The Making of Minority Threat: Public Hostility, State Inaction, and the Peekskill Riots of 1949

• In Event: Racial and Ethnic Minorities Section Roundtables Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table One: Historical Sociological Perspectives on Race and Racism

Abstract

On August 27, 1949, violence erupted in Peekskill, New York, when veterans’ groups and local residents attacked attendees of a Paul Robeson benefit concert. Historians have documented the fusion of racial hostility and Cold War anticommunism surrounding the riots, but existing accounts have not theorized the events as a case of perceived group threat. This paper conceptualizes the violence as a symbolic minority threat, extending minority-threat theory beyond demographic competition. Drawing on Hubert Blalock’s (1967) theory of perceived group threat and Joe Feagin’s (2020) concept of the White racial frame, I argue that Robeson’s political visibility, interracial alliances, and global prominence amplified perceptions of Black insurgent power independent of local group size. Through qualitative historical analysis of archival materials, including newspaper coverage, the ACLU’s (1949) Violence in Peekskill, eyewitness accounts, and photographs, I examine how threat constructions shaped public mobilization and institutional response. Preliminary findings suggest three dynamics. First, veterans’ groups and local media amplified the Paris misquotation of Robeson to portray him as a disloyal racial outsider, activating the White racial frame and constructing him as a symbolic threat to the dominant-group position. Second, the interracial composition of the concert audience intensified perceptions of status threat consistent with minority-threat dynamics concerning coalition formation. Third, police inaction functioned as a form of dominant-group defense, as authorities declined to intervene against White aggressors whose actions were framed as patriotic protection. This selective non-enforcement illustrates how perceived minority threat can shape not only public mobilization but also institutional responses, as state actors protect dominant-group interests without resorting to formal repression. By theorizing Peekskill as a symbolic minority threat, this paper demonstrates that minority threats need not depend on demographic shifts; they can emerge through political prominence and racialized framing processes, clarifying how symbolic political threats shape collective violence and institutional behavior.

Author

• Joshua Dellacruz, University at Albany, SUNY