Hold The Line
I suppose, as it is the first of these I am doing, and Pete Seeger is a man who will be appearing frequently in these, I should introduce him. Pete Seeger was an American folk singer, active starting in 1939 up until his death in 2014, best known (to me at least) for his left-wing politics and music. I would give examples, but I think that the song here is as strong of an example as any, so here we go.
Hold the Line is a musical account of the second Peakskill riot, but to understand the second you need to understand the first. There was set to be a concert for the benefit of the Civil Rights Congress nearby to Peakskill, by Paul Robeson, a black singer known for leftist, anti-racist, pro-labor politics. Before Robeson arrived, however, a racist mob attacked attendees. Police didn’t arrive until hours after the fact and when they did, they did almost nothing to stop the violence.
Although the concert had to be canceled, Robeson was not deterred. A second concert was scheduled, the weekend after the first. This second concert was not simply Robeson, but also included other left-wing musicians, including, of course, Pete Seeger. Security for this second concert was organized by the American Community Party and left-wing labor unions. They were directed to form a line around the perimeter of the concert area, to not only keep out the protesters, but also the local police force. Through the efforts of this “band of gallant men”, the performers and concert goers were kept safe through the duration of the concert.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said about after the concert. Rocks were thrown by the protestors through the windows of cars and busses that were leaving the concert, with no intervention from the police who were present. Some people were even dragged out of their vehicles and beaten. Injuries numbered over 140 people as the police stood by laughing.
The car that was carrying Pete Seeger, along with his his wife and children, also carried Woodie Guthrie, who pinned his shirt to the inside of the window to prevent it from covering the occupants with broken glass when the fascists broke it. Seeger kept some of the rocks thrown at his car, and used them to build the chimney of his cabin.
The aftermath of this fascist attack made its way even to the House of Representatives. Representative John E. Rankin denounced the performers (but not the violent fascists) using language not suitable to be repeated here as it (obviously) contains racial slurs. When another representative asked for it to be stricken from the record on account of the slurs used, the Speaker of the House (of course, also a southern Democrat like Rankin) defended him, saying that the word he used was not the word that I’m sure you’re thinking, but was a different word that I’m also not putting here because it’s a slur today, but it was the politically correct term at the time. Rankin shouted over him indicating that, no, he did indeed say the racial slur, and not the at-the-time politically correct term that sounds similar. The Speaker then said that, even so, Rankin did nothing wrong and would not be subject to any kind of consequences.
The takeaways? Well for one, the police are not your friend, and they will always side with the fascists because they are the fascists, but that doesn’t matter if you’ve got class solidarity. Also that fascists will always have a significantly greater ability to legally get away with political violence than leftists. Additionally that the fascist strategy of “That didn’t happen, and even if it did, I’m going to support it anyway” is as old as fascism itself. And finally that we should perhaps take some small solace in the fact that the fascists in power cannot get away with being as openly racist as they once could.