From Left to Right: Tim Murphy, Chairman, National Urban League, Vinita Clements, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer for Nationwide, Wally Adeyemo, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Treasury, Marc Morial, President, National Urban League, and Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL CEO and National Director.
As delivered on July 28, 2023 in Houston, TX
Good morning everyone. As Mark said, my name is Jonathan Greenblatt, I am the CEO and National Director of the Anti-Defamation League. ADL is the oldest anti-hate organization in America and we fight antisemitism and bigotry here in the US and around the world.
I am honored to be here today, and want to thank my good friend, my partner, Marc Morial, for the invitation to join all of you. For Marc…for the Urban League…I would not hesitate to fly down to join you…in Houston…in summer…during a heat wave.
But the truth is, though, I don’t need to fly down to Houston to see Marc because he and I are working together all the time.
Whether it’s pushing the White House to hold that summit on hate crimes, creating a new coalition that we launched to protect our houses of worships, HBCUS, and JCCS, or just last week, relaunching the Congressional Caucus on Black-Jewish Relations, ADL and the Urban League are working side-by-side to fight bigotry and hate.
Now, there are those who can’t understand, and I hear from them, why either side would work with each other.
They say to me, why are you focused on this?
To them, I say this: Tops Supermarket in Buffalo. Tree of Life in Pittsburgh. Mother AME in Charleston. 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, a Chabad in Poway, and Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville just down the road.
If they don’t remember these places as sites of horrific anti-black and anti-Jewish violence. I’d remind them that ADL’s annual Online Hate and Harassment Survey found that, in 2023, Black Americans experienced the highest rates of harassment of any racial or ethnic group online. Think about that. This is all of you. It’s your children. Your grandchildren. I’d also remind them that last year, we recorded the highest number of antisemitic incidents since we began tracking anti-Jewish acts more than four decades ago. And I’d tell them that the fates of the Black and Jewish communities are intertwined, we are the shared strands of DNA encoded into the very fabric of America.
Because it’s unfortunate that anti-black racism is alive and well, that anti-Jewish hate is alive and well. And we at ADL believe deeply…fiercely…that you got to battle both if you really want to win. Our communities will never be safe if all of us aren’t equally safe. This country, this union can’t live up to its promise if any of us is denigrated… demonized… dehumanized… and made to live in fear because of how we look, or where we pray, or who we love.
And, I know that sometimes, of late, it might feel like that we can’t make progress… that prejudice is everywhere and that the racists and bigots are winning… or even that our two communities are paralyzed by misunderstanding, and there are those that say there is more that divides us than what unites us.
And I know those sentiments can be dispiriting, I know. But, I also know that this is not the reality. It’s not what happens when people actually talk and meet and spend time with each other.
I see that in the work that I do with Marc and the Urban League.
And I see it in my own life.
And I see it with my friendship with Nick Cannon. Some of you may know, Nick. He’s a busy man. Got a few kids.
Now, it may surprise you that we are very close friends. After all, Nick is a famous singer, TV host, standup comedian, and radio DJ who was once married to mega-superstar Mariah Carey.
And, I’m…. well... not quite any of that. But I put my wife up next to Mariah Carey every day of the week.
But for the past few years, Nick and I, we talk every Sunday. Every single Sunday.
Why is that?
Because we have a lot to learn from each other.
It’s a long story, but the short version is, back in summer 2020, Nick said some things about the Jewish community that not only were just wrong, they were hurtful.
I called him out. And then he called me up -- to come by and talk. To learn. To understand.
See, Nick -- and I -- both deeply believe in counsel culture, not cancel culture.
This means that, when someone makes a mistake, you don’t push them away. You pull them in.
You engage rather than disengage.
You extend your hand and help the offender to make amends so that, together, you can make a difference.
Our conversations, and that shared belief, came together in a podcast we now host together every month. On his own dime, Nick flies out from LA a whole production crew. They set up in my conference room. We then invite folks like best-selling author Michael Eric Dyson, sports personality Stephen A. Smith, radio host Shelley Wade and lots of others to join us and we tackle tough issues and talk about confronting difference and creating change, bridging communities, because that’s the work that we do together.
We do this because we need to be there for each other. We can’t fight alone.
It’s why I was honored to be asked to co-host next month the 60th Anniversary of the March on Washington, and why I can’t wait to stand with my brother, Marc Morial, with Rev. Al Sharpton, with Martin Luther King Jr. III, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to honor the legacy of giants like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel; to remember the sacrifice of heroes like Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman; heroes like Ben Epstein and Roy Wilkins. Heroes who stood there when it was hard, who marched against hate and who gave us all hope. And Mark, and Rev. Al and I will rededicate all of us to the work ahead.
So, Marc, and my friends here in the Urban League, please keep up your work…please do not back down… please do not relent on the fight. And know that your allies at ADL will be there with you, every step of the way.
Thank you so much.