and he admired paul robeson very much. i don't believe he ever sang with them. i saw one letter in which he mentions having met him. but he certainly supported him. and he was there, of course, during thesethe peekskill riots of 1949. amy goodman: well, talk about the peekskill riots. exactly what happened? will kaufman: ok, 1949, august, late august, early september of 1949, the civil rights congress, through people's songs, got paul robeson to agree to sing a benefit concert at the golfing grounds up inor the lakeland picnic area up in peekskill, westchester county. and before robeson even got to the grounds, he neverin fact, he never even made it to the grounds, because for the whole previous week, the peekskill evening star and other local newspapers and the ku klux klan and other right-wing organizations were firing up the populists to prevent robeson and to prevent his followers from coming to peekskill. robesonyou know, it was all this robeson, you know, jew- loving commie kind of stuff like that, because robeson had declaredhis crime was declaring, in th