In July 1949, the Harlem chapter of the Civil Rights Congress announced that Paul Robeson would headline a benefit concert for the organization in Lakeland Acres, near Peekskill, New York. Local organizations, including the Junior Chamber of Commerce, and the local newspaper, The Peekskill Evening Star, condemned the concert as Communist-inspired and encouraged demonstrations to stop it. The resulting local opposition grew out of potent elements of anti-Communist, anti-black and anti-Semitic sentiment present in the post-World War II United States.

On August 27th, the day the concert was scheduled to take place, a mob of locals attacked arriving concertgoers with billy clubs, brass knuckles and rocks, overturning cars and burning political handouts and pamphlets. Local police stood by, and intervened only after thirteen people were seriously injured. As a result, Robeson never made it to the concert site, and the concert never took place.

Deeply angered by this incident, the Civil Rights Congress held a large public meeting at Harlem's Golden Gate Ballroom and declared that the concert would be rescheduled for September 4th.

Located on the grounds of the Hollow Brook Golf Course in Cortlandt Manor, this concert drew twenty thousand people. Security was provided by trade unionists, including members of District Council 65, and Robeson and other musicians, including Pete Seeger, were able to perform. Once the concert ended, however, attendees were forced to run a gauntlet of veterans and outside agitators who threw rocks through the windshields of their cars and buses. At least 140 people were injured and numerous vehicles were severely damaged.

Widespread outrage ensued as a result of this violence, and over three hundred people went to Albany to meet with Governor Thomas E. Dewey. Governor Dewey would not give them a hearing, and instead blamed the events on the provocation of "communist groups." A $2 million civil suit was filed by Robeson and twenty-six other plaintiffs against Westchester County and two veterans' groups. The case was dismissed after three years of litigation.

This collection of material related to the Peekskill Riots was created by Barbara Kopple, a director known for films such as Harlan County U.S.A. (1976), American Dream (1990) and Shut Up & Sing (2006), in connection with two proposed film projects on the Peekskill Riots. In 1979 Koppel began, in conjunction with screenwriter Loring Mandel, to develop a feature-length drama, tentatively titled "Peekskill," and partially funded by Twentieth Century Fox. The bulk of the research collection seems to have been created at this time. This project appears to have been abandoned sometime after 1980 as a result of contract disputes with Mandel and lack of funding.

In 1983, Kopple contracted with Stanley "Bucky" Buchtal and Buckeye Entertainment to develop a second film based on the Peekskill Riots. They acquired a script titled "Joe Glory," written by Alfred Slote. In 1997 Jeffrey Stanley was hired to rewrite the screenplay which was completed in 1998. In 1998 Stanley subsequently wrote a preview of the Paul Robeson Centennial Retrospective at the Film Forum for Time Out New York magazine which also mentions the Joe Glory script and Kopple. It appears that this project was also abandoned.

Sources:

American Civil Liberties Union. Violence in Peekskill: A Report of the Violations of Civil Liberties at Two Paul Robeson Concerts Near Peekskill, N.Y., August 27th and September 4th, 1949. New York: ACLU, 1949.Fast, Howard. Peekskill, USA: Inside the Infamous 1949 Riots. Mineola: Dover Publications, 2006.The Robeson Concerts: Peekskill, NY 1949. Dir. Abby Luby. Videocassette. ORB Total Media, 1998.Walwick, Joseph. The Peekskill, New York, Anti-Communist Riots of 1949. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2002.