Peekskill USA: Inside the Infamous 1949 Riots by Howard Fast Page B

brave. The men and women knew that, but heroic action simply does not arise as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayex would have you believe.
    They asked me what I thought. I was very close to a number of them, in that peculiar closeness which is the result of a struggle in common against death. “I think we have to hold a meeting today,” I said. “We can’t give in to this thing. Even if on a small scale, we have to do it again today and maybe tomorrow and maybe the next day, otherwise we’ll have to creep away somewhere and find a deep and dark hole for ourselves.”
    Many of them had been thinking that too, but it was hard to say and harder to perform. The workers there agreed with me, but like me, they had less to lose than the folk who were rooted here with home and children. Person after person took the floor. Every objection was raised and eventually disposed of. We had no means of organizing a meeting of consequence in a few hours. Where would it be? Who would give us space? Who would take a chance on a repeat performance?
    I went into the house and phoned a friend of mine, a resident of Mt. Kisco, a very brave and principled woman who has a beautiful summer place there, a small house, but with a great stretch of green lawn all around it, room enough for ten thousand people if necessary. She was home, and she knew about the night before.
    â€œHow much do you know about it?”
    â€œI know that it was unspeakable,” she said.
    â€œIt was. It was pretty terrible. I want you to know exactly how awful it was, because a group of us are having a meeting up at Mohegan right now. We’ve decided to hold a protest meeting today and we need a place, and—well, I’m asking for your place.”
    There was a long silence. Then she said, “How many people do you think?”
    â€œI have no idea. Maybe a hundred—maybe five hundred. We haven’t time to do anything except make phone calls and let it get around that way.”
    â€œAt what time?”
    â€œAt three o’clock,” I said.
    â€œIt’s eleven now. Can you do it in four hours?”
    â€œI don’t know. But if you let us have your place we can try.”
    â€œLet me talk to my husband,” she said. I held the phone for a minute or two, and then she was back and told me, “All right.” She wasn’t happy about it. “Don’t think we’re not scared,” she said. “It’s just the inconvenience of having to live with ourselves.”
    I went back and told them that we had a place. A local trade union organizer was already laying plans for spreading word of the meeting. Westchester was broken down, village by village, area by area, with one volunteer after another taking the responsibility for a town or an area. Two of the performers from People’s Artists were there, and they said they would sing. We would get some of the local Labor Party leadership to speak. We would have some kind of meeting in any case.
    The trade union man turned to me and said, “Fast—would it be all right if we asked you to organize the defense?”
    Would it be all right? After a decade of writing speeches, delivering them; after more than a bellyful of the literary life, it was not only all right but a singular honor. “It will be a pleasure,” I said.
    â€œWhat do you need?”
    â€œI need thirty of the toughest, hardest workers you can find in Westchester, and I want them at my house in Croton at two o’clock.”
    â€œThey’ll be there.” he said.
    A few minutes later we broke up and drove away. I took Rachel home and we had lunch, and an hour later the first two carloads of workers drove up. When the bulk of them had arrived, we drove to Mt. Kisco and I set up the security system, first on the main road, then on the side road to the place, and then on the entrance to the place itself. Now a dozen state troopers were on hand; but we had no assurance of