On Warnock and Ossoff: Civil Rights History and Black-Jewish Relations

First published January 2021.

On the precipice of this historic election – Georgia’s 2020 senate runoff election – which saw both Georgia’s first Black Senator and first Jewish senator elected, it feels important to highlight the intertwined, complicated, and historic relationship between America’s Black and Jewish populations. I began writing this on Wednesday, January 6th  – but stopped as terrorists targeted our Capitol building and congresspeople at work as they were meeting to certify the electoral college votes. Today, I want to finish writing this because even though the next thirteen days before inauguration will likely be tumultuous, we must look to the future. The runoff election from January 5th has great implications for the future and I want to highlight some of these here. 

A secondary historical passion of mine is Jewish involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. I used to believe that the extent of Jewish involvement was fairly well-known, but recent conversations with friends have proven otherwise. I feel that this historic relationship – that of Jewish Americans and Black Americans – bears noting as both Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff united in a joint campaign to flip the United States Senate. 

My goal is to first present the foundations of the relationship between these two groups – introduce its origins, its pitfalls, its successes. I also want to highlight some specific individuals involved in the Civil Rights Movement that exemplify this relationship. But, I also want to note that this is not intended to serve as a full history. The goal is to provide an overview for those that may not know much about this. 

To put it simply – Jewish Americans were directly involved in the Civil Rights Movement, particularly in the era of the movement that took place in the 1950s and 1960s. In general, Jews of the mid-twentieth century witnessed the persecution and oppression of Black people in America and immediately connected these experiences to their own history. Many Jewish Americans believed in their own history of enslavement and therefore personally related to and sympathized with the experiences of bondage and suffering of Black people under enslavement in America. At this time, Jewish Americans were also just a short generation removed from the Holocaust. They viewed Jim Crow laws and policies as reminiscent of those under Nazi Germany. They remembered the time not long before when six million of their people were murdered in the Holocaust. Once again, in a very general sense, American Jews felt a direct connection between their own history of suffering and Black suffering in America. 

These feelings, these beliefs, led many Jews (particularly young Jews) to join civil rights organizations, such as SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee), CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), and SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference). But Jewish involvement in civil rights was not new. Jews had in fact been working with civil rights organizations for decades. The early years of the NAACP saw the participation of many Jewish leaders, most notably, brothers Joel and Arthur Spingarn who served as presidents of the NAACP in the 1930s and 1940s. Joel Spingarn also maintained a remarkable relationship with W.E.B. Du Bois. They were great friends and their letters to each other serve as a fascinating examples of a Black man and a Jewish man wrestling with civil rights issues in the early twentieth century. While during the Civil Rights Movement, Jewish Americans did not hold the majority of non-Black participation in civil rights groups, they often played critical roles in these organizations, especially as lawyers, and also as providers of financial support.

Jewish Americans also participated in boycotts, sit-ins, and investigations. Though most young Americans learn about Freedom Summer of 1964 in school and, more specifically, the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, very few are taught that both Goodman and Schwerner were Jewish. Many of the white people that participated in Freedom Summer were young Jewish students, who left their universities to participate in the fight for civil rights. To reiterate a well-known history, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael “Micky” Schwerner, were working for CORE – investigating the arson of a Freedom School in Mississippi when they were killed by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Significantly, this story only gained nationwide attention because two of the three men were white. But they were also Jewish.

One of the most prominent and visible Black-Jewish relationships during the Civil Rights Movement was that of Rabbi Abraham Heschel and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Rabbi Abraham Heschel was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1907. In 1938 while living in Germany he was arrested by the Gestapo and eventually deported to Poland. He stayed and worked in Poland for a few months until he was able to escape Poland just before the start of the Second World War. His family was destroyed in the Holocaust – one sister was killed in a German bombing, and his mother and two other sisters were killed in concentration camps. 

While living in America, Heschel became directly involved in the Civil Rights Movement. He first met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at a conference on Religion and Race in 1963. At this conference, Heschel spoke directly about race, claiming: “Racism is Satanism.” His speech utilized ancient Jewish history and biblical narrative to connect and separate Jewish and Black experiences: 

“At the first conference on religion and race, the main participants were Pharaoh and Moses…The outcome of that summit meeting has not come to an end. Pharaoh is not ready to capitulate. The exodus began, but is far from having been completed. In fact, it was easier for the children of Israel to cross the Red Sea than for a Negro to cross certain university campuses.” 

In the summer of 1963, Heschel was invited to the White House, along with other civil rights leaders, for a meeting with President Kennedy, in the hopes that civil rights leaders would stop planning the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Rabbi Heschel responded with the following in a telegram to President Kennedy:

“Please demand of religious leaders personal involvement not just solemn declaration. We forfeit right to worship God as long as we continue to humiliate Negroes. Church synagogue have failed, they must repent. Ask of religious leaders to call for national repentance and personal sacrifice. Let religious leaders donate one month’s salary toward fund for Negro housing and education. I propose that you Mr. President declare state of moral emergency…The hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity.” 

The president did not heed these calls. As we know from popular history, the next few years only saw further violence and oppression of Black people in the United States. A few days prior to the Selma march, Dr. King invited Rabbi Heschel to join the marchers. He walked in the front row alongside other civil rights leaders. Heschel wrote much about this experience, but summarized his experience with the following: “I felt my legs were praying.” 

Rabbi Heschel and Dr. King would also stand together to protest the Vietnam War shortly before Dr. King’s assassination. The relationship between these men showcased the unique relationship that many Black and Jewish Americans maintained in this era. However, this example is not indicative of all Black-Jewish relationships of the Civil Rights Movement. Indeed, Jewish involvement spurred much antagonism between these two groups. 

As Jews became more involved in foundational civil rights organizations, many Black activists began to question their role in the movement: weren’t these Jewish activists also privileged members of white American society? They questioned Jewish claims to sympathizing with Black struggle. Some Black Americans also felt that the gaining of equal rights in American society, was their battle to win on their own – what would it mean to accomplish this under Jewish leadership and involvement? These questions were small, but compelling factors in Black organizations’ shifts towards ideas of Black Power and self-determination. 

These questions, this discomfort with Jewish involvement in the movement, did lead to fractures in this relationship. Further divides developed due to American Jews’ relationship with Israel, especially after the Six-Day War in 1967. Many Black Americans began instead to identify with Palestinians and saw Jews, particularly Zionists, as colonizers – a perception that remains prominent to this day.

These fractures in the Black-Jewish American cooperative had real consequences for the future. Though the separations between these groups were based on real differences in experience, privilege, and standing in American society, they prompted some resentment from Jewish Americans who had given much effort to the movement and felt cast aside. It also led the Black community towards a distrust of worldwide Jewry that would last for decades. Finally, the pervasiveness of anti-Jewish hatred and antisemitism in our country certainly played a role in this conflict between Blacks and Jews during and after the Civil Rights Movement. 

For all of these reasons, Warnock’s and Ossoff’s wins the other day are even more significant. Yes, they will be the “firsts” – the first Black and Jewish senators representing the state of Georgia. But they also ran a joint campaign – something reminiscent of Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel linking arms at protests. Their unity resembles the Black and Jewish activists who worked together during Freedom Summer. Their joint win is incredibly significant – both in the reality of the present political moment and in its symbolic reflection of the past.

But this win also makes me (a white, American Jew) pause. First, it is not enough for us (white people, I’m speaking to you here) to cheer on this win, when we were not responsible for this. We need to demand more from our leaders to fix problems in this country, especially surrounding racial inequalities. I am also concerned about a rise in antisemitism that will inevitably come from Ossoff’s role as Senator.

In general, I feel incredibly hopeful, especially about the future of the American South, after Warnock’s and Ossoff’s wins. But I am also worried about the future of the relationship between Black and Jewish Americans in this country. My hope is that we can work together to fix the very serious issues ongoing in the United States. But the unity of these groups in the past has historically led to even deeper divisions. From here, white Jewish Americans must be critical of their complex position in our country – we remain both privileged members of society and targets of hatred. We must be willing to use our history of suffering to support those currently suffering, not obscure their experiences or realities. It is also necessary for us to use the privilege we have – both economic and social – to directly aid our BIPOC communities. 

My hope is that Georgia’s runoff election on Tuesday will bring Jewish and Black people together in a productive way. Celebrate now, it is important to feel hope (especially now) – but it is not enough to only celebrate. We need to demand more of our leaders. We need to restore the parts of this relationship that have worked in the past and actively analyze those that have not benefitted both communities. 

For more reading on this topic:

Jewish Women’s Archive: “Tensions in Black-Jewish Relations”

Susannah Heschel, “Two Friends, Two Prophets.”

SNCC Digital Gateway – For documents and images from SNCC’s history.

Harrison-Kahan, Lori. “Scholars and Knights: W. E. B. Du Bois, J. E. Spingarn, and the NAACP.” Jewish Social Studies18, no. 1 (2011): 63-87. doi:10.2979/jewisocistud.18.1.63.

Greenberg, Cheryl. Troubling the Waters: Black-Jewish Relations in the American Century. Princeton, 2006.