Confronting Hate by Deborah Hart Strober

Author:Deborah Hart Strober
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781510745407
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2019-05-21T16:00:00+00:00

Responding to the students’ demands, President Bennett stated that he could not act on the first two demands and he would not take the initiative on the third one. Their demands refused, the students prevailed on others to join them in taking over the Seminary’s administration and classroom buildings. They then pledged to occupy the structures until their demands were met.

Foreshadowing what would transpire on May 11, two weeks earlier, on April 26, the Black Caucus at the Union Theological Seminary, citing the Church’s “Divine imperative to respond dramatically to the crisis of those who suffer,” had presented the National Black Economic Development Conference with its demand for $500,000,000. It argued that sum should be extracted from churches and synagogues as “reparations” for the perceived injustices endured by black Americans over the centuries.

The major black groups endorsing the allocation of the half-billion dollars in reparations included the National Committee of Black Churchmen and the Black Caucus of IFCO’s Board of Directors. On May 7, the New York Times published a story about an IFCO-sponsored press conference endorsing the Black Manifesto, and the American Jewish Committee reacted instantly. In a brief, curt letter addressed to Reverend Walker, the agency’s executive vice president, Bertram Gold, stated: “I am writing to inform you that the matter of our relationship to IFCO is being brought for review to our governing board. As you must know, we cannot support the ideological principles and the specific tactics contained in the ‘black manifesto.’”

Nine days later, Reverend Walker, in a somewhat conciliatory but ultimately chastising response, wrote: “In preparation for your governing board’s review of its relationship with IFCO in light of the May 7, 1969, New York Times report of a telephone conversation with me, I am available for a more accurate and detailed discussion of both IFCO’s and my point of view than was carried in that article.”

After requesting an appointment with Gold “at the earliest possible date,” the reverend lambasted “religious institutions for their lack of appropriate and adequate retribution for their participation in the ravages of racism. For example, over a two-year period the American Jewish Committee has seen fit to contribute only $3,000 to IFCO.”

The letter ends with an implied threat: “To withdraw from IFCO because we pledge our meager help to people who have a case against the inhuman indifference to their fellow man would only add to the proof that others don’t care and mitigate against IFCO’s efforts to win viable change without violence.”

Meanwhile, Marc weighed in with an impassioned response. In a draft of a “Dear Lu” letter discovered among his papers housed at the Jacob Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati, he wrote to his IFCO colleague,

The events that have taken place since the convening of the National Black Economic Development Conference in Detroit, the issuance of the Black Manifesto by Mr. Forman at that conference, the public association of IFCO with “the principles and programs” of that manifesto, and the tactics designed to intimidate churches and synagogues have created a serious crisis of conscience for me in my role as President of IFCO.

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