, the
Peekskill Star
reported on August 29:

“Frank Niedhart, manager of the Niedhart Fife and Drum Corps, today said that his organization did not participate in Saturday night's anti-Robeson parade because many of the members are minors.
He said he did not want to bear the responsibility of possible injury to the youngsters if trouble should develop.”

On August 30, the
Evening Star
reported that District Attorney George M. Fanelli had opened an investigation of the riot and had stated:

“The facts that I now have would indicate that the demonstration by the veterans' associations was peaceful and orderly, and that after they disbanded the pro-Robesonites provoked the violence when Secor was stabbed by one of their number.”

In light of all newspaper and eye-witness reports to the contrary, and of the assertion of Mr. Flynt that the veterans he led had planned to prevent the concert, Mr. Fanelli's accusation is patently false.

Thereafter, two parallel moods prevailed in the area. The first was defensive. Denying responsibility, it attempted to thrust it on the victims. The second mood was of jubilation. Peekskill was sufficiently proud of what it had done for many automobile drivers to stick placards on their windshields reading, “WAKE UP, AMERICA, PEEKSKILL DID!”

5. American Civil Liberties Union On the Second Concert

The official investigators for the American Civil Liberties Union have formed their own independent opinions as to the action of the police.

In one sentence, it is that the Westchester County police permitted the assault upon the Robeson supporters.

This accusation is not made lightly. It is made after careful appraisal of the evidence of people of mature judgment who are non-Communists, and after consultation with responsible representatives of the Westchester and New York City press, discussion with housewives whose homes overlook the scene of action, conversations with participants in the rioting and victims of the assault, and with men who paraded in the “protest demonstration.”

There can be no excuse of police inability to control a mob. The plain facts, as reported in the
Peekskill Star
, are that after the rioting was over:

“Late Sunday night, nearly a thousand guards were still on the grounds under police protection, awaiting transportation to the city.… State Police had trouble with the guards when they made a search of automobilies at the scene. Fighting between the pro-Reds and troopers broke out several times. Nightsticks, wielded by the gray-uniformed troopers, quelled the disturbances quickly.”

The investigators are unable to conclude whether this incident was to any extent provoked by the “guards” or simply represented a last-minute assault by police who had for hours already manifested their deep hostility. In any event, it demonstrates that there is no reason to suppose that by wielding their nightsticks the police could not long before have broken up the disorderly, undisciplined mob which they had allowed to roam unchecked for hours.

If nightsticks alone were not enough, other weapons were at the disposal of the police, including tear gas shells. Yet, despite the appalling violence and the hours-long criminality of those who committed this unprovoked assault, not a single tear gas shell was set off.

From the most reliable reports it appears that the State Troopers, 200 in number out of a total of 950 police officers, performed their duty well by contrast with the County officers. While the concert was in progress, fighting broke out between the mob and late arrivals to the concert. Whenever such incidents occurred, the State Troopers swept into action, quelled the fighting, separated the combatants and, on some occasions, arrested rioters.

Three New York newspapermen, interviewed individually by ACLU representatives, two newspaper editors from different Westchester County newspapers, and two radio network news reporters, all present at the scene of action, report separately that the Westchester County police fraternized with the crowd throughout the concert despite the rising and visible mood of violence. They also assert that when the concert ended and the stoning started the Westchester police and the crowd continued their fraternization.

The investigators are led to conclude that the vast preparations by the Westchester police to prevent the outbreak of violence were a sham and that the public, the Federal authorities and the Governor of the State of New York were hoodwinked into believing that the Westchester police would restrain violence.

In regard to the stoning which occurred in Red Mill Road, Mr. Fanelli said: “The police at once converged upon the scene, moved the crowd back.…”

It will be noted that Mr. Fanelli, by implication, concedes that no attempt was made to disperse the crowd. The explanation for this lies in the insistence of the Westchester officials that the crowd, like the concert-goers, was exercising its constitutional right to assemble.

But the officially permitted demonstration was at an end at 2:50 p.m., 70 minutes before the concert-goers began to leave, according to Mr. Fanelli's own statement. Why, then, was the crowd permitted to remain after the veterans' parade was over? What constitutional right was the crowd exercising when it continued to loiter—for over an hour—after its officially permitted function had come to an end?

The fact is that had Mr. Fanelli dispersed the crowd from the vicinity of the concert area after the veterans' parade was over, and after it had expressed its opposition to Robeson and Communism, there then would have been no need to concentrate 1,000 police in this immediate area. The whole county might then have been policed adequately. Rioting and stoning might not then have occurred and, if it had, would probably have been minor in proportions.

6. Eyewitnesses: Quoted by Westchester Committee

A.
Dorothy S., Bronx:
“The driver of the car overheard one West chester cop tell another that ‘they ought to dive-bomb the sons of bitches.' This was said in regard to the airplanes which were flying around the area.”

B.
Rose C., Brooklyn:
“Another rock smashed through the front and hit the wife of the driver, seated on the front seat. Glass cut her right arm, blood was streaming, and she became quite hysterical. The driver, upset by his wife's condition and the condition of the car as well, stopped the car and told the state trooper he would go no further unless he was given protection. The state trooper said, ‘You god damn bastard, run ahead or I'll club you.'”

C.
Stephan W., N.
Y.
City:
“I saw a state trooper throw a rock the size of an orange at the back of our bus.”

D.
Sylvia F., Forest Hills, N.
Y.: “Another stone crashed through the same window. We stopped the car. The thrower was five feet from a Westchester County policeman whose badge number was 42. He saw the incident. We asked him to arrest the man. The policeman did not answer, and when the request was repeated he ordered the driver to move on.”

E.
Tom Lloyd
, member of the executive board of Local 64, International Fur and Leather Workers Union, and veteran of World War II: “As I drove out onto the paved highway, a state trooper slowed up the speed of our car by hand motions.

“The car in front of ours swerved almost out of control when hit by rocks, and I was forced to almost stop. Then a shower of rocks and pop bottles hit our car and one broke the windshield, showering glass over the three of us in the front seat and inflicting cuts on the man sitting next to me. I put the car into second gear and drove on, the car ahead of me meanwhile having been gotten under control.

“There were state troopers and uniformed police in great numbers all along the road, but they did absolutely nothing to prevent the violence. In fact, I heard them laughing and jeering at us as we passed them with our battered cars.”

F.
Henry F., of Brooklyn
, arrived with some other World War II veterans to help prepare for the concert. “The paraders were shouting all kinds of profane language. One shouted, ‘Well give you solidarity, we'll make you eat it!' Then, with a grin on his face, ‘Dewey is going to protect you, oh yeah!'”

After the concert, he and other concert guards started to ride toward the entrance. “Suddenly, as if from out of nowhere a bunch of troopers swooped down on our cars and yelled, ‘Get out of the cars!' Before we could comply, however, they were pulling us out to the side of the road. I saw the driver in the car in front of our car get hit in the kidneys by a cop for protesting the rough treatment. The troopers threw out everything in the car that wasn't fastened down, from the glove compartment and from the trunk. They ordered us back into the cars.

“A moment later another bunch of about fifteen deputies and police ordered us out of the cars again, this time roughing us up worse than the troopers. Some of them evidently had had something to drink. Their faces were red and they were wild, and swinging indiscriminately at everyone with their clubs.

“They ordered us into the cars once more. A moment later another group of deputies and police ordered us out of the car. This time I remarked to my companions, ‘Here we go, out again and in again.' One cop overheard me and yelled, ‘Hey, this son of a bitch is talking back!' Whereupon a group of cops and deputies set upon me and the car occupants in the most violent and vicious manner that I have ever experienced. One grabbed me by the collar and throat at the same time and threw me to the ground, face down in the dirt, a distance of about eight feet from the car, and started beating us all. My shirt and suit were badly torn. Another cop dragged me to my feet and said, ‘Get in and get going, you red bastard!' Another, who was obviously a captain of police, said, ‘Go back to Jew town, and if we ever catch you up here again well kill you!'”

G.
John N., New Jersey:
“One of the troopers said, ‘Let's get these bastards.' One of them stopped at the front right window where I sat. He took careful aim and shoved his nightstick, point first, at my left eye. I ducked my head when I saw it coming. The club missed the eyeball and caught the corner of the lid. It began to bleed, and when I brought my head up, he aimed at the eye again. I fended the club off with my arm.

“The police ordered us out of the car. Then, as we got out, they began to club us over the head.

“I was forced to run through a gauntlet of 15 to 20 policemen. Each of them clubbed me across the head or back. I tried to escape. They threw me to the ground and continued the beating. One of the policemen noticed a bandage on my left hand, which had been burned a week before. He jumped on the hand and ground his heel into the bandage, fracturing one of the burned fingers.”

H.
Sarah M., Bronx:
“I saw several injured people ask the troopers and policemen for help. They were not only refused help, but were laughed” at, called such names as ‘Dirty Jew,' ‘Dirty n—,' and some of those injured were hit with the billies of the policemen. I also saw some troopers and policemen throw rocks at the cars and buses.”

I.
William G., Queens:
“As we were riding by, several of the state troopers cursed at us with epithets like ‘Get out of here, you dirty so-and-so's.' ‘You got what was coming to you, you dirty n—lovers.' I saw the state troopers joking and talking to the very hoodlums who were endangering our lives.”

J.
Marvin L., Flushing, L. I.:
“During all of this, the cops used all kinds of vile epithets,
i.e.
, ‘Spread their legs and hit them in the groin.' This last was to the cops who were beating the men in the car ahead.”

7. James Hicks:
Afro-American

“I saw Jean Bullard knocked down at my feet and brutally kicked and beaten by state troopers as he lay on the ground because he spat at an anti-Robeson veteran who had spit in his face.

“I saw a colored man who was in his, car and on his way home dragged from his car, hit over the head while he was being dragged out, beaten on the ground by the troopers as he attempted to crawl under his car for protection. He was then dragged from underneath the car and beaten with clubs by four troopers as he crawled helplessly down the narrow road leading to the concert area.”

Appendix III

The Victims

1. Sidney Marcus: A Peekskill Case History by Howard Fast
Reprinted from
The New York Fur Worker

On September 4, 1949, when the bad trouble of Peekskill happened, Sidney Marcus was where you would expect to find him, a part of the inside circle of fur workers who made an honor guard for Paul Robe-son. If someone had said, such and such is Sidney Marcus, you would have looked for a tall, broad-set young man of twenty-eight, maybe a hundred and eighty pounds, big of limb and wide on his feet, with the large competent hands of a worker; the face is open, round and honest. A good man if things should become rough, but it is rougher on the truck where one of his brothers stands between Robeson and the dirty sniper, lying on the hillside, waiting for a chance to shoot the way his kind have always shot.