By Rochelle Maruch Miller
Since the time of slavery, blacks have in some way identified with the Jewish experience.. They
compared their situation in the American South to that of the Jews in Egypt as expressed in
Black spirituals, such as “Go Down, Moses.”
Over the years, Jews have also expressed empathy with the plight of Blacks. From the beginning
of the Civil Rights movement, Jews and Blacks marched arm-in-arm. In 1909, W.E.B. Dubois,
Julius Rosenthal,, Lillian Wald, Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, and Henry Malkewitz formed the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). One year later, other prominent
Jewish and Black leaders created the Urban League.
The American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, and the Anti-Defamation
League were central to the campaign against racial prejudice. Jews made substantial financial
contributions to many civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, the Urban League, and the
Conress of Racial Equality.
Approximately 50% of the civil rights attorneys in the South during the 1960’s were Jews, as
were 50 percent of the whites who went to Mississippi in 1964 to challenge the Jim Crow laws.
At the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Andrew (Andy) Goodman and two of his
contemporaries, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney, joined Freedom Summer 1964 to
register African-American voters. Hailing from diverse religious, racial and geographic
backgrounds, these three young men died together in Mississippi, fighting for equality and
voting rights. They were hero citizens; ordinary individuals accomplishing extraordinary things
because of their courage and commitment to justice. Born and raised on the Upper West Side of
Manhattan, “Andy,” the second of three boys born to Robert and Carolyn Goodman, was
passionately committed to fighting racial injustice. It was on his first day in Mississippi that he
was murdered, together with Michael and James, by the Ku Klax Klan. The story of these three
young men struck a public chord that galvanized support for the passage of the Voting Rights
Act of 1965.
“My brother Andy, along with James and Michael, demonstrated that black and white, Jew and
Christian, young and older Americans can work together to form a more perfect union for all,” said
David Goodman, President of the Andrew Goodman Foundation. “Now, more than ever, we need to
continue their passionate calls for fairness and equality.”
On the 50th Anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” David Goodman travelled to Selma, Alabama last week to
participate in the Bipartisan Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage sponsored by the Faith and Politics
Institute. The trip commemorated the famous Civil Rights March that led to the enactment of the Civil
Rights Act of 1965.
In recognition of his brother Andrew, and his work empowering the young to participate in the
Democratic process, Goodman was invited by Congressman John Lewis. Together with his fellow
delegates spent last weekend in Birmingham, Montogomery, Selma, and Marion for the 50th anniversary
of the historic voting marches in 1965. On March 7, President Barack Obama joined them in Selma to
commemorate Bloody Sunday, when state troopers attacked marchers as they tried to cross the
Edmund Pettus Bridge on their way to Montgomery to demand voting rights for African-Americans. On
March 8, David Goodman spoke at the Mishkan Israel Jewish Program.
Today, the millennial generation needs support and training to lead social justice movements, just as
Andy and the 900 other college-age volunteers did in 1964. The Andrew Goodman Foundation (The
AGF) provides young people with the educations, skills and opportunities they need to continue the
march toward freedom and be full participants in democracy. The AGF is where heroes go to grow.