[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 91 (Thursday, July 14, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 14, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                        BLACK-JEWISH COOPERATION

                                 ______


                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 14, 1994

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, one of the most effective 
advocates of an America in which everyone's constitutional rights are 
fully respected is Leonard Zakim, executive director of the Anti-
Defamation League of New England. Mr. Zakim has worked tirelessly, 
effectively, and creatively to combat antisemitism, and he has put his 
efforts against antisemitism in the broad context of respect for the 
rights of all. One area where he has been especially outspoken and 
thoughtful is that of relations between the Jewish and African-American 
communities. Knowing as he does the history of members of these two 
groups working closely together to fight discrimination, Mr. Zakim has 
been one of the most forceful opponents of those who would divide these 
two groups of Americans concerned with fairness. Recently, he wrote an 
article in the Boston Globe which addresses the history of Black-Jewish 
cooperation, and even more importantly, the need for the groups to 
continue this cooperative effort in the future. I was flattered that 
Mr. Zakim mentioned in his article the efforts of myself and the 
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Lewis] along these lines, and because of 
the importance of this issue and the eloquence of Mr. Zakim's 
statement, I ask that it be printed here.

                     A Partnership Forged in Blood

                           (By Leonard Zakim)

       Thirty years ago this month, James Chaney, Michael 
     Schwerner and Andrew Goodman were among thousands of civil 
     rights activists who spread across the South in the Freedom 
     Summer campaign to democratically overturn the apartheid-like 
     Jim Crow laws violating the rights of black Americans. 
     Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman were murdered for their beliefs 
     and their commitment to make America the land of its promise.
       The civil rights movement that galvanized those students 
     was led by black Americans. Its operative philosophy was 
     Martin Luther King's recognition that we were ``caught in a 
     network of inescapable mutuality, tied in a single garment of 
     destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all 
     indirectly.'' The sickness of racism and bigotry was too 
     deeply rooted institutionally and personally for any one 
     group to effectively combat alone. King thought it obvious 
     that a broad-based interracial coalition was essential to the 
     movement's success.
       Many young white people enlisted in this nonviolent 
     democratic revolution, although violence often resulted. It 
     was no coincidence that almost two-thirds of these young 
     white were Jewish, driven by the biblical injunction that 
     ``one cannot stand idly by,'' a profound sense of social 
     responsibility and the unfolding realization of the 
     destruction of European Jewry in the Holocaust.
       Klan speeches and hate literature of that era point often 
     to a Jewish ``conspiracy'' to destroy white Christian America 
     by supporting civil rights for blacks. Synagogues as well as 
     black churches in the South felt the heat of bombs and the 
     pain of violence.
       Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman--two Jews and a black man--
     became symbols of an era marked by a remarkable and effective 
     black-Jewish alliance. Relations even then were not perfect, 
     but they were marked by a working partnership and shared 
     values. As with blacks, Jews were also motivated partly 
     by self-interest, a coalition's most reliable motivation.
       Anti-Semitism in America was not then, nor is it now, as 
     deep-seated as racism, but it was serious, sometimes subtle 
     and often violent. Jews wanted and needed additional legal 
     and political means to fight it. The civil rights laws 
     provided some of the means.
       But the primary motive for Jewish involvement was that it 
     was the right thing to do. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote 
     that ``the plight of the Negro is a living reminder of our 
     failure--the problem we need is to be or not to be human. The 
     situation of the Negro is the test, the trial, the risk.'' 
     Heschel also said, ``Few of us realize racism is man's 
     gravest threat to man.''
       Relations between blacks and Jews were never as good then 
     as many remember. And today, relations between blacks and 
     Jews are far from being as bad as we are often led to 
     believe. That today Louis Farrakhan, Khalid Muhammad and 
     their followers espouse many of the Klan's anti-Semitic lies 
     is sad, but black-Jewish relations cannot be held hostage to 
     haters.
       Today's challenge to keeping the legacy of Goodman, 
     Schwerner and Chaney relevant lies in our ability to offset 
     the dominant negativity surrounding black-Jewish relations 
     and the media focus they generate.
       Blacks and Jews around the nation are not paralyzed by hate 
     rhetoric and extremism, nor do they live in the past. The 
     black-Jewish alliance is not dead or broken in the 1990's--
     it's simply different.
       Reps. Barney Frank and John Lewis, veterans of Freedom 
     Summer 1964, introduced a resolution last week honoring the 
     three slain civil rights activists. The resolution is rooted 
     in the many productive, day-to-day collaborations between 
     black and Jewish members of Congress on issues such as social 
     justice, welfare reform, public school education reform, 
     employment training, aid to Africa and aid to Israel.
       In Boston, issues such as hate crimes, educational quality, 
     social justice, fair housing, job training, violence 
     prevention, youth activities and continued antidiscrimination 
     legal efforts provide opportunities for this coalition to 
     succeed. Blacks and Jews stand together for the restoration 
     of a free and democratic Haiti, support a free and democratic 
     South Africa and have linked up to promote Arab-Israeli 
     peace.
       Leaders of both communities respond to individual incidents 
     of racist or anti-Semitic hate crimes. The Anti-Defamation 
     League and the Urban League recently organized a Unity Rally 
     against hate in conjunction with Mayor Menino of Boston.
       The 14th Annual Black-Jewish Seder drew more than 500 
     people, including Andrew Goodman's mother and Jim Chaney's 
     brother. The American Jewish Congress works with the Black 
     Lawyers Association, and the Jewish Community Relations 
     Council works closely with the Ten Point Coalition and those 
     initiating the Freedom Summer Project of 1994. The American 
     Jewish Committee is collaborating to generate economic 
     partnerships with African-Americans. There are also an untold 
     number of individual black and Jewish partnerships and 
     church-synagogue collaborations that make the alliance real. 
     In Boston, unlike other cities, we are not strangers 
     attacking each other through sound bites and headlines. We 
     know each other, earn respect from each other, help each 
     other, and, yes, sometimes disagree with each other.
       The cancer of anti-Semitism and racism does threaten the 
     viability of this crucial coalition. It cuts into the moral 
     high ground civil rights needs to occupy and it corrodes the 
     coalition. The legacy of Freedom Summer 1964 cannot be 
     allowed to create a standard of conduct and expectations for 
     a coalition too high to fulfill.
       The deaths of Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney showed us the 
     capacity of hate and fear to obstruct progress. Their souls 
     and memories demand an end to indifference about racism and 
     anti-Semitism--and a reinvigorated coalition to address the 
     challenge of securing equality that inspired them to go to 
     Mississippi in the first place.

                          ____________________