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Dr. Clarence B. Jones attends The Historic Roots Of Black And Jewish Solidarity at 92NY on March 07, 2024 in New York City. Photo by John Lamparski\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tEditor-at-Large The day before the March on Washington in 1963, a man who embodied much of what that civil rights action was all about left this world. The march went on, and changed history, in dedication to the life and work of W. E. B. Du Bois. During it, the NAACP\u2019s Roy Wilkins told the crowd, of Du Bois, that \u201chis was the voice that was calling to you to gather here today in this cause.\u201d<\/p>\n A similar scenario is unfolding in Miami today with the start of a major convening of groups committed to the Black-Jewish alliance. It comes in the shadow of the death of Clarence B. Jones, a lawyer and speechwriter for Martin Luther King, Jr., who embodied that alliance and its cause for much of his life. He died last Friday at 95.<\/p>\n Chairman emeritus of the Black-Jewish alliance group Spill the Honey<\/a>, and long cemented in history as the legal mind behind King\u2019s protest strategies who also contributed passages to the \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech, Jones would vociferously argue that despite endless fissures, the alliance never ended.<\/p>\n That is a position I too have long maintained, particularly because a major part of the alliance is acknowledging the existence and power of Black Jews. As I and so many others tirelessly repeat, the two groups are not mutually exclusive. It\u2019s a misnomer to say \u201cBlacks\u201d and \u201cJews\u201d when each group overlaps with the other.<\/p>\n And if the alliance did die sometime during the last 30 or 40 years, did my existence and that of every other Black Jew not get the memo?<\/p>\n Our reality hasn\u2019t stopped others from restarting the alliance with all the patentability of reinventing the wheel. I\u2019ve lost count over the years of how many times a new Blacks-and-Jews group \u2014 again, usually ignoring Black Jews \u2014 would form as if it alone had the answer to whatever discord was then going on, from disputes over affirmative action after the Supreme Court\u2019s 1978 Bakke decision to the latest over Israel\u2019s horrific actions in Gaza and Lebanon.<\/p>\n That led me and Bruce Haynes, author of The Soul of Judaism<\/a> and an African American professor who recently discovered his Jewish ancestry, to wonder last February if it was time to form an umbrella organization for all the organizations so dedicated.<\/p>\n While we discussed it, others were mobilizing.<\/p>\n An influential \u2014 and funded \u2014 group was already working on exactly that, calling for the National Convening of the Black-Jewish Alliance in Miami this week. Organizers include the Redstone Family Foundation and the EXODUS Leadership Forum<\/a>, founded by CNN commentator Van Jones.<\/p>\n At 95, Clarence Jones would not have made the trip. But Spill The Honey, the organization he recently chaired and for which Haynes and I both serve as board members, is also among coalition partners.<\/p>\n Nearly 100 Black, Jewish, and Black Jewish leaders (this time, we\u2019re being heard) will gather in what will be a show of unity merely in all of us being together, even if we don\u2019t agree on everything. No coalition does, and those that do succeed (think of the not-always-comfortable bedfellows of the civil rights and labor groups that pulled off the March On Washington) do so despite their differences. What\u2019s important is that we\u2019ll be in the room together.<\/p>\n Will it work? Who knows. The alliance has always been rocky, even if it has also always survived.<\/p>\n And don\u2019t count Clarence Jones out yet. His spirit will definitely be with us, which he foreshadowed in a conversation we had in the Forward<\/a> three years ago.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I die, I\u2019m coming back Jewish,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut still Black?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n \u201cAbsolutely!\u201d<\/p>\n Robin Washington is the Forward\u2019s Editor-at-Large. A longtime editor, columnist, radio host and documentarian across mainstream and ethnic media, he was one of the founders of the Alliance of Black Jews and an early pioneer of the term \u201cJew of color.\u201d\u00a0 Email [email\u00a0protected],<\/a> X @robinbirk<\/a>.<\/p>\n The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion<\/a>. To contact Opinion authors, email [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n You are surely a friend of the Forward if you\u2019re reading this. And so it\u2019s with excitement and awe \u2014 of all that the Forward is, was, and will be \u2014 that I introduce myself to you as the Forward\u2019s newest editor-in-chief.<\/p>\n And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I\u2019m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward\u2019s courageous, unflinching journalism \u2014 not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.<\/p>\n Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tRobin Washington<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tMay 28, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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