In a West Side Baptist church, housed in what once was a synagogue in
the heart of an Eastern European Jewish neighborhood, close to 150 members of
the city’s Jewish and African-American communities came together Monday morning
for a unique tribute to the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The event, titled Where Do We Go from Here? Strengthening the
Bonds between the African-American and Jewish Communities, was co-sponsored
by the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, the
Lawndale community’s Stone Temple Baptist Church, The Firehouse Community Arts
Center and the North Lawndale Historical and Cultural Society. The program
included reflections on Dr. King’s legacy and on the relationship between the Jewish
and African-American communities, and the singing of songs and spirituals.
Leaders from Chicago's Jewish and African-American communities gather for a tribute to Dr. King. (Left to right: Charles Leeks, Director of Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago; Skip Schrayer, Chairman of the Jewish Community Relations Council; Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus of Homewood; John Fountain, columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times; Bishop Derrick M. Fitzpatrick and Pastor Phil Jackson of Stone Temple Baptist Church.)
“The Jewish community has
long admired the extraordinary work and legacy of Dr. King, and we marched
side-by-side in pursuit of full equality and justice for all humankind,” said
Skip Schrayer, Chairman of JUF’s Jewish Community Relations Council. “Today’s
program is a continuation of the Jewish and African-American communities coming
together to celebrate social justice, and we look forward to more opportunities
for collaboration in the years to come.”
Speakers at the event
included author and Chicago Sun-Times columnist
John Fountain, and Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus of B’nai Yehuda Beth Sholom
synagogue in Homewood, the first female rabbi to be ordained in Illinois and a
past president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. Both spoke of the
shared history of Jews and African-Americans in the civil rights movement, and
urged the two communities to honor that heritage by once again coming together
to fight for ongoing social change in Chicago’s struggling neighborhoods.
“We are called to revitalize
those partnerships that brought our communities together in common cause. We
need to build on our successes and strengthen our coalitions,” Dreyfus said in
her remarks. “Dr. King taught us: ‘If you can’t fly, then run. If you can’t
run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl. But whatever you do, you have to
keep moving forward’.”
Fountain, too, spoke about
the importance of keeping up the forward momentum.
“We stand today as tangible
fruit of [Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s] dream, as heirs of the promise,” he
said. “Still, I hear the question begging: Where do we go from here? The answer
is simple. In the prophetic words of Dr. King – ‘toward chaos, or toward
community?’ – I say we must choose community. For our survival as one nation,
indivisible, under God, is tied irrevocably to the survival and redemption of
us all.”
The program also included a
performance by the Kenwood Academy Choir, and a speech from Cherenity Person,
an eighth grade student at the Herzl School of Excellence who highlighted the legacies
of both Theodore Herzl and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the North Lawndale
community.
“The spirit of freedom
resides in my school and in my neighborhood,” Person said. “I see it in the
quality of my education and in the way my teachers prepare me daily for success
in college and beyond. As I walk down Hamlin just past 15th Street,
I am reminded that the soles of Dr. King’s shoes once walked these streets,
too. The same freedom and justice that he pursued, we still pursue today. I
truly believe that myself and my peers will indeed make it to the mountaintop.”
Prior to the event, volunteers
from both communities took part in a special service program as part of the JUF
Hunger Awareness Project, preparing and serving a hot breakfast to more than
100 people in the Lawndale neighborhood.
“Every year, we look for an
opportunity to volunteer on Martin Luther King Day,” said Edie Canter, who
volunteered through JUF’s TOV Volunteer Network. “It’s very nice to be here.
People have been very welcoming.”
Event organizers chose Stone
Temple Baptist Church to host the day’s festivities because of the unique
history of the North Lawndale community, and the Stone Temple building itself. Stars of David still adorn the architecture of
the church, heralding back to the generations when North Lawndale was home to so
many Jews that it was known as “Chicago Jerusalem,” and was the early
stomping ground of Jewish leaders such as former Israeli Prime Minister Golda
Meir, and musician Benny Goodman. The neighborhood also
served as a base for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s affordable housing campaign in the late 1960s.
Though few Jews live in the
neighborhood today, many of the community’s African-American residents say they
look back fondly on their childhood memories of growing up in an integrated black
and Jewish neighborhood.
Blanche Killingsworth, chair
of the North Lawndale Historical and Cultural Society, and her husband Eric, an
engineer for Chicago Public Schools, both grew up in North Lawndale in the
1960s, and said they recall Jewish neighbors inviting their families
to dinner and teaching their parents to make Jewish staples such as gefilte
fish and kishke.
“This is a day, not only are
we representing Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we are coming together,
we are all coming back home together, reuniting,” Blanche said. “Because the
misconceptions that a lot of people have about blacks and Jews are simply not
true. We lived here in the community together. A lot of the Jewish people
slowly disappeared, and a lot of them we miss, just like I’m pretty sure they
miss us. This is a day of unity, and it’s a good thing.”
Members of the JUF community
agreed, and said they were proud to be a part of the event.
“This morning was as inspiring
as it was heartwarming,” said attorney Michael H. Traison. “If JUF only
supported Israel’s welfare and security, dayenu
[it would be enough]. If JUF only cared for the needs of our local
community, dayenu. If JUF only provided much needed support to
Jewish communities around the globe, dayenu. But that JUF does this, and fights for social
justice for all mankind and so much more, is a miracle of our time.”
View additional photos from the event here.
