Metro

R. KING'S LEGACY

Coming Together

Jews, blacks join in recalling civil rights struggle and acknowledging the work left to do.

Robert Sklar
Editor

H

ow fitting that we met at
Congregation Shaarey Zedek in
Southfield to commemorate the
legacy of America's foremost champion of
civil rights and a man who freely spoke
out against hatred of Jews and anti-
Zionism: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Standing in SZ's adult chapel at the
Detroit Jewish community's annual
Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration
on Jan. 14, the day before what would
have been the slain civil rights activist's
81st birthday, Southfield Mayor Brenda
Lawrence smiled when asked what this
Jewish-black gathering in the heart of her
city meant.
"This isn't new:' said
Lawrence, a friend
of the Jewish com-
munity and a political
leader who has relied
on Jewish support not
only in her campaigns,
but also in charting the Brenda
Lawrence
city's future. "It's the
expectation now, which
is confirming and energizing."
She added, "People talk about Dr.
King's dream; we can talk about the real-
ity of it — the successes. For example,
both of our communities here today, the
African American and Jewish communi-
ties, have come together often and with
purpose."
Lawrence, first elected in 2001 as
Southfield's first black and woman mayor,
talked proudly about how it's okay to be
different in Southfield, a racially and eth-
nically diverse city of 75,000 residents.
"People here have dignity for one
another:' she said, pointing to the day
schools, the synagogues and other Jewish
organizations that have located in the
city.
Whether the focus is government,
community or faith, blacks and Jews have
respected their differences as they go
about their day, she said.
That's born out by the black communi-
ty quickly rallying around Jews who have
been assaulted in their neighborhoods
and the Jewish community actively sup-
porting Lawrence initiatives to make the
city a better place to do business and
raise a family.

18

January 21 • 2010

Shared Bonds
Rabbi Joseph H. Krakoff and Rev. Oscar W.
King III, a Jew and a black, gave remarks
at the commemoration, hosted by Shaarey
Zedek. Seventy-five Jews and non-Jews
who work in the Jewish community
attended. Both the rabbi and the pastor
have nurtured their friendship over the
past five years. Krakoff is president of the
Michigan Board of Rabbis; King presides
over the Council of Baptist Pastors of
Detroit and Vicinity.
Krakoff described Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. as "an inheritor of the great biblical
tradition" who "stood up to authority in the
fight for peace, justice and freedom from
racism, prejudice and hatred of all kinds."
"We are the heirs of that legacy',' Krakoff
added. "Dr. King understood the urgency
of his time and worked tirelessly to convey
that sense of urgency to others:'
Krakoff retraced Dr. King's journey,
citing Alabama flash points that took the
minister to "Montgomery to affirm human
dignity and courage, to Birmingham to
defeat the sickness of separating human
life, to Selma to ensure the quality of peo-
ple in human affairs — and to a hundred
other communities, to extirpate the pain-
ful shackles of oppression."
"Even when death was confronted as
his journey reached Memphis:' Krakoff
said, "Dr. King could say that he was on
the precipice of achieving the holy vision
of liberation, a time in the not-so-distant
future where we truly saw each other as
brothers and sisters in equality, created
together in the image of God."
Rev. Oscar King, who leads Northwest
Unity Baptist Church in Detroit, said he is
"deeply troubled about the attitude of the
public policy of this nation when it comes
to the treatment of all of its citizens."
Locally, he pointed to the drug problem,
which is more prevalent in the suburbs
than the central city although it's Detroit
that gets the bad rap. On a national
scale, he said he was tired of "two-tiered
economic and social systems where the
preferred tier is always resting on the
shoulders of the underclass, the under-
represented, the under-lawyered and those
under the pressure of trying to survive in
a world where there is no earthly prescrip-
tion to cure hatred."
He reflected on what has transpired

Coming Together on page 19

"No one observing the history of
the church in America can deny the
shameful fact that it has been an
accomplice in structuring racism
into the architecture of American
society. The church, by and large,
sanctioned slavery and surrounded it with the halo
of moral respectability ... Of course, there have
been marvelous exceptions. Over the last five years,
many religious bodies — Catholic, Protestant and
Jewish — have been in the vanguard of the civil
rights struggle and have sought desperately to make
the ethical insights of our Judeo-Christian heritage
relevant on the question of race."

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his 1967 book 'Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos Or Community?'

-mama

Rev. Oscar W. King III: "N o, Dr. King,

Rabbi Joseph H. Krakoff: "Dr. King was

things are not the way they used to be.

on the precipice of achieving the holy

I cannot say for sure, but I can imagine

vision of liberation, a time in the not-so-

that if you could come back and see

distant future where we truly saw each

what we have done to this legacy, you

other as brothers and sisters in equality,

would be very disappointed."

created together in the image of God."