"Always Leaves Me Speechless": The 5th Episode Of The Erasure Of Civil Rights Champion Paul Robeson in "Peekskill Riots" Docu-Series
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Photo Credit: Katie Hellmuth
Attended the screening of the 5th and final documentary in the docu-series, “Peekskill Riots: Wake Up America” by local historian Jon Scott Bennett held at the Beacon Library this past Thursday, which highlights the brutally erased civil rights leader, orator, singer, actor, athlete and attorney Paul Robeson by many players within the U.S. Government, and in Peekskill itself.
The Beacon community is lucky that the Beacon Library is one of Jon Scott Bennet’s biggest fans, unlike the Peekskill Museum, which tries to suppress this violent event and denied the filmmaker access to historical documents about the riots during the making of this film.
After seeing one of Jon’s films on Paul Robeson’s eternal fight for liberation, justice and equality for African Americans, ALBB is always left speechless.
Cannot wait to interview Jon again for another episode on A Little Beacon Pod, where we will cover these topics:
Eleanor Roosevelt: How that first lady condemned Paul Robeson after he and many peaceful concert goers were brutally attacked by white mobs organized by veterans groups and not protected by the local police. Eleanor Roosevelt played the Communist card to contribute to the eventual erasure of Paul Robeson.
How the victims of the Peekskill Riots, who were majority Jewish families who had been settling in Peekskill in summer camps, as well as African Americans who were supporting their civil liberties, were vilified by the local media. The Peekskill Riots were a convergence of boiling antisemitism against Jewish people as well as anti-African American sentiment in this blue collar town whose industry had been lost and was being replaced by tourism and summering.
The quest by one of Peekskill’s historians, John J. Curran, to erase the Peekskill Riots from Peekskill despite local and national media, as well as local citizens who experienced it, as well members of the violent white mob carrying signs saying: “America Wake Up: Peekskill Did” identifying it as Peekskill.
Urban Renewal’s role in this; displacement of African Americans from communities.
James Earl Jones performance of Paul Robeson defending himself before a committee to get his passport back, after the U.S. took it away, which killed his income as a performer.
The conspiracy theory that Paul Robeson was drugged, triggering a breakdown and attempted suicide attempt, followed by a second attempt, resulting in over 50 electroshock treatments that changed him forever.
