Opinion
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Ezra Greenberg plants a
tree in Israel during the
summer of 1998. He's Jack
Greenberg's son and Debbie
Keith's father's law clerk.
He later wanted to honor
Debbie's mother and asked
that a ring of three trees be
planted in the Coretta Scott
King forest in Israel.
Civil Rights Pioneers' Common Cause
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday (Jan.
15) will be celebrated Jan. 21 this year.
N
of many women are fond of tell-
ing their age, but I am a child
of the 1960s and proud of it.
Why? My parents, U.S. Circuit Court Judge
Damon J. Keith of Detroit and the late Dr.
Rachel Boone Keith,
were at the fore-
front of that era's
struggle for racial
equality, working
with the National
Association for
the Advancement
of Colored People
(NAACP) and the
National Urban
League.
Living through
that special time
made a strong
impression on me, so that as an adult I
cherish the common bonds of humanity
that join all people together.
For his efforts to defend blacks, my
father received the NAACP's highest honor,
the Spingarn Medal, while my soft-spoken
mother worked several decades with the
NAACP's women's committee. In recogni-
tion of her commitment and diligence
to "the struggle:' the National Urban
League will award her posthumously with
a Distinguished Warrior medal at their
spring fundraising dinner. Importantly,
she showed how quiet strength can be dis-
arming and effective. As the saying goes,
"She walked gently, but carried a big stick!"
Sadly, my mother passed unexpectedly
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January 17 • 2008
iN
last January; but the
Cabinet minister.
civil rights mission
Sharansky wrote
to which she and
after arriving in Israel
my father were both
in 1986: "Your help and
committed is still an
support ever since we
imperative. Their past
first met in Moscow all
efforts to reach out to
those years ago has been
the Jewish people is a
a vital part of the cam-
story that especially
paign which has now
begs to be told. We
succeeded in bringing
can all benefit from
me home!'
lessons learned from
To her credit, my
my parents' positive
mother, in her humble
experience with Jews
and unassuming way,
Rachel and Damon Keith
and African Americans
was able to treat the
striving to secure civil
famous dissident for an
rights for all people.
eye ailment during her visit to Moscow,
Consider the friendship between
one of her famous "house calls" which
Deborah and Jack Greenberg, former
took her the farthest way from home.
NAACP legal defense counsel of New York, I'd like to think that while treating him
and my parents. As champions for free-
physically, she was able to also give him
dom, the two men met as both fought with spiritual "eyesight" — the hope of finding
the NAACP to end the Jim Crow system in
freedom.
the 1960s; and the friends are knit togeth-
er with a bond of solidarity and respect
Foxhole Brothers
for the defense of each other's race.
During the visit to the Soviet Union, my
Jack Greenberg has long been an
father was constantly asked why he, an
ardent proponent of full civil rights for
African-American man, would be inter-
African Americans, and my father has
ested in the fate of Jews. "It was a matter
been rewarded for his friendship with
of conscience to help support those who
the Jewish people with an honor from the
have been 'foxhole brothers' to African
Anti-Defamation League.
Americans in matters of civil rights;' he
This mission of defending human rights replied. "I am a supporter of freedom and
would eventually take the two couples far
democracy for all. No distance is too great
away in 1976. They traveled together to the to travel to help ensure this precious right!'
Soviet Union to help support and bolster
Similarly, Jack Greenberg's effective legal
the morale of the well-known dissidents,
advocacy on behalf of African Americans
Dr. Andrei Sakharov, a nuclear scientist
has begged the question of why a Jew
who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975,
would be so passionate about the rights
and Natan Sharansky, who was finally able of another minority group. Mr. Greenberg,
to emigrate to Israel and later became a
now a Columbia University law profes-
sor, is both altruistic and practical. "The
Jewish tradition encourages us to uphold
social justice for the oppressed and dis-
advantaged. By securing the rights of the
disenfranchised, I am protecting the voice
of all to be represented in society."
As one of my father's former law clerks,
Greenberg's son Ezra witnessed the col-
legiality over time between Deborah and
Jack and my father and mother. When my
mother died, he requested that a ring of
three trees be planted in the Coretta Scott
King Forest in Israel in honor of her. This
recognition would have touched my moth-
er deeply since it is reserved for those
special ones among us who have success-
fully and tirelessly worked for "equality
and peace."
This beautiful symbolic gesture also -
epitomizes the friendship between two
couples who have fought, and continue
to fight, many battles to help not only
African Americans and Jews, but all those
who wish to enjoy the full benefits of
democracy.
Wishful thinking? Perhaps not. "Nothing
beats a failure, but a try" Let's give it our
best — or die trying, just like my dear
mother. ❑
Debbie Keith, daughter of Judge and Dr. Keith
and a Princeton University graduate, lives
in Detroit. She works as a public relations
professional. She is interested in fostering
a new generation of Jewish and African-
American activists such as the Jewish Fund-
sponsored Emerging Leaders group at New
Detroit Inc. In this community-based initiative,
socially conscious Jews and African Americans
work together to ensure racial harmony and
economic development for Detroit.