It is time to re-order our national priorities. All those who now speak of good will and praise the work of such groups as the President’s Commission* now have the responsibility to stand up and act for the social changes that are necessary to conquer racism in America. If we as a society fail, I fear that we will learn very shortly that racism is a sickness unto death.
— “DR. KING CALLS FOR ACTION AGAINST POVERTY AND RACISM CITED IN RIOT STUDY; POOR PEOPLE’S CAMPAIGN STARTS APRIL 22 IN WASHINGTON,” 3/4/68 SCLC press release (see King archives)*Nat’l Advisory Commission on Civil Disorder (report summary)
The president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference continues, calling racism a “congenital deformity” of the United States:
Ever since the birth of our nation, white America has had a schizophrenic personality on the question of race. She has been torn between selves—a self in which she proudly professed the great principles of democracy and a self in which she sadly practiced the antithesis of democracy. This tragic duality has produced a strange indecisiveness and ambivalence toward the Negro, causing America to take a step backward simultaneously with every step forward on the question of racial justice, to be at once attracted to the Negro and repelled by him, to love and to hate him. There has never been a solid, unified and determined thrust to make justice a reality for Afro-Americans…. What is the source of this perennial indecision and vacillation? It lies in the ‘congenital deformity’ of racism that has crippled the nation from its inception.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?
1967; Reprinted, Boston: Beacon Press, 2010
One month later, 48 years ago today, Martin Luther King was assassinated.
This year, Passover begins on April 22. Where do we go from here?
While everyone in the U.S. must be asking this question, it seems particularly incumbent on Jews as the annual festival of freedom approaches: None of us is free unless all of us is free.
"A Song Every Day" 