Coming together to rebuild America’s unity
Neither of us knew it at the time, but we were standing nearly shoulder-to-shoulder when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963. One of us had traveled up from North Carolina as a state youth coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The other was spending the summer as a Senate intern. And on that day, both of us, an African-American and a Jewish-American, ended up on the western edge of the Reflecting Pool in a very diverse and unified crowd of 25,000 people as Dr. King made one of the most resonant appeals in the nation’s history for social justice and equality.
In the decades that followed, as one of us rose through the ranks of the Civil Rights Movement to become executive director and CEO of the NAACP, among other positions, and the other through politics to become a U.S. senator, we both felt as though the nation was ascending toward Dr. King’s vision of national unity in a “beloved community.” Racism was still an ever-present reality in America. Anti-Semitism persisted as well. But for the better part of both our lives, from the height of the civil rights movement to the moment one of us was nominated for the vice presidency right through Barack Obama’s subsequent election as president, racism and anti-Semitism were in retreat in America. Aspiring leaders in both political parties embraced Dr. King’s dream.
As we stood there together in 1963 under the hot sun, the nation’s trajectory hardly felt inevitable. But the civil rights movement managed to weave a diverse community into a movement determined to tap into what President Lincoln once called “the better angels of our nature.” In the months and years that followed, our two American communities — Black and Jewish — worked closely together for justice and equality. Jewish leaders like Rabbi Abraham Heschel marched with Dr. King for Black equality. Blacks stood with Jews in support of Israel’s security and independence. And the love of the Bible and the history the two groups shared — Jews having emerged from slavery in Egypt, America’s Black community from slavery here at home — helped build a bond that has lasted for decades.
The triumphs of the civil rights movement remain cornerstones of our democracy, and the spirit of good feeling remains a bedrock of our society writ large, but something has changed more recently. In the wake of an ugly march of racists and anti-Semites in Charlottesville, Va., an American president said there were “good people on both sides.” A prominent member of the House suggested that, for Jews, “it’s all about the Benjamins.” As we both noted when reconnecting recently for our joint work with No Labels, a national organization devoted to achieving unity through bipartisanship, the longstanding belief that bigotry was a loser for any figure with political ambitions — that being viewed as racist or anti-Semitic would push any public figure to the margins and defeat — has been sadly upended.
But thankfully the events of the last decade have not driven a wedge between America’s Black and Jewish communities. Despite provocations from the fringes, the bond remains. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus are among Israel’s most important allies in Washington today. And the Jewish community has broadly embraced the cause of advancing Black equality and equity. Nevertheless, we believe this unique alliance will be better and more important than it is today — that Blacks and Jews today can be more influential together than apart. We hope that younger generations of leaders in both communities will learn from our history and begin to nurture the bonds that flourished generations ago, across racial and religious lines, despite different history, but within the beloved community’s Judeo-Christian tradition.
Jews should not be the only Americans concerned about anti-Semitism as it shows its ugly face again with greater frequency. Blacks shouldn’t be the only ones concerned about continuing racism in America. These two curses are born of the same poison, and will only be countered effectively if Blacks, Jews, and every other group of Americans who believe in freedom and justice come together to face them down. The great progress the civil rights movement made in the 1960s in part was a response to the terrible travails that defined the 1950s. We may be at a low ebb today—our collective American march toward equal justice may seem stalled and facing more opposition. But we can and must respond together in a movement bathed in shared American values that can realize our founders’ dream, and Dr. King’s, of a more perfect union.
Chavis and Lieberman are both co-chairs of the group No Labels.
Source: TEST FEED1
