Newsweek
By: Derrick Johnson and Rabbi Marc Schneier
President and CEO of the NAACP; President of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding
February 01, 2022
You may wonder why the president and CEO of the NAACP and a prominent New York rabbi are joining forces for Black History Month. The answer is simple: Today, our communities are facing increased discrimination, violence and prejudice. These are the same threats which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., together with Black and Jewish activists, fought tirelessly to dismantle six decades ago. There is an urgent need for reinvigorating and re-energizing the Black-Jewish alliance to help tackle the challenges we now face.
Take, for example, our shared and cherished right to choose our democratic leaders. We must contend with the Supreme Court’s severe blows to the landmark Voting Rights Act, which have reduced the ability of the federal government and federal courts to protect Americans from practices designed to impede their access to the ballot.
In Georgia, people can now be charged with a crime for handing out water or snacks to voters waiting in line at the polls. In Iowa and Kansas, assisting voters with disabilities in casting their ballots can mean criminal charges. The ongoing voter suppression campaign is no less of a threat to our democratic institutions than the January 6 Capitol rioters.
The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act represented the best path forward to protecting this bedrock right of our republic. We saw it fail in Congress, but we must revive it. The bill would ensure a federal review for any changes to voting rules that could discriminate against voters based on race, ethnicity, or language minority status, and require officials to announce publicly all voting changes at least six months before an election so as not to obstruct voters. All Americans, but especially Blacks and Jews, have a critical interest in seeing such legislation pass.
As Dr. King declared about voting rights more than two generations ago, “the denial of this sacred right is a tragic betrayal of the highest mandates of our democratic tradition.” This month, we call on the United States Senate to respect the memory of Dr. King and all those who came before him and reconstitute the Voting Rights Act.
Blacks and Jews should work together to lead this effort, and our two organizations—the NAACP and the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding—are strengthening our cooperation to ensure all American citizens can participate in our democracy. For when it comes to protecting our democratic institutions and freedoms, in particular voting rights, our alliance has a noble history.
One of the most notable examples is the 1964 Freedom Summer, a voter registration drive, driven by Black and Jewish activists, aimed at increasing the number of registered Black voters in Mississippi and fighting against intimidation and discrimination at the polls.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holds a picture of three missing civil rights workers, Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman (l to r) during a press conference. The bodies of the three men were later found near Philadelphia, Mississippi. GETTY IMAGES
Prior to the Freedom Summer, several civil rights organizations—NAACP, SCLC, SNCC & CORE—had organized under the banner of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) so that they could present a strong and coordinated front in Mississippi, then considered to be the most recalcitrant, racist state in the country.
COFO was led by African American veteran civil rights worker, Bob Moses. In July 1963, Allard Lowenstein—the son of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants—offered Moses his help. Lowenstein had been an assistant dean and political science lecturer at Stanford University and taught at the University of North Carolina.
These two individuals, a Black American and a Jewish American, conceived a plan to hold a mock election to test the effectiveness of COFO’s voter registration program. Without the constraints imposed by the Mississippi racist electoral system, the “Freedom Vote” attracted a sizable Black turnout. Encouraged by the success, a more ambitious scheme was put into action to demonstrate the corrupt voting practices in Mississippi, which were installing only white candidates into office.
Thousands of white volunteers from the North joined African Americans for the Mississippi Freedom Summer voter registration drive. More than 50 percent of the volunteers were Jews.
Among those who traveled south that Summer were a 21-year-old New Yorker who was studying at Queens College, Andrew Goodman; 24-year-old Michael Schwerner and his wife Rita, a civil rights workers for CORE; and James Chaney, a 21-year-old African American man from Meridian, Mississippi. The three men, Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner, tragically lost their lives at the hands of brutal white supremacists.
The Black-Jewish alliance during that time and the sacrifices made by both communities ultimately increased awareness about voter discrimination that led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
This month offers yet another opportunity for our respective communities to unite and address voter inequality and injustice. We applaud the many Black and Jewish organizations, and Black and Jewish religious leaders who mobilized in support of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. We must not relent, and while today’s Congress presents many obstacles, we can still overcome.
Derrick Johnson is President and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Rabbi Marc Schneier is President of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, and author of Shared Dreams: Martin Luther King, Jr. & the Jewish Community.
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