When it comes to the relationship between blacks and Jews, Martin Luther King III will be the first to admit that things are far from perfect.
Still, “We’re at a much better place than we were,” King said Feb. 16 during a program at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco.
“We’ve come some distance from where we were in the mid-90s,” added King, the second-oldest child of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, “but there’s still a body of work to be done. That broader body has to do with race in general.”
King was one of the featured speakers at “Cooperation and Conflict: African Americans and Jews,” a program of the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Center for Adult Living and Learning at the JCCSF. About 150 people attended the event, many mingling afterward for a book signing and reception.
A human rights advocate, community activist and political leader, King, 52, has been actively involved in initiatives to maintain the fair and equitable treatment for all citizens, domestically and abroad.
In 2006, King founded Realizing the Dream, an Atlanta-based nonprofit aimed at eliminating poverty, building community and fostering peace through nonviolence.
Joining King in conversation was Rabbi Marc Schneier, an Orthodox rabbi and president and co-founder of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. The New York–based organization believes direct, face-to-face dialogue between leaders of ethnic communities is the most effective path toward the reduction of bigotry.
Longtime civil rights attorney Robert Rubin moderated the discussion, which covered topics such as the historical relationship between blacks and Jews; the Middle East and terrorism; education; and what effect the current political climate, namely the election of President Barack Obama and the rise of the Tea Party movement, will have on black-Jewish relations.
Before making predictions about the future, King and Schneier discussed the past, specifically American Jews’ involvement in the civil rights movement.
“During the civil rights struggle, no sect of American society provided as much consistent support to Dr. King and the African American community than the Jewish community,” Schneier said. “There was an extraordinary partnership between African Americans and Jews that brought social and political changes in the history of our nation.”
Today the issue of race is still “very real” in society, said King, adding that a “just system” — one with equal access to all regardless of race or ethnicity — would not be possible without a reformed education system, to start.
“Something is wrong when young children are dropping out of school,” King noted. “If you create an appropriate system of education, the issue of race becomes less of an issue. We need to be teaching the history of all people who make up society.”
Schneier acknowledged that members of the Jewish community “lead very privileged lives” in the United States and need to “heighten their sensitivity” when it comes to the basic issues of blacks, Latinos and other minority groups — such as education, job security and economic empowerment.
“The key is to respect the stranger,” Schneier said. “We too were strangers in the land of Egypt. We need to see each and every person as a human being who is a child of God and entitled to be treated with the dignity, justice and compassion that [Jews] claim for ourselves.”
The two-hour discussion, which included a Q&A session, ended on a light-hearted note, with King reminiscing about his family’s conversations at the breakfast table before church on Sunday mornings.
“The discussion was always insightful,” recalled King, who was 10 when his father was assassinated in 1968. “He was a father who always wanted to know what was going on with the children. We’d talk about school and he would share what he had done in Mississippi and Alabama. I believe my dad grew beyond a civil rights leader to a human rights leader before his death.”