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

good-looking man of thirty or so, came toward us. He wore a white shirt, sleeves rolled up; his hands were in his pockets; he walked to our line and in a not unfriendly manner said,
    â€œWho’s running this?”
    â€œI’ll talk to you,” I said.
    He told me he was a railroad worker, a Peekskill resident, and had been drawn into this because he belonged to the local Legion post. “I don’t like commies no better than the next one,” he said, “but this kind of thing turns my stomach. I’m on the wrong side. I should be with you guys instead of them. What I want to know is this—will you call it off if we do?”
    â€œWe never called it on,” I said.
    â€œWell, someone did, and now will you call it off?”
    â€œAnd do what?”
    â€œClear out?”
    â€œIf you empty the road and let us get a police escort, we’ll clear out. We got a hundred and fifty women and kids down there in the hollow and we’re not going to send them into that pack of wolves.”
    â€œLet me try,” he said.
    â€œO.K.—we don’t want any more of this.”
    He went back and resumed his whispered argument with the three leaders of the mob, and now behind us the truck appeared. I dropped back to help get it across the road, and when it was in place, blocking the road, I had a quick conference with two of the trade unionists. We agreed to spar for time—to do anything for time, and they pressed me to try to continue the conversation with the railroad worker. Since there was no sign of troopers or police or any relief, one of the trade unionists agreed to try to get through their lines and phone for help. But as he slipped over the embankment they attacked us again, and that was the last I saw of the railroad worker.
    This attack was more deliberate. They closed slowly with all their weight, forcing us back until our three lines were pressed solidly against the truck, and they punished our front line badly —concentrating their attention upon a tall, well-muscled Negro worker who had already given a good account of himself. Like yapping dogs around a huge wolf, they clawed at him and he swept them off and drove them back with his fists. This I remember, and a bit here and there, but otherwise my attention was in front of me. I had not fought this way in fifteen years, not since my days in the slums where I was raised, not since the gang fights of a kid on the New York streets; but now it was for our lives, for all that the cameras were flashing and newspaper men taking it down, blow by blow, so you could read in your morning papers how a few Reds in Westchester County were lynched. Only we would not be lynched and we drove the great, sick, screaming weight of them back, and once again there was a clear space in front of us.
    It was night time now. And now, for the first time, I understood clearly the temper of that gang out there, and for the first time I realized that it was very likely that all of us would die there that evening. Our lines leaned against the truck, half of us bleeding, all of us sobbing, our clothes torn, our scalps open, our faces scarred —and already it seemed that the nightmarish battle had gone on forever.
    â€œHow much more?” someone asked.
    They were screaming at us in a full frenzy now, a frenzy of sick hate and bitter frustration. They were full of the taste of death. “You never go out!” they screamed. “Every n—— bastard dies here tonight! Every Jew bastard dies here tonight!”
    And the reporters watched calmly and took notes, as did the justice agents.
    I looked at my watch because it seemed that forever had gone by. It was only a little after eight o’clock, not much more than an hour and a half since I had kissed my daughter and told her that I would listen to Paul’s songs and tell her all about them. She had asked, “Would he sing the one for me”? She meant “Water