When You Remember The Past

And are vilified for mentioning it.

A quick one. I commented on a Bluesky post by Aaron Rupar featuring a video clip of President Barack H. Obama praising the recently deceased Rev. Jesse Jackson. When Rev. Jackson campaigned for president in 1984 as a Democrat he called New York City “Hymietown.” His excuse at the time was he thought his comment, to a black reporter from The Washington Post, was “off the record.” A familiar excuse from a politician.

If you click on the screenshot you will be taken to the thread. I replied to his post that I’ll never forget “Hymietown.”

As an American Jew I will always remember Rev. Jackson for calling NYC “Hymietown.” He should’ve known better. He knows how aligned Jews and Blacks were in the right for Civil Rights.

I got many replies and reposts with comments from people offended not by Jackson’s statement, but that I used the word “Blacks.” Also, a wonderful collection of anti-Jewish tropes and other antisemitic comments…one even dredged up that Jews served in the Confederate Army.

I searched Bluesky and found other American Jews who still remember Jackson’s comment bitterly. Jackson worked with SCLC and Dr. King. He was at the motel when King was shot.

Jackson was known for commanding public attention since he first started working for Martin Luther King Jr.^[18] In 1965 he participated in the Selma to Montgomery marches organized by James Bevel, King, and other civil rights leaders in Alabama.^[7] Impressed by Jackson’s drive and organizational abilities, King soon began giving Jackson a role in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), though he was concerned about Jackson’s apparent ambition and attention-seeking.^[7][19] When Jackson returned from Selma, he was charged with establishing a frontline office for the SCLC in Chicago.^[19]

In 1966, King and Bevel selected Jackson to head the Chicago branch of the SCLC’s economic arm, Operation Breadbasket,^[19][20] and he was promoted to national director in 1967.^[11] Operation Breadbasket had been started by the Atlanta leadership of the SCLC as a job placement agency for blacks.^[21] Under Jackson’s leadership, a key goal was to encourage massive boycotts by black consumers as a means to pressure white-owned businesses to hire blacks and to purchase goods and services from black-owned firms.^[19][21]

Jackson became involved in SCLC leadership disputes after King’s assassination on April 4, 1968. When King was shot, Jackson was in the parking lot one floor below.^[7] He told reporters he was the last person to speak to King, and that King died in his arms, an account that several King aides who were present disputed.^[7] In the wake of King’s death, Jackson worked on SCLC’s Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, D.C., and was credited with managing its 15-acre tent city, but he began to clash with Ralph Abernathy, King’s successor as SCLC chairman.^[22][23] In 1969, The New York Times reported that several black leaders viewed Jackson as King’s successor and that Jackson was one of the few black activists who was preaching racial reconciliation.^[24] Jackson believed a conspiracy was involved in King’s murder. In 1978, he met for four hours with King’s convicted assassin, James Earl Ray. He said that Ray was involved in King’s assassination but did not kill him, and that others who were involved were “still walking the streets”.^[25]

One notable activist involved with Operation Breadbasket who later gained greater prominence was a then-teenage Al Sharpton, who Jackson mentored early on in life and later appointed as youth director of Operation Breadbasket’s Brooklyn branch in 1969.^[26][27][28]

I lived in Crown Heights until 1970 when my family and I moved to The Bronx. I was the only white kid at public school. I remember my friends discussing whether to be called “Negro, Colored, or Black.” So, I pushed back at those who were so offended by the use “Blacks.”

When I say I don’t see skin-color and am not a racist because of certain events in my life, particularly an epiphany that helped me to transcend many societal norms, I always get push back. “Everyone’s a racist,” or “That’s your white privilege,” and even, “You’re ignorant.” Well, thank you all for shitting all over my enlightenment. Enjoy your continued cycle of birth, death, birth, death until you reincarnate a thousand times. Because, whatever your skin color or self-identity, I look at you for who you are, not who you claim to be.

It grieves me because Jews and African-Americans share a common cultural and spiritual definition. They were slaves and escaped bondage.

I’m done. However, I will share this article about the four-part PBS series on Jewish-Black relations in America.