12 | JUNE 1 • 2023
Jim Crow laws enacted after the Civil
War trampled the rights of Black res-
idents of the South. Later, peaceful
protesters trying to desegregate schools
and lunch counters, as well as volun-
teers attempting to register African
Americans to vote, were subjected to
fire hoses, attack dogs and beatings.
Many were jailed and some were killed.
After African Americans were repeat-
edly turned away from voter regis-
tration offices in Alabama, a protest
march from Selma to the state capital,
Montgomery, was planned in 1965.
However, when the voting rights sup-
porters crossed the Edmund Pettus
Bridge, they were attacked and brutally
beaten. The march was televised across
the nation, prompting public support
for Civil Rights marchers and the vot-
ing rights campaign. After this “Bloody
Sunday,” protestors were granted the
right to march and two more marches
for voting rights followed.
For Marcy Feldman, the trip was “val-
idating what the Friends do for the stu-
dents and families at Pasteur. I learned
more about systemic racism, mass
incarceration and modern-day lynch-
ings by shooting. My hope is that more
people offer the gift of tutoring children
from low-income families so that they
can uplift their own families.
“Many families are low-income and
struggling. It all goes back to their
history.”
For information about the Friends of Pasteur, visit
www.friendsofpasteur.org.
continued from page 11
OUR COMMUNITY
ON THE COVER
“MANY FAMILIES ARE
LOW-INCOME
AND STRUGGLING. IT
ALL GOES BACK
TO THEIR HISTORY.”
— MARCY FELDMAN
T
hose grainy black-and-white pho-
tos of the Civil Rights movement
in the 1960s are forever seared
in our national psyche. They capture the
many horrors of those years: the attack
dogs, car bombings, bus bombings,
church bombings, lynchings, tear gas,
racist taunts, fire hoses, frightened chil-
dren. America cannot hide from those
photos. That’s who we were.
Confronting a shameful past is a painful
exercise for a nation, but it’s the only way to
evolve and heal. Germany had to confront
the Holocaust. Rwanda had to confront
its national genocide, and America has to
confront its sins during the Civil Rights
movement.
But reading about our nation’s past sins
is a far cry from actually seeing the places
where they occurred. In three jammed-
packed days, 24 members and guests of
the Coalition for Black and Jewish Unity
— half from each community and half of
those pastors and rabbis — visited many
Coalition for
Black and
Jewish Unity of
Detroit embarks
on tour of Civil
Rights sites.
MARK JACOBS
SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
Heading
South
continued on page 14
The group poses
before the Ebenezer
Baptist Church