August 26, 2023
As delivered
Good afternoon. Good afternoon! What a pleasure it is to see all of you, here at the Mall, standing up for justice.
I stand here on behalf of ADL, a century-old anti-hate organization. That fights bigotry, that fights antisemitism that fights hatred of all types.
From the very start of the modern civil rights movement, ADL leadership stood, shoulder to shoulder, with our friends in the Black community.
In 1963, we came here to this place alongside Dr. King and so many other leaders, to demand equal rights, justice and fair treatment to all.
Now today, we’ve come here once again to demand equal rights, justice and fair treatment to all.
Because we know – that hate still exists…
And the work of fighting hate — together — continues.
You know in 2023, that shouldn't be a controversial opinion. But we know there are some who think that it is.
We all know family and friends… colleagues and neighbors… elected officials… who look at the relationship between the Black and Jewish communities… and all they see are the tense times… and the differences of opinion.
And it wouldn’t be honest if we did not recognize that there are some differences.
But it wouldn’t be true to our faiths if we did not confront them… and help those who are stubborn in their stereotypes and loose with their tongues to understand when and why they are wrong.
Because too often, when someone makes a mistake or speaks out of turn, we push them away, when we got to pull them in. We eject them, rather than embrace them.
Too often, we engage in a cancel culture, when what we actually need is a counsel culture.
And when we pull them close, when we embrace them, when we counsel them, we’ve got to educate them about our history.
…the history of how Blacks and Jews struggled alongside one another to make America a more fair, more just, more tolerant country.
Because they don’t know the work of Julius Rosenwald and Booker T Washington… They don’t remember the sacrifices of Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman… They don’t appreciate the bond that united Rabbi Heschel and Reverend King…
And what they don’t see is the truth of our world today – that Jewish activists are on the front line of fighting for civil rights for African Americans… and that Black leaders are standing side by side with Jewish Americans…
We stand together because we know that, in the very same breath, those who spew ugly anti-Black racism on our airwaves, in our newsfeeds, in our communities, so often also spew vicious, vile antisemitism. And make no mistake, that goes both ways.
You see, the bigotry that fueled the shooting at the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, it also fueled the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. The massacre at the Tops Supermarket in Buffalo was preceded by a slaughter at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City.
And in 2017 when there were no very fine people, the racists who marched to protest the long overdue removal of Robert E. Lee’s statue in Charlottesville , they screamed, “Jews will not replace us.”
You see, the fates of the Black and Jewish communities are intertwined.
They are indivisible.
That’s why for more than a century, ADL has believed fiercely that you can’t fight antisemitism without countering anti-black racism and hate against other groups. We do so because we know communities will never be safe unless we’re all safe. Our country will never live up to its promise if one group is denigrated… demonized… dehumanized… and made to live in fear.
60 years ago, right before Dr. King spoke here on these steps, in this place — A leader in our community Rabbi Prinz said right here from these steps, a few important words:
“When God created man, he created him as everybody’s neighbor. Neighbor is not a geographic term. It is a moral concept. It means our collective responsibility for the preservation of our dignity and integrity.”
Sixty years later, my friends, these words still resonate. They tell us: stand up in the face of hate… speak out and don’t stand idly by…
So please keep up your work…never back down… And know that your friends at ADL will be there with you every step of the way.