History – Peter C. Robertson Archive

In a letter to his brother dated December 12, 1963, my father wrote:

[T]he assassination of President Kennedy . . . was not only a deep personal loss, for I felt very strongly that President Kennedy was “my type of person”, but it is a tremendous institutional loss to this country. It clearly represents the climax of a period in which almost every individual in this nation without exception has felt free when it served his only selfish end to disregard the law and to disregard the fact that the only thing which separates a civilized society from a jungle is rule by law and the willingness of most individuals in the society to voluntarily obey that law. His death — whether it was by a right-wing extremist, a left-wing extremist, or a demented individual — can be laid squarely at the door of the Governor of Mississippi and the Governor of Alabama who thought that law could be [flouted]. It can also be laid at the door of every butcher who ever put his finger on the scales or every taxpayer who ever cheated on his taxes. This nation did not wake up to where it was going when one Negro leader was killed, it did not wake up when four little girls were brutally slain. Let us hope that the death of the President will cause some awakening before it is in fact too late.

I was struck by the resonance with our current political scene, in which the lawlessness and cruelty at the top has clearly opened the door to rampant lawlessness and cruelty in society, especially the right-wing side. But also read with sadness that he believed this was “the climax” of this trend, when in fact it simply went underground — or maybe not underground but out of fashion — long enough to pass the civil rights and fair housing acts — but was in fact just waiting for Trump to unlock the gates of hell.

My father couldn’t carry a tune with a forklift, but boy did he love to sing. I have hilarious memories of him encouraging us to sing in the car, with the result that he and I would belt out “Roll On Columbia” together while my more musically-astute mother and brother cringed in their respective seats. After Dad passed in 1997, I got his collection of LPs, which I stored and moved and lugged around thinking I’d transfer them to digital media someday. Of course not. This year, I gave them to the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition where they will feature in future fundraising efforts — stay tuned! Before sending them along, I took photos of some of the most memorable, most Dad-resonant, of the covers.

His collection consisted of folk songs; political songs (big overlap with folk songs); train songs; spirituals; historical songs; historical speeches and voices; comedy (I swear to God we had George Carlin’s Seven Words on LP but I couldn’t find it); two children’s records; and a number of records in Russian including Paul Robeson and the Red Army Chorus.

Note: All of the images below have alt text describing both the images and text on the pictured LP covers.

Folk Songs & Political Songs starting with his all-time favorite singer, Pete Seeger. Note that the Darling Corey album was so old he was called Peter Seeger.

Darling Corey. Peter Seeger picking the five-string banjo and singing John Riley, Risselty-Rosselty, Devilish Mary, Come All Fair Maids, East Virginia Blues, I Had a Wife, Skillet Good and Greasy, Darling Cory, My Blue-Eyed Gal, Cripple Creek, Old Joe Clack, Ida Red, Jam on Jerry's Rocks, Penny's Farm, Danville Girl, Get Along Little Dogies. Sketch of white man with dark hair playing the banjo.

Folk Songs and Ballads: A Pete Seeger Concert. Notes by Kenneth S. Goldstein.

Political/topical songs:

Talking Union & other Union Songs. The original with the Almanac Singers with Pete Seeger and Chorus. Image: sketch of four people.

"Negro Prison Songs. Mississippi State Penitentiary. work songs and blues recorded, edited, and annotated by Alan Lomax. Image: stylized prison building with horizontal and vertical bars.

Train songs:

Photos of trains. Text: 900 Miles and other R.R. Songs. Sung by Cisco Houston With Guitar. 900 Miles. Getting Up’ Holler. The Roamer. Wreck of the ‘97. Hobo Bill. The Great American Bum. The Brave Engineer. The Gambler. The Rambler. R.R. Bill. Worried Man Blues. Folkways Records & Service Corp., N. Y.

Paul Robeson, in English and Russian

Image: black man wearing suit and bow tie, mouth open singing. Text: The Essential Paul Robeson.

Image: close up of a Black man wearing a suit and bow tie. Text: Robeson

And

Image: American flag in red and black. Text: The Broadside Singers. A GROUP OF NINE WRITERS WHO HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO BROADSIDE MAGAZINE. AIN'T THAT NEWS / MORE GOOD MEN GOIN' DOWN / TIMES I’VE HAD / PATHS OF VICTORY / CHRISTINE / RATTLESNAKE / CARRY IT ON / LINKS ON THE CHAIN / CAUSES / IMMIGRANTS / THE FAUCETS ARE DRIPPING / FATHER'S GRAVE / THE SCRUGGS PICKER / PLAINS OF NEBRASKY-O / FREEDOM IS A CONSTANT STRUGGLE

Political speeches and voices, starting with Adlai Stevenson and Chester Bowles, two quixotic campaigns to which my Dad devoted a lot of time and energy:

A recorded portrait of Chester Bowles in conversation with Arnold Michaelis.

Adlai Stevenson: WELCOMING AND ACCEPTANCE SPEECHES AT THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION JULY 1952 — A recorded portrait of Chester Bowles in conversation with Arnold Michaelis.

This astonishing record in which various stars of the day spoke about the EEOC and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the agency and statute to which my father devoted his entire professional life.

Image: EEOC and photos of Black people at work including Black man in tie with hard hat instructing two white men in hard hats; Black woman telephone operator wearing headset.

And more history and political nerdery:

"If I'm Elected" the actual voices of our presidents and their opponents 1892-1952" B&W photos with captions of the following white men: Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, William J. Bryant, Eugene V. Debs, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Alfred E. Smith, Alfred M. Landon, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Wendell L. Willke, Norman Thomas, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Thomas E. Dewey, Henry A. Wallace, Franklin D Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, with Will Rogers and Irvin S. Cobb. Narrator: John Carradine

F.D.R. Speaks: Authorized edition of speeches, 1933-1945.

Comedy:

An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer. POISONING PIGEONS IN THE PARK; BRIGHT COLLEGE DAYS; THE ELEMENTS; A CHRISTMAS CAROL; OEDIPUS REX; IN OLD MEXICO; CLEMENTINE; MAKES A FELLOW PROUD TO BE A SOLDIER; SHE'S MY GIRL; THE MASOCHISM TANGO; WE WILL ALL GO TOGETHER WHEN WE GO. Image: crowd in a theater watching a man on stage playing the piano.

Two children’s records, which I remember fondly, though I regret that the delightful teachings of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cyril Richard, and Benjamin Britten in the “Peter and the Wolf Young Person’s Guide” did not really stick.

THE PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA, Eugene Ormandy, Conductor; PROKOFIEV: Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67; CYRIL RITCHARD, NARRATOR; Britten: The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Op. 34. Image: sketch of older man (long white beard) and young boy in the woods with a wolf, a cat, a duck, and a bird.

boris karloff reads the ugly duckling and other tales by hans christian anderson. Image: sketch with a sad duckling in the foreground and a mother duck with ducklings walking away in the background.

And finally, three more records in Russian, two of which I can identify from my father’s handwritten notes — the Folk Song Chorus from Omsk and the Red Army Chorus — and the third my Russian-fluent mother has informed me is gypsy music.

LP in a paper sleeve; all writing is in Russian except my father's handwritten note "Folk Song Chorus from Omsk."

LP in a paper sleeve; all writing is in Russian except my father's handwritten note "Red Army."

Category: History

PCR: the Kennedy assassination “can be laid squarely at the door” of southern governors flouting the law.

PCR’s LP collection: folk songs, train songs, civil rights songs, Russian songs, and a bunch of political nerdery.