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Speaking With One Voice

CREDIT: ANDREA STINSON – STILLS BY STINSON

Inaugural event
for the Coalition
for Black and
Jewish Unity
inspires passion
to fight racism
and anti-
Semitism.

David Kurzmann, Rabbi Daniel Syme and Rev. Kenneth J. Flowers enjoy the program.

SHARI S. COHEN
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

TOP: Coalition for Black and Jewish
Unity leadership team: Mark Jacobs,
AIPAC, Michigan Director of African-
American Outreach; Rev. DeeDee M.
Coleman, president, Council of Baptist
Pastors of Detroit and Vicinity; David
Kurzmann, executive director, Jewish
Community Relations Council/AJC; and
Rev. Kenneth J. Flowers, Greater New
Mt. Moriah Missionary Baptist Church.

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March 1 • 2018

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ewish baby boomers and their parents may remember the
famous photo of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel arm-in-arm
with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights lead-
ers during the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., to pro-
test segregation. Jewish participants were a major force within the
civil rights movement, serving as volunteers in voter registration
drives, lawyers working to free jailed protesters, and supporters of
the NAACP and the Urban League.
But, in the decades since the civil rights era, some of the positive
connections among African Americans and Jews have been eroded
by criticism of Israel; the anti-Semitism of Rev. Louis Farrakhan, a
prominent black leader; and the out-migration of many Jews (and
other whites) from cities where many black residents lived.
“That coalition slipped into a coma and was on life support.
God has resurrected this coalition so we can pool our resources
socially, economically and politically,” said Rev. Kenneth J. Flowers
of Detroit’s Greater New Mt. Moriah Missionary Baptist Church at
the coalition’s first event.
In recent years, many Detroit-area synagogues, temples and
other Jewish nonprofit organizations, as well as the Jewish News,
have worked to build relationships with African American

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More than 150 people attended the coalition’s inaugural event.

churches and the black community through social action and
urban improvement projects. Now, two leading organizations, the
Council of Baptist Pastors of Detroit and Vicinity and the Jewish
Community Relations Council/AJC, have formed a new partner-
ship, the Coalition for Black and Jewish Unity.
An inaugural event, attended by 160 invited individuals from
both communities, was held Feb. 19, during Black History Month,
at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in
Detroit.
“We are not re-inventing; we are amplifying what exists,”
explained David Kurzmann, co-chair of the new coalition and
executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council/
AJC. “We are stronger together, and this will be a platform to speak
from. The Council of Baptist Ministers has significant influence,
and Rev. DeeDee M. Coleman is a great friend of the Jewish com-
munity. We are the conveners, not limiting the organizations in the
coalition,” he said.
“We should have one voice to have more impact. When things
happen in our city, in this world, we can speak to it. Martin Luther
King Jr. molded the two communities together. The Jewish people
stood with us and died with us,” Coleman reminded the audience.