Peekskill USA: Inside the Infamous 1949 Riots Read Online Free Page A

white, had clustered around me in the little respite, and I was supposed to do something because I had written many books in which people did things in times like this, so I asked them if they wanted me to do it, and they nodded.
    â€œAll right,” I said. “We’re in a very bad place but we’ll keep our heads and in a little while some real cops will come and put an end to all this insanity. Meanwhile, we’ve got to keep that mob here where the road is narrow and high, and it’s a good place to defend in any case. We keep them here because there’s a lot of kids and women down below. That’s our whole tactic. Agreed?”
    â€œAgreed,” they said.
    â€œAll right. Just two things. Let me do the talking and let me decide when there’s a quick decision, because there may not be time to talk it over. Is that all right?”
    They said yes, and our time was running out. A compression of incident and event began. First I told the girls to run back down the road, get all the women and children onto the platform, keep them there for the time being, and send every able-bodied man and boy up to us. Then I asked for a volunteer.
    â€œI want someone to crawl through those bushes, reach the road, find a telephone, and call the troopers—call the New York Times and the Daily Worker , call Albany and get through to the governor —I want someone who can do that.”
    I got him. I don’t know what I can say about him, except that he had great inventiveness and lots of guts. He was small and bright-eyed, and his name, A—K—, will stay in my mind a long time and I have never seen him since that night. But three times he went back and forth through that howling mob, and he did what he was supposed to do.
    Now the remaining men from below appeared and I counted what we had. All told, including myself, there were forty-two men and boys. Just about half were Negro, and about half were in their teens. I divided them quickly into seven groups of six, appointing a leader for each group. Three lines of two groups each—in other words, three lines of twelve—formed across the road where the embankment began. Each line anchored on a wooden fence, our flanks protected by the ditch and the water below. The seventh group was held in reserve in our rear.
    I looked at my watch again. It was 7:30 p.m. The three deputy sheriffs had disappeared and we never saw them again that night. The mob was rolling toward us for the second attack.
    This was, in a way, the worst attack of that night. For one thing, it was still daylight; later, when night fell, our own sense of organization helped us much more, but this was daylight and they poured down the road and into us, swinging broken fence posts, billies, bottles, and wielding knives. Their leaders had been drinking from pocket flasks and bottles right up to the moment of the attack, and now as they beat and clawed at our lines, they poured out a torrent of obscene words and slogans. They were conscious of Adolf Hitler. He was a god in their ranks and they screamed over and over,
    â€œWe’re Hitler’s boys-Hitler’s boys!”
    â€œWe’ll finish his job!”
    â€œGod bless Hitler and f—— you n—— bastards and Jew bastards!”
    â€œLynch Robeson! Give us Robeson! We’ll string that big n—— up! Give him to us, you bastards!”
    I remember hoping and praying that Paul Robeson was nowhere near—that he was far away, not on the road, not anywhere near.
    â€œWhat Medina started, we’ll finish!” they howled. “We’ll kill every commie bastard in America!” Oh, they were conscious, all right, highly conscious.
    I am not certain exactly how long that second fight lasted. It seemed forever, yet it couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes. But in that time the sun sank below the hills to the west of us and the shadow of twilight came.
    We