August 27, 1949: Paul Robeson arrives to perform a concert at Lakeland Acres, in Mohegan Lake, Westchester County, New York. But the show does not go on, as anti-Communist protestors start attacking the concertgoers. The police do nothing to stop it. It becomes known as the Peekskill Riot. Robeson's reputation does not recover during his lifetime.
Born on April 9, 1898 in Princeton, Mercer County, New Jersey, and growing up in nearby Somerville, Somerset County, Robeson had been an All-American football player at what was then called Rutgers College. Walter Camp, who invented the concept of college football’s All-America team, put the Rutgers player on his all-time team in 1920, calling him the best defensive end he’d ever seen.
He played 8 games for the Akron Pros in 1921, coached by another early black football star, Frederick Douglass "Fritz" Pollard; and 7 for the Milwaukee Badgers in 1922. On November 19 of that season, he scored 2 touchdowns, on a fumble recovery and on a pass from Bo McMillin, in a 13-0 win over Jim Thorpe's Oorang Indians at Milwaukee Athletic Park (later renamed Borchert Field).
The following year, he got his law degree from Columbia University, and was done with playing football at age 25. Yet he was soon done with legal practice as well, because of racist hiring practices at law firms. Fortunately, he was already one of the top actors and singers of his generation, the man who defined the basso profundo voice in the 20th Century. But his dealings with racism gave him an affinity for underdogs, including the labor movement around the world. Unfortunately, this led him to Communism.
On June 20, 1949, with the Cold War at a very chilly point -- the Berlin blockade and airlift, and the Greek Civil War, were ongoing, and China was about to fall to Mao Zedong -- Robeson spoke at the Paris Peace Congress:
We in America do not forget that it was on the backs of the white workers from Europe, and on the backs of millions of Blacks, that the wealth of America was built. And we are resolved to share it equally.
We reject any hysterical raving that urges us to make war on anyone. Our will to fight for peace is strong. We shall not make war on anyone. We shall not make war on the Soviet Union. We oppose those who wish to build up imperialist Germany, and to establish Fascism in Greece. We wish peace with Franco's Spain, despite her Fascism. We shall support peace and friendship among all nations, with Soviet Russia and the people's Republics.
He was blacklisted for saying this in the mainstream press within the United States, including in many periodicals of the Negro press such as the NAACP's magazine, The Crisis.
A concert, organized as a benefit for the Civil Rights Congress, was scheduled to take place on August 27 at Lakeland Acres, in Mohegan Lake, just north of Peekskill. Before Robeson arrived, a mob of locals attacked concertgoers with baseball bats and rocks. Robeson saw what was happening from the car he was riding in, and wanted to get out and intervene, but the other passengers stopped him.
The local police arrived hours later, and did little to intervene. Thirteen people were seriously injured, Robeson was lynched in effigy, and a cross was seen burning on an adjacent hillside. Following the concert, request for Ku Klux Klan memberships from the Peekskill area numbered 748 persons.
The concert was rescheduled for September 4, the Sunday of the following week. It was free from violence, but marred by the presence of a police helicopter overhead, and the flushing out of at least one sniper's nest. The concert was located on the grounds of the old Hollow Brook Golf Course in Cortlandt Manor, near the intended site of the original concert. A crowd of 20,000 people showed up.
Security was organized by the Communist Party and Communist-dominated labor unions. The men were directed by the Communist Party and some unions to form a line around the outer edge of the concert area, and were sitting with Robeson on the stage. They were there to fight any protestors who objected to Robeson's presence. They effectively kept the local police from the concert area. The musicians performed without incident.
Nevertheless, Robeson was ruined in America. And his passport was revoked, so he couldn't travel to anywhere that did want him. In 1958, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Kent v. Dulles, that his passport should be restored. Only in Britain, Europe, and especially the Soviet Union was he now welcome as an actor and a singer, and he went there.
In the early 1960s, his health, physical and mental, began to break down. He returned to America in 1963. Bayard Rustin asked him to help the Civil Rights Movement, but Robeson knew that his reputation in his homeland, still in tatters, would hurt the Movement. His wife and public spokesperson, Essie, died in 1965. After that, he never appeared in public again.
He died on January 23, 1976, at the age of 77. He is buried in Fernclliff Cemetery in Greenburgh, Westchester County, New York, also the final resting place of notable black figures Cab Calloway, Moms Mabley, Thelonious Monk, James Baldwin, Malcolm X and several members of his family, Whitney Young, Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee, Adolph Caesar, Jam Master Jay, Heavy D and Aaliyah.
Among the notable white figures buried there are actors Basil Rathbone, Joan Crawford and Judy Tyler; film director Preston Sturges; composers Béla Bartók, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II, Alan Jay Lerner and Ray Bloch; historians Charles and Mary Beard; playwright Moss Hart and his wife, actress Kitty Carlisle; variety show host Ed Sullivan; authors Diana and Lionel Trilling; consumer advocate Betty Furness; economist Ludwig von Mises; restaurateur Toots Shor; ice cream mogul Tom Carvel; and film producer Robert Evans.
The country that Paul Robeson loved had moved to erase him from history. For most of his life, they succeeded. Eventually, establishment America began to act as though the Communist phase of Robeson's career never happened -- or, perhaps, that it no longer mattered. In 1995, having been blacklisted (or so to speak) for many years, the College Football Hall of Fame finally elected him. The U.S. Postal Service honored him with a stamp in 2004. In 2020, New Brunswick, Middlesex County, New Jersey, the seat of his Alma Mater, Rutgers University, renamed Commercial Avenue, between RU's College Avenue and Douglass Campuses, "Paul Robeson Boulevard."
The Paul Robeson Center has been established as a museum in his birthplace of Princeton, at 110 Witherspoon Street. His alma mater, Rutgers University, established the Paul Robeson Cultural Center, at 600 Bartholomew Road on its Busch Campus in Piscataway; and the Robeson Campus Center, at 350 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard on its Newark campus. And residences of his have been declared historic sites and museums: At 555 Edgecombe Avenue at 160th Street in Harlem, and at 4951 Walnut Street in West Philadelphia.
All these places work to advance the causes of civil and labor rights. Robeson would have appreciated that more than having his name put on anything.
*
August 27, 1949 was a Saturday. These baseball games were played:
* The New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians, 4-0 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Tommy Byrne pitched a 2-hit shutout, outpitching Early Wynn. Joe DiMaggio went 2-for-4.
* The New York Giants were swept by the St. Louis Cardinals in a doubleheader, 5-2 and 11-2 at the Polo Grounds. Stan Musial went 2-for-4 in each game, including 2 home runs in the opener.
* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Chicago Cubs, 6-1 at Ebbets Field. Dem Bums scored all dem runs in da 6th inning, including a 2-RBI double by Jackie Robinson and back-to-back homers by Carl Furillo and Billy Cox. Elwin "Preacher" Roe went the distance for the win.
* The Boston Braves beat the Cincinnati Reds, 6-5 at Braves Field in Boston. Jeff Heath led off the bottom of the 9th with a home run to tie it, and hit another homer with 2 out in the 10th to win it.
* And the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 8-2 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Ralph Kiner hit a home run.
* The Detroit Tigers beat the Washington Senators, 7-6 at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit.
* The Boston Red Sox beat the Chicago White Sox, 7-2 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Ted Williams hit 2 home runs and had 5 RBIs.
* And the St. Louis Browns beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 5-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.
And in English soccer, North London team Arsenal traveled to the North-East, and lost to Sunderland, 4-2 at Roker Park.
No comments:
Post a Comment