Jim Crow’s polite sons

Ned Rosch gave this speech last Sunday January 18 at a community-wide service & celebration of Dr. King’s legacy held at the First AME Zion Church in Portland, OR.

There’s an African proverb that says that only when lions write history will hunters cease to be the heroes. As we tell the story, all too often of great men – and all too rarely of great women – we must remember that history is really made by the thousands of people whose names we don’t know who became lions, and like many in this room, chronicled, through struggle, a compelling piece of our story. There’s no Dr. King without Fanny Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael and so many others who heroically wrote and re-wrote history – some with their lives.

But today we celebrate Dr. King. You know some people try to wrap the 1963 March on Washington and King’s most famous speech in the flag as if Americans of all stripes came together on that day to challenge the nightmare of racism. But we should be careful not to confuse nostalgia with history. In fact, that march was a radical, multi-racial, dissident act that became an imperative when a bomb in Birmingham tore apart 4 precious young girls.

President Kennedy didn’t want that March to happen. The Justice Department put a kill switch on the mike that day for fear that someone would call for insurrection. If that had happened, the government’s plan was to play Mahalia Jackson singing, “He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands”. They policed the March as if it were a military operation. There were helicopters and 30,000 troops ready to descend on the Mall if violence broke out. There was no violence that day. Only 3 people were arrested. All 3 were white.

There have always been courageous people who fearlessly stood their ground against racism, but in the remarkable historical moment that Dr. King helped to coalesce, their numbers reached a critical mass. The striking difference between, on the one hand, what Dr. King and others were demanding, and, on the other, the reality of life in the U.S. made America look more like a slum on the wrong side of history than a shining city on the hill. But the disparity between Black and white employment today is the same as it was in 1963. And the discrepancy between white wealth and Black wealth is actually greater now than in ’63.

In fairness, we would be disrespecting the memory of Dr. King and thousands of others if we said that nothing has changed. But we’d be dishonoring them if we said we’ve come anywhere close to reaching the goal. We need not a nostalgic stroll down memory lane, but a renewed, re-invigorated, impassioned and huge collective demand that Black Lives Matter, that when police kill, they go on trial like people in this church would, if they left a man lying in a pool of blood on a street for 4 and a half hours.

By 1968, Dr. King knew that his time was almost up, so he worked aggressively to galvanize the Poor Peoples’ Campaign. He and thousands of others were going to build a tent encampment on the National Mall that they would call Resurrection City. They were going to live there until they embarrassed Congress to take seriously the issue of poverty in this country. Memphis, where he was cut down, was a test case exploring income inequality. Dr. King never got to dwell in Resurrection City. But his powerful words dwell in virtually every village and town on this planet and continue to inspire. In his short 39 years, he boldly demonstrated that, even if they may never be fully achieved, freedom, justice and equality are ideals that we dedicate our lives to –- through sitting, standing, marching, singing, protesting, struggling, praying, dancing and writing our story of that glorious journey.

Dr. King courageously taught us the imperative of connecting the issues with, as he put it, “the fierce urgency of now”. In his words, “The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and racism.” In 1967 he declared, “We must restructure the whole of American society. Why are there tens of millions of people living in poverty in America? We are called on to help the desperate beggars in life’s marketplace, but what we need to do is question the edifice that produces beggars in the first place.”

In 1955 Emmett Till, a 14 year old African-American was murdered for reportedly flirting with a white woman. In spite of the fact that Emmett Till was savagely killed, his mother insisted that there be an open casket so the world would see the horrific ugliness of American racism. We all know that Jim Crow of 1955 had a son and this son is more polite. He put his robe in the closet. But his lineage is clear. He’s far more subtle and sophisticated, but no less deadly. Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Kendra James, James Chasse, Aaron Campbell and so many others gunned down by police are our generation’s Emmett Till.

Dr. King’s words profoundly inspire me, as a Jewish American, to understand the connection that Nelson Mandela, expressed, “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” Dr. King’s life deeply motivates me to proudly stand as a Jew in solidarity with my Palestinian sisters and brothers who are brutally oppressed under Israeli occupation, siege and military aggression. My active support of the Palestinian struggle resonates with more integrity when I as a white person stand in unconditional solidarity with Black Lives Matter and Don’t Shoot Portland and all struggles for the dignity that every precious woman, man and child deserve.

Dr. King, who spoke to – and touched – the depths of who we are, must never be tamed. It’s time for the lions to write some more history! If not now, then when? If not here, then where? And if not us, then who?