Journal of Right-Wing Studies

In 1949, two riots rocked Paul Robeson concerts in Peekskill, New York. The riots were provoked by local veterans’ organizations and were not anomalous, as the American Legion and other groups intentionally targeted Robeson and his public appearances. Though scholars have examined the Peekskill riots and their relationship to Paul Robeson’s increased radicalism and his declining popularity, this article centers veterans’ organizing against Robeson as intentional, and the violence as unexceptional. Cold War anti-communism empowered veterans’ organizations to engage in what I call populist fascism—grassroots organizing against progressives and radicals that restrained citizens’ rights, especially those of Black citizens, and sometimes erupted in violence. As the Peekskill riots show, law enforcement and the criminal legal system did little to prevent violence against the Robeson concerts, and the rioters faced fewer punitive consequences than alleged communists. Robeson was targeted because of anti-Black and anti-communist hysteria. The violence at the Peekskill concerts was not spontaneous protest but part of a larger conspiracy to restrain Robeson’s political radicalism and contain progressive gains. Anti-communism enabled popular political expression that likened progressive anti-racism to treason and encouraged populist fascism among those who felt empowered to set the terms of Americanism, defined as defense of free enterprise and the “American way of life.”